The Chronicles of Rapina, Chapters 39-43 The Sorcerer's Apprentice Back to the, Daelrath, page [Rapina]039 An Intellectual Giant [Rapina]040 The Old Grind [Rapina]041 The Sorcerer's Apprentice [Rapina]042 Cast at last [Rapina]043 Shadow Land [Rapina]039 An Intellectual Giant Several mornings after Rapina returned from Daelrath, Thane got up from the breakfast table ending their magic lesson a few minutes early. He then told his apprentices to meet him in the lounge in a few minutes. "Rapina, if I ever had any doubts as to your value as a servant of Mortaebius, you have utterly dispelled them. Your work in Daelrath turned out magnificently and you put yourself at great personal risk to accomplish it. You may only have been guessing when you pulled your little coup and made yourself a deaconess, but your logic was impeccable. The order has access to church records, and they are aware of your latest deeds. As a deaconess in the church, you are no longer an outside contractor. If an order wishes to make use of your services, it is customary for them to ask you to join." Thane handed Rapina a scroll. Rapina rolled out the scroll, read it and smiled. "Do I sign it in blood or something?" Thane handed Rapina a quill. "Ink actually, blood could identify you, and The Order of the Shroud is a secret organization. Just sign Rapina; the idea is to sign with the name other members are to address you by." Rapina carefully signed the document. "Welcome to the Order of the Shroud, Deaconess Rapina," Thane said. "Welcome chess mistress," Rames chuckled. "It is good to have you on our side." "Thank you Guardians," Rapina beamed. "Actually I believe It was very fortunate that you were able to deaconize yourself and obtain the favor of the order," Thane said. "Really?" Rapina asked. "Yes, now that you are a member of the order, I can allow you to read more of my books on necromancy and you will be able to help in nearly every aspect of my laboratory work except those aspects that are purely clerical. It is well that you will be able to. Our duties are expanding with the conflict, but thanks to the giants we saved from the trolls and Red Jack, I believe we may be able to buy ourselves some respite. "How's that?" Rapina asked. "Thane chuckled, "I had some luck using a minor language translation spell that formerly belonged to Nordula on the giants. It is supposed to work on humanoids, but it has so far been a dismal failure on trolls. Mayhap I am simply not adept enough at the background skills required to do a thorough casting, but in any case, it did work upon Giants. We tracked a large group of trolls right to the scene of a battle with four giants. Our combined forces were able to best the trolls with the loss of only one giant, and we packed the trolls away for our foray against the Avengene settlements. I asked the giants if they knew where any forts were and surprisingly they did. They knew where Keep Daelrath was and they knew that it was the home of a troll-hating tribe of humans. I told them that they were indeed correct and that I knew about the man who led that tribe and he greatly hated trolls. They also knew of other forts to the east that belonged to an orc-killing tribe of humans. I told them that I had heard much about the leader of that tribe. In any case I told them he was a greedy trouble-maker who attacked other human tribes as well as the orcs. Rames even taught them to say Avengene," Thane chuckled. "During the battle one of them impressed the others greatly because of the damage he did with a two-handed sword Rames gave him while he was down and I was transferring life force to him from a troll body. It turned out that they wanted such weapons as the sword, but were afraid to work for the orcs destroying forts to get them, because so many of their brothers had died doing just that. I told them that forts were something like trolls. If only one giant tried to kill many trolls, he would die, but if many giants went, they would win. This seemed to make sense to them. Furthermore I told them that forts had special weapons that were dangerous to giants, and that if the giants destroyed these weapons first by throwing boulders at them from behind cover, the forts would be much less dangerous. I was also able to discover which orc tribes normally hired the giants. I am planning to get a hold of some giant weapons from an area of the world where fire giants battle dwarves and humans. I will make sure that one of these tribes of orcs manages to find them in a tomb I have Kent and the ghouls preparing. The ruins atop the tomb were built on a grand scale suggestive of giants. When the weapons are discovered, my belief is that the orcs will use them to entice the giants, and the winner will be the church of Mortaebius," Thane said. "I get it, you are hoping if Avengene looses enough forts he will have to make up for it with extra troops to protect the areas in question. Thus he may be unable to spare the men for a winter campaign against the church of Mortaebius," Rapina said. "Exactly! We have an enormous amount of work to do, and I hope this maneuver will buy us the time we need," Thane said. "Evidently Red Jack once had several ships, but they were wiped out by a mercenary fleet. He had been building up from that setback when you originally found him. Roger has been kind enough to give me the location of the river battle in which Red Jack took heavy losses and lost all but one commandeered ship. I hope to locate some deceased pirates to man the longship I have sunk in my cove. I should just barely be able to move such a vessel with a lengthy casting of the graveyard mists spell. We will be able to use it to pick up bodies and to dump tailings from the new abode into the sea. Moreover we can use it to pick up necessaries for the abode at port cities if I can find a way to disguise the undead mariners. We must, however, create a water corridor in the new abode complete with water-entombed bodies, and consecrate it as a graveyard." [Rapina]040 The Old Grind The last part of the winter was one of intense learning and study for Rapina. The topic was chemistry and alchemy and the magical principles involved with substances. It was no secret that Thane was grooming her to be his laboratory assistant. Rapina found the medical and herbal knowledge she had gleaned while working with the pirate leech served her well as a foundation, but much was added atop that. Her cleaning duties in the upper abode were largely taken over by Kent who was thus learning the art of commanding skeletons to do jobs they were never designed for. After she planted everything, Rames began caring for the gardens with some help from Kent who would pluck off any bugs and eat them. Evidently, the animal life force of the insects was easy for Kent to distinguish from the background of plant life force. By early spring, Rapina had helped to make the first healing potion Thane's laboratory had ever produced. It contained many ingredients, but the most important ones were troll's blood and an infusion of life force that Thane had drawn from the troll shaman. For the sake of economy, Thane had discarded the second troll and now kept only the shaman. Without legs, hands or forearms and lacking his rattle or any other spell components, the shaman did not seem to be able to cast spells. Either that or he did not see the point since he was in no condition to escape. The stumps of the troll's legs and arms were capped in bronze. His leg caps and his body were bolted and strapped in a standing position to a small, wheeled cart with a chamber pot set in the appropriate location to catch offal. Rapina felt sorry for the troll. She supervised his cleaning and hygiene and drew blood from him for the laboratory. During the times she washed him she tried to talk to him and to teach and learn words. Her vocabulary in trollish was still quite dismal, but she had a start. Ironically, Thane had decided that her talents were more useful in the laboratory than they were in the construction of the new abode. Thus she did not see it until the middle of spring. At that time, two main areas had been completed. She thought she would be in for a torturous climb up innumerable staircases into the heart of the mountain from its base in the hot desert, but that did not turn out to be at all correct. "Ah here we are," the necromancer rasped as the mists cleared. "Welcome to the abode. Guards, set down those supplies. Rapina can fetch them later." The plate armored reaving skeletons that served as the personal guards of Thane set down various crates of supplies. The first thing that struck her was the scale of the place. They had arrived in a corridor that had been carved out of the inside of the mountain and was no doubt consecrated as a graveyard. The ceiling was a tall barrel vault supported by pillars that marched down either side of the corridor. Beyond the pillars to her right Rapina could see a nearly identical corridor, but one could not actually walk on its floor because that corridor was a long pool of water. Beyond the water corridor farther to the right was a huge vaulted warehouse-like space. An identical warehouse space could be seen to the left of the stone corridor Rapina had appeared in. The warehouse had many crates of laboratory supplies and fixtures for the abode. No doubt, they had cost a fortune. An old longship was tied up against some cork buttresses at the near end of the water corridor. Rapina had seen the skeletal mariners on it before. Thane had worked hard on every one of them. They were basically reaving skeletons, but they incorporated a double-animation technique to make them a little stronger and faster than Thane's first few reaving skeletons. They also had some magic placed on them as part of the necromancer's ghost ship enchantments. Rapina ran over and jumped aboard the ship. "I never did see this after you finished it." "It has been a very busy vessel since I finished the magic on it. Ironically, I could not use the ship sunk in my cove. This one is from the old river battle where Jack lost his fleet. You joined him sometime after that setback when he was rebuilding. The undead crew died on that ship. In order for the ghost ship enchantments to work, men had to die as the ship sank. Naval battles are actually very good for such a craft. The violent deaths occurring as the ship sinks make an excellent foundation for the necessary enchantments. The fact that it was a pirate ship made my job even easier." Rapina climbed over a number of huge crates full of stone tailings. "Oh my goodness!" Rapina stared down at the ship's deck; there was a hole right through the hull. Ghostly translucent planks that glowed an eerie blue color seemed to hold the water from flooding through the hole into the boat. "Ghost ships sink as daylight hits them or as ordered by their pilot. They are always wrecks. This one is one of the most structurally sound of the lot, but it still sinks rather readily in the light of day. At dusk, however it rises and the ghost wind fills the shredded sails even when the night is dead calm. It is a work of art, and quite useful. I have used it to transport barrels of fresh water into and a great deal of stone tailings out of this new abode." "In the beginning we used processions of Skeletal horses and wagons and we still do use those, but not for the tailings produced by mining new rooms. All tailings are dumped into the sea so that our abode cannot be detected from some unsightly pile of tailings at the base of the mountain. Through the doors at the end of the land corridor is the skeletal carriage house. This entry complex is by far the largest and most impressive in the abode. I wanted it done first in case we needed to move away from Graveston isle on short notice. It is also the transport center and is thus the heart of our construction efforts. It represents thousands of castings of the graveyard mists spell to remove the mined out stone tailings, and was truly a labor to complete. Now come this way, we shall go through the carriage house and up the corridor from there." "The laboratories are not particularly secure because of the fumes they produce. I did not wish to poison you, my dear, so the labs have chimneys and windows to the outdoors. The corridor continued to a large stone gate, but Thane turned left before they reached it and unlocked a bronze door. The door led to a short corridor that ended in a guardroom. In the room were six skeletal guards. "Skeleton guards, protect and obey Rapina," Thane pointed to his apprentice. Rapina, these will be your guards. Thane unlocked a door at the other end of the guardroom and walked in. "In here are our first two laboratories and their storage rooms. These, as you see, have windows to the outdoors," Thane said. Rapina looked out the windows. They were actually miniature corridors about two feet wide, four feet tall, and twenty feet deep. Rapina jumped up into one and traveled to its end. The window was barred with a grid of bronze bars, and about two feet farther out a grid of iron ones. At the very end of the window corridor was a rope net with cloth strips in it that were the color of the stone to camouflage the window, but she could still see into a barren valley of stone. The wind coming in from outside was light and not nearly as oppressively hot as she had remembered it from the desert. "Wow, where are we?" "We are near the top of the mountain's peak. The top of the mountain does not come to a perfect point. It is a blunt point that actually has a depression in the center of it, a valley, a natural if irregular amphitheater. The laboratory windows are set in the side of the bowl of the natural amphitheater and look out into it. The bowl will be a good outdoor area for growing plants and doing archery practice and the like." "There is also a spar of rock that goes up from the edge of the bowl as it were. We are currently at work up there tunneling the stair cases that will lead to a water tank and above that, at the pinnacle, an observatory. We have not yet put in the living quarters, but I felt that you could live in one of the laboratory storage rooms while you set things up here. There are ovens and such already installed as you see in this lab. In the next one I want you to set up the apparatus for making healing potions, one after another. I know it will be a sacrifice, but I need you to prepare potion after potion for me. I realize your reading will suffer, and that we will be slowing our instruction in magic, but I am running very short on cash. Red Jack's bottomless chest of gems is all but gone." "Have you had any luck on the moaning skeletons?" Rapina asked. "Thane chuckled mischievously. "Since I had so much luck doing the other animations, I did not ask for instruction on these. Instead I read the procedures from a book and got a bit of advice, then dove in. I botched the enchantments twice but just three days ago I successfully animated a priest of the vindicator. He moans incessantly; it is magnificent! Now that I know what I am doing, I plan to continue with as many as I have good subjects for. The moaners are quite annoying, but if this priest is any indication, they retain intelligence much like the death skeletons, skeletal assassins, and to a lesser extent, the reaving skeletons. This moaner has intelligence of the more bookish variety. He moans all the while but he is actually quite a good scribe. I have him making copies of some of my books; you will now be spared that drudgery." "Woohoo!" Rapina jumped up and down. "Could I use them as lab assistants?" Thane chuckled, "you might be able to if you were a full priest of Mortaebius, but I am afraid that even if you were to become used to the moaners, you would periodically fall to your knees in fits of fear. The magical effect is really quite powerful." "Darn!" Rapina said. "I can make you some double animated skeletons if you can find a way to utilize them in the lab. Here is a set of keys, My dear. You should keep this complex locked. After a short stint cleaning the abode, Kent is now up here helping Elizabetta manage the skeletal miners who are excavating our rooms. Kent is perhaps my most trustworthy ghoul, but it is still not good policy to invest complete trust in such a creature. If you go to check on the work, you should always take armed skeletons with you. Edgar and the other ghouls have been set loose at the foot of the mountain. They will be making some tunnels in a sandy valley between the base of the mountain and a couple of the foothills. I have removed most of the undead from Gravestone isle. As you see some of the flaming skeletons are integral to your laboratory ovens." "Yes, this lab is rather hot," Rapina said. "It is late afternoon. The lab will not get much hotter. The oven chimneys and the windows in here keep it bearable. Now, I have much to do. I believe you will find the laboratory furnishings you need in those crates, and food and cooking supplies in those. I am here nearly every other afternoon just after I get up, to move accumulated tailings out of the abode. If Rames has garnered any meat, I will bring it. Should you need any double-animated skeletons to help you, come find me. I have made quite a few for use as miners and there are fresh ones standing by for when Elizabetta needs them. She is working on rather narrow corridors at this time, so is not using many of them. I can always replace any you need from bodies given us by Red Jack. Try not to break the glassware, it is expensive. Your first job will be to fetch the troll and the supplies I brought from the other labs when I brought you. After that, I want you to set up these laboratories and then start constructing the healing potion setup. I will check on your progress tomorrow." Rapina nodded. --- Setting up the laboratories had been easy enough, but once she was up and running with the potions, Rapina got hardly any time for herself. She missed her lounging and reading. She missed the magical conversations, and most of all she missed Rames. Celibacy was rearing its ugly head and she felt like a slave, albeit an educated laboratory slave, but a slave nevertheless. After two weeks she could make healing potions in her sleep, but the work was constant, and she was climbing the walls. She saw Rames once a week on Sunday but that was not nearly often enough and it was driving her to distraction. "Gods I need a man!" Rapina screamed, but there was no one there to hear her. She had tried to use the skeletons to make her work easier but the movements were complex, the skeletal fingers slippery, and the glassware expensive. During the second week, Rapina had just set a beaker to simmer over an alcohol lamp. She knew she would have twenty whole minutes before the next flurry of activity was necessary in the potion- making process. She tried to read but she felt so distracted. Rapina slammed her book closed and set it aside. She paced around the room, unbidden she flashed back to her dance before the pirates. "Oh please," She said as she felt between her legs. "Thane, I am going to go crazy!" Rapina stamped and fumed but it did not help at all. She stalked over to the troll, "I used to feel sorry for you, but now I realize you are not the only one who is a fixture in this lab!" Rapina sat down on the floor at the foot of the cart the troll was mounted on. "I just want to go back home, I want to see Rames, and Red Jack, and Zit, and Dealrath, and..." Rapina looked up at the troll and shut her eyes. Suddenly she go to her knees, reached around the troll and snatched off the loincloth she kept on him. There was nothing where his genitals ought to have been but a patch of cauterized skin. Rapina snarled and dug in a drawer. She found a knife and sterilized it in the flame of the alcohol lamp and then she quenched it until it was cool. She ran to the troll and cut the patch of cauterized skin away from its groin. The troll shaman yelled and made his cart vibrate as he struggled to try to get away from the knife. He could not knock himself over and the brake was on so he could not even get the cart to creep forward or back appreciably. Thane had made sure that the cart was constructed to render the troll unable to move, even if that movement was just falling over. "Sorry, but it's not like I could get you drunk before the operation." Rapina saw the blood dripping from the wound and then the troll's natural regeneration began to kick in. She set a bowl under the wound to catch stray blood then got some extra food she had from times when Thane had brought meat. She fed the troll for a few minutes then went back to her lab work. Periodically she glanced over at the shaman. Two hours later she prepared for another cycle of potion making. She set some reagents on the stove and instructing a skeleton to strike an empty burner plate with an iron ladle when any one of the reagents began to boil. She needed time. Rapina came back to the troll and knelt down. There, hanging between his legs were two large, new mottled green balls in a fleshy sack. The troll's shaft hung down even farther than Pike's. Rapina tugged at the shaman's lust, and watched as the shaft began to rise. If Zit had been there to look into her eyes, he would have been sure she was a vampire. --- Thane walked through the guardroom and wandered into the first laboratory. He had not been to see Rapina in three days. He was wearing his death mask as he always did when around the troll. These days he wore it most of the time save when he was sitting down to eat. Today he knew that he must work most of the day to get rid of the tailings that had accumulated in the warehouse room beside the water corridor in his absence. He brought news and some fish Rames had caught on the isle. "Oh my," Thane said as he heard some peculiar snarling noises from the next lab. He rushed to open the door and raised an eyebrow. The troll cart had been upset and the troll shaman was lying on its back atop a large crate. Rapina was on top of the shaman naked and moving heatedly. He was not sure who was snarling louder, the troll or the woman. In any case, they did not seem to notice him at all. The troll let out an earsplitting howl and Rapina's back arched gracefully as she moaned like a severely dehydrated woman who had just been given a gallon of water. She snuggled onto the troll shaman's chest and breathed hard before noticing Thane and blushing profusely. "I am not sure that is advisable," Thane said. "What do you think I am, a priest of the vindicator?" Rapina snapped with such ferocity that Thane took a step backwards. Thane sounded a little sheepish but behind his mask he wore a satisfied grin. "Oh, please forgive me. It appears that I have provided for all your needs here save one," Thane said. "I thought that troll had been emasculated." Rapina smiled cunningly. "Trolls regenerate." "Ah, and you were trained as a leech. I am curious, do you find his sexual energy different than a man's?" Thane asked. "It's not that different. He is really very potent and he recovers rapidly. I didn't know how to ask him if he wanted to, you know in trollish, but I knew how to ask him if he wanted to feed me, and he said yes." Thane chuckled, "I really should have made some provision for your needs, but in all the excitement it slipped my mind," Thane said. Rapina cleared her throat, "Please don't tell Rames, or Daelrath or anyone that I have been, you know, with a legless troll shaman. Thane chuckled, "My lips are sealed. Tell me, does he like you any better now?" Rapina giggled, "Well, yes, Uhler is teaching me more words in trollish, and I am teaching him our language too," Rapina said. "The next thing you know you'll be wanting me to give him his legs back, but he is far too large and deadly to allow such liberties. As you know if you pull that cord that hangs from the top of his head, a lightning glyph will be activated within his skull and he will be killed, but I still do not trust him. He is a spell- caster after all and he must be quite intelligent. I do hope you will not let him bite a chunk out of your neck. I am very glad he is more than a head taller than you are or we would be in trouble. Isn't he rather large?" Rapina grinned and shrugged, "He's no thicker than Pike, just longer is all." "Ordinarily I would say he was a dirty brute, but since you are the one who washes him, perhaps he is a clean brute," Thane observed. Rapina giggled, "He's clean, the only trouble is, the more I get to know him the sorrier I am for him." "In view of his size and power, his incarceration must be severe. I realize we are not nice to him, but I am not always a nice man. Currently we face poverty. You, he, and I are the wage earners for this abode. Since I often come here at the beginning of the day approximately every other day, I will bring Rames for you. He has complained that he does not see you enough, and I now see the folly of not heeding his words. As for the troll, I am only allowing this to continue because it may facilitate your learning what he knows. I have as yet discovered no other way to get it out of him but to learn his language and get him to tell it. Trolls do not write, so there are no books on troll magic. You might wish to write one." "I have started a troll dictionary," Rapina said. "Excellent. I have some fish for you and some news," Thane said. Rapina ordered her skeletons to lift the shaman and set him upright, then set out a wash tub in preparation for bathing. "Oh good. I could really use a little more food for Uhler too; he has been exerting himself. What's the news?" "According to one of my colleagues who is far more advanced than I at the art of skrying, the orcs have indeed hired the giants, a record number of them. They seem to refuse to separate or work for other tribes, so this one orc tribe has a large cadre of giants. They have been an absolute terror in Northern Avengene. These orcs have become fort specialists. The giants come to battle with huge sacks brimming with throwing boulders. They first attack the siege engines, and afterwards they blitz the gate or a weak wall. The orcs storm the forts once the walls are breeched. Avengene's system of forts was his bulwark against the orcs. He is being taken apart as they pillage the forts and then raze them to the ground. This group of orcs and giants is gaining experience and confidence, not to mention wealth and caches of arms. When the orcs leave the scene of battle at a fort near a graveyard known to us, Rames moves in and consecrates a graveyard on the site, then we remove the dead. I have even gotten myself a few new priests of the vindicator." "The mortancer who is the circle's best skryer was so impressed with my work, he offered to sell me the wards from his abode cheaply when he next changes them, which he does periodically. He also loaned me copies of several fine books on skrying. Ah, that reminds me, we are really not the only wage earners for the abode. I will soon have two more; the skeletons of reverend Vindictine and governess Rhona are currently drying after soaking for the requisite number of days in the appropriate resins. If all goes well, in one week's time I will have two more moaning skeletons, and therefore two more scribes. Rapina began washing, "Oh, that's good. Do you have plans to move the necromantic laboratories out here soon?" Rapina asked. Behind his mask Thane licked his lips. "Rapina is a most delicious and uninhibited young woman. It is such a pity she has a way of warping a man's reasoning ability," the necromancer thought. "Yes, but I wanted to get the water tank in the tower so that we could do plumbing. Soon Elizabetta will start on the septic system, and once that is done, we will get started on the necro-labs. I am already storing the bodies and much of the raw materials here because I am anxious to move. I am a necromancer now; I have little interest in that dreary post as Guardian Thane of The Order of Death's Peace, and much to do for The Order of the Shroud." --- By the beginning of Summer, Elizabetta was steadily completing the necromancy labs. Rapina could hear the noises of picks and chisels twenty-four hours a day. Rames had already started on the plumbing for the new abode. Thankfully, a long corridor separated Rapina's labs from the neromantic labs. One day it would be turned into additional mundane labs. The corridor was hung with oil cloths and the door on Rapina's side remained firmly closed and sealed to keep airborne dust out. Elizabetta was having the tailings removed through the windows of the new labs so that Rapina did not have to deal with a constant procession of skeletal workers and dust. She looked up from her reading and smiled. With both Rames and Uler keeping her from climbing the walls, she was much happier, and her mind boasted much greater clarity. She was now able to work on her latest coup nearly twenty hours a day. --- "Goodness this is obscene, Rapina! It seems the number of skeletons in your two laboratory rooms is greater than the number on Elizabetta's construction crew. Thane carefully wended his way to the 'finish' table. How can this be? You have six base potions for me to infuse and it has only been three days. You are producing two finished base potions per day. The normal rate for an alchemist working eight hours a day is one per three days. You must be working around the clock and then some." Rapina grinned, "You wanted income. I have sixty-seven skeletons packed in here if you count the ones in the storage rooms. They have rubber tubing on their digits so the glass does not slip out of their hands. It sometimes takes a team of six to accomplish an involved task, but I have been working on this for nearly a month. I got very tired of not being able to read and lounge. The skeletons do absolutely all of the work. I just check their fingers once a day and stop things if something goes haywire, which it used to do quite regularly, but I have gotten most of the bugs worked out now. By the way, I need a couch for in here." Thane laughed but the pleasure in his voice was evident, "My dear you missed your calling as a clock- maker. This has to be the most sophisticated use of bone-heads I have ever seen. It is rather crowded, however. Elizabetta will soon add more non-necromantic laboratories, and a lounge, kitchen and alchemist's quarters for you. Let us work together to design a lab specifically for your setup here. I never would have imagined it would be possible to automate this process to such a degree. My only problem is I do not know where I will find two infusions of life force every day. The shaman is good for one, but I think two might be too much for him over the long haul, and I do not want to compromise the potency of his blood." "I just make the base; the infusion is your problem. You could drain it from me, but only if you want to keep a hoard of men around." Rapina grinned. Thane chuckled, "I think what I will do is drain one a day from Uler, and simply set one aside each day, thus accumulating five for the weekend. I can get two from Uler on the weekend, and I will still need three more. If you have the reserves, you can help." "I could normally give you maybe one, but I won't have great reserves unless I can visit friends on the weekends," Rapina said. "Then I will see to it you are able to visit. I pick up bodies from Red Jack periodically anyway. I will simply try to have them saved until Friday or Saturday night. In addition, it will not hurt for you to visit Daelrath periodically. I know you enjoy teaching Bruhnhilda moves with the rapier, and the knights there enjoy dallying with you." Rapina grinned; she was quite pleased with herself. She still needed to keep an eye on the skeletons, but she would be able to make love and learn trollish all week, and then visit her friends on the weekends. With her potent new trollish lover, she would be able to read nearly all night, every night, and she would finally attain the command of magical theory she had always craved. --- [Rapina]041 The Sorcerer's Apprentice By mid summer the laboratories were all finished and Thane began doing all of his work on advanced animations at the new abode. Rapina now had quarters, a lounge and a kitchen. Her elaborate healing potion setup had been moved to a special laboratory that Rapina had helped design specifically to house it. The security for the lab was such that Kent could supervise it. He would ring a bell and retire to a small room if anything he could not handle went wrong. It almost never did. Rapina again cooked the meals for Thane, Rames and herself. They had their regular morning magic lesson and an outdoor weapons practice right after it. She helped Thane somewhat with the lab work for his advanced animations, and oftentimes went on corpse recovery missions to ruined forts in Avengene. She also frequently visited the pirates, but otherwise she had a great deal of time to read and work on plans for herb gardens. Red Jack had left his his old stomping grounds because of the heat from Turnmoor and the incensed Lord Li'Yieraun. Since Thane had told him the giants and orcs were doing well against Avengene's forts, Jack had reasoned that the nobleman would have his hands full. He had sailed East and North through the forest and into Northeastern Avengene where he began to prey on settlements along the three branches of the river. Thane was overjoyed, not only because Jack was making life worse for Avengene, but because just about every town in Avengene had a church and a priest of the vindicator. Thane was very pleased with himself for mastering the advanced techniques for the creation of moaning skeletons. Thanks to the giants, and Red Jack's raiding, he now had fourteen of them serving as scribes. The very thought of priests of the vindicator being obliged to copy books on necromancy and other arcane subjects twenty-four hours a day made Rapina giggle. Thane had gotten permission to have the books on scrying he had borrowed from a colleague copied, and the moaning priests had recently finished the project. Mid summer marked her first anniversary with Thane. When August arrived she celebrated her seventeenth birthday. Probably because her potion set-up was the mainstay of his magical income, Thane had been extremely generous on her birthday. He gave her a lot of clothing and lingerie some of which she could wear when extremely charged with the energy of many lovers. He and Rames also got her a crossbow and various other weapons. After a year of intensive study, Rapina could still not do so much as a single cantrip. She realized how difficult the road ahead of her was. True magicians were rare for a reason. She had devoured hundreds of books during her nights and days of reading powered by the energy of her lovers, but she still felt so far from being a real caster. It often took years and years of study before a person developed the ability to cast. Some never developed it at all. The second year of Rapina's apprenticeship brought new trials and new accomplishments. Her herb gardens were planted and flourished, and she set up a new skeleton lab for the making of powder of disenchantment. She studied intensely, reading a great number of works from Thane's library, a library that Nordula's books had greatly enhanced. All the while Guardian Thane continued his lessons for his two apprentices. With Rapina he concentrated on the necromantic principles behind energy drain and on a comprehensive set of exercises that she was to do to develop her talents in that area. The necromancer maintained that Rapina had the potential to be a better healer than he was, and healing was essential in this time of conflict. In spite of all of her knowledge, Rapina was unsure it would ever take her anywhere, she could not say if she would ever cast like Thane. On the other hand, she could see real improvements in her skill with the rapier, archery and in unarmed combat. Elizabetta now offered training in stealth, climbing, crossbow archery and in small thrown weapons such as knives and stars. Thane was so satisfied with her skills of deportment that he drilled her only occasionally. Instead, Rames was now giving her lessons on military tactics. --- [Rapina]042 Cast at last It was early autumn when Thane walked into the lab room where Rapina was reading and supervising the manufacture of dust of disenchantment. Earlier that day she had seen to the undressing of numerous cadavers, and their immersion in the scarab pits. Thane had adopted the insects as his preferred method for cleaning the flesh off dead people's skeletons. Currently she was lounging in a black lace bustier, the cups full of her magnificent development. Now that she was seventeen, she had filled out a bit more, and her girlish figure was well on its way to attaining the full flower of womanhood. With her extravagant hour glass shape, she was becoming every bit the woman the lust spirit had promised she would be. "Have you been doing the drills I assigned?" Thane asked. Rapina nodded, "right after I get up and before I go to bed I always do them, and a bunch of my own as well. I'm really trying to get it, but it just isn't working," Rapina said. Thane looked around to make sure Uler was not in the room then took off his death mask. "Have you also gone over the spell?" He asked. "Yes, but I have had no luck doing it on Uler. Rapina sighed, maybe I'm just not cut out to be a necromancer," Rapina said. On the contrary, you drain life force when you lie with a man; the nature of the force is a bit different, but I expect the feel must be somewhat the same. Getting a feel for a spell is the most difficult part for you, my dear. I have no doubt you know every theory surrounding life energy drain. Yet knowing and doing are slightly different things, and it is easy to see your confidence is much as mine was when trying to reach this desert with the graveyard mists spell. Now I want to see if you are weaving the spell right. See if you can drain energy from me," Thane said. Rapina went through the semantics and intoned the arcane syllables for the life-drain spell, then placed her hand on Thane's. Thane frowned, "It has to be something internal to your mind. Your gestures and words are flawless. Let us try some variations from a more difficult drain spell. I recently traded a copy of one of Nordula's spells for it. This one is stronger and allows the drain to be done at range. I do not expect you to be able to cast it, but I will incorporate some refinements from it that I think might be a bit lacking in the simpler spell." Hours passed. Rapina could not remember when she had ever received this much personal attention from her master. He was with her for seven hours straight with a working lunch break. He made her try variation after variation, and kept adjusting them each time she attempted one of them a few times. "I do not think you have it quite right, but I was getting something there, try again. Try to do it with confidence. You are well versed at moving life force, think of how you do it naturally. It is something internal that is lacking in your performance. Somehow you must get the hang of this," Thane said. Rapina tried the new variation once again. This time she tried to incorporate the feel from what she did when she pulled extra energy from a man's climax. As she said the magic words, she was all concentration, and when she finished the last word of the spell she clenched the muscles within her vagina and grasped Thane's hand. Thane's eyebrows shot up and staid there. His eyes opened in surprise as he grunted involuntarily. Then after a moment he began to chuckle. The chuckle became laughter. "Rapina frowned. Darn! I thought I had something there." "I believe you did, my dear. It was not quite what I had expected but you got some results. Thane jotted some quick notes on the most recent variation that he had, had Rapina try. "You must write down exactly what you did for your future reference. I believe we are on to something here. I must fetch Rames. Thane practically ran out of the room. He returned a few minutes later with Rames." Rapina finished her notes, "Okay, should I try it again?" "Indeed, this time try it on Rames," Thane said. Rapina summoned her concentration and tried to do exactly as she had done with Thane only more so. Thane had told her she was on to something, so she must be. Rames eyes bulged as Rapina grabbed his hand. He half doubled over, twitched and grunted a bit, and then he started laughing madly. "Rames! What is with you two, I am trying really hard here, and I am positive I got something on that one." Thane looked at Rames. Rames looked at Thane, and the two of them began laughing uncontrollably once again. Rapina huffed. "Well I'd sure as hell rather get drained by her than you Guardian," Rames vibrated. "But mine are so much more tidy," Thane fell into a chair. He could hardly speak; he was laughing so hard. Rapina put her hands on her hips and glared at the two men. It took quite some time for the men to recompose themselves. "Rapina, you are a caster. Congratulations! This is likely the biggest breakthrough of your life," Thane said. Confusion was written all over Rapina's face. "But what is so funny?" The two men were unable to reply as gales of laughter overtook them. Finally Thane managed to get a few words out, "The drain went well, but you seem to be on a different wavelength than me." "I'll say," Rames chuckled. "Tell her," Thane said. "Well you see, when you drain," The rest of Rames statement was drowned in a flood of laughter. Thane laughed, "I believe we are crippled with humor. Go do it on Uler, but pull his loin cloth off first." "Rapina shook her head and frowned, "Oh all right." She left the room and went to the lab where they kept the troll shaman. She had him in front of one of the windows, though she doubted he could really see much. At least he could smell the air. "Hello Uler," Rapina said in trollish as she smoothed back the hair-like growth on his head. She carefully avoided the red cord within his 'hair' that would set off a deadly glyph inside the troll's skull if pulled, and the blue one that Thane had more recently installed that would cause a stun effect. She knew they would require a good tug to activate, but she was careful just the same. "I need to try a spell I've been working on. It won't hurt much." Rapina pulled off the troll's loincloth and briefly admired his large, mottled green balls. "You have spell? Uhler not know you cast." "It's my first ever. It's supposed to be an energy drain, but Kroz and Karmoz kept laughing at me after I did it. I guess something went somewhat amiss, but Kroz said it was a success of sorts." "You try, Uler figure out what wrong." "Okay, thanks. Rapina summoned up her concentration and did the spell her third time. "Shoot, I messed up the changes. Let me try again." Rapina cast again, this time she saw Uhler's eyes bulge much as Rames' had, but instead of grunting, he gasped and began a howl like the howls he loosed when... Rapina looked down at the troll shaman's crotch. "Oh my goodness!" Rapina put her hand to her mouth as Uler squirted jets of cum all over the front of her bustier. Uler panted, "Uler like Rapina drain better. Kroz drain hurt. Rapina drain feel gud." "Oh, that's what he meant by me being on a different wavelength," Rapina said. Thane walked in wearing his death mask. He looked at the cum splattered over Rapina's midriff. "I see you have been successful a third time," Thane's rasping laugh filled the air. "You get gud at drain, you do with hands, you do with mouth, you be sex shamaness." "Uler has a point, my dear, until now you could only absorb energy with, as Jack put it, your magic snatch. Perfect this spell and you will be much more flexible. If a man fears to bed you, but will allow you to suck him, you can still obtain his power." "But how am I going to do the verbal components with my mouth full?" Rapina asked. Thane chuckled, "Theoretically, a spell can be done in a great variety of languages, and in nonsense syllables. The sound shapes the magic. It should be possible for you to shape this spell using trollish words, or the language of oral sex, such sounds as suckles, gurgles, moans, smacks and chokes. It will simply be more challenging, but once you get the hang of the spell as it is formally cast, you could come up with variations. The semantic components could be a pattern of caresses. In fact, this would be a perfect way to exercise your theoretical grasp of magic. I shall be doing research along similar lines with a new spell I bartered for called shadow shift. Therefore we will be able to compare notes. Once I master the spell, I want to try to come up with a one-handed version. I believe it will be the perfect escape spell. It is much faster than graveyard mists. I am afraid that if Avengenes or orcs pursue us, graveyard mists will be far too slow unless we can buy at least ten minutes, but shadow shift is quite a different matter. This invention of new analogs for verbal or semantic components of an existing spell is an extremely minor form of spell research. Let us make this a formal assignment. Do this spell frequently and see if you can come up with variations. We must build on this and rapidly. Once you have fully grasped draining we must work on the reverse, the bestowal of energy." Late during the summer as he moved his necromantic labs to the new abode, Thane had removed everything of magical note from Gravestone isle, locked the secret laboratory wing from within, and officially resigned his post on the isle. According to current church records, he had gone into a life of seclusion and devotion, and in a way, he had. Periodically he collected his investment income from the temple of Mortaebius in Rosehaven, but that was about as much as the priests of Mortaebius saw of him. After completing the potion setups, Rapina had worked on many things, including helping prepare the bodies for a new animation that Thane was researching. Thane called his new animation the improved skeleton. He had a very large number of rotting bodies from Red Jack and from the sites of destroyed forts in Avengene that he and his servitors had visited when he or Rames knew of a nearby graveyard. Rapina had kept the scarab pits constantly busy removing the flesh from the bones of the accumulated dead. After they were cleaned she would bag and tag each skeleton for future use. Thane had developed a new resin. It was not as magical as the resins he created in his font for true advanced animations. Two thirds of the new resin was made from ingredients that could be purchased on the open market, and all but three percent of the remainder could be produced in a font by a relatively low-level priest like Rames. Improved skeletons incorporated Thane's double animation techniques and could retain larger sets of instructions even than mundane double-animated skeletons. The resin-soaked bones of improved skeletons were very durable compared to those of a mundane skeleton. Blunt weapons would not shatter them as they could shatter normal skeletons. A sword was a better weapon against them than a bludgeon, and they were very resistant to missile fire. They did not have the ability to speak or reason as did the true advanced animations. However, as cannon fodder or servants, they were superior even to mundane double animated skeletons. They took more time to animate, but Thane believed that it was important that the rank and file skeleton in his army be stronger if he was to face the forces of Avengene. Over the winter, Thane had spent most of the time he was not creating improved or advanced animations working on his skrying techniques, and learning a few new spells. He now had a mirror as well as his pool. The pool was more the tool of a cleric, whereas mirrors and crystal balls were the province of mages. Periodically he took Rames, Rapina and a few skeletons on trips so that they could journey to new areas and consecrate graveyards for later use with the graveyard mists spell. Rapina studied the principles of spell research, but she found that the troll shaman's suggestions were often just as valuable as those from the best treatises on the tailoring of spells. Trolls were not brilliant, and although Uler was extremely intelligent for a troll, he was only fairly intelligent by human standards. He was however a troll of extreme, cunning, creativity and common sense. He had distilled magic down to something a troll could understand, and his understanding was perfect for a beginner like Rapina. With Uhler's knowledge and the knowledge that came to her from books, Rapina began painstakingly to attempt variations of the spell. Her first success was to vary the part of her body she used to do the drain with. At first she used her hands, and then her foot. After that, she slowly added the ability to pull the energy in through other parts of her body, working intensively before she got each to work, and then practicing in order to attain consistent success. She drained using her tongue, her breasts and her rectum. There was a pattern. The energy flowed down to her vagina and then surged up to her breasts as if she were simply pulling the energy into herself using the spell, and then absorbing and storing it using her regular channels. After she got the hang of it, she found those areas of her body rich in nerves, especially those closest to her vagina, were easiest. Once she was adept at draining with the various parts of her body, she attempted to use caresses to shape the spell rather than the usual motions of her hands. It was not easy, but eventually she was successful. Once she got the hang of it, she rather liked the effect. When using caresses and an odd part of her body, her success was spotty, but she knew that with enough practice, one day the spell would become second nature. The last thing she tried was to change the language component. This proved very difficult. Eventually, because Uler was very motivated to help, she was able to get a trollish version to work, and then an open- mouthed moaning version, but she found it difficult to combine these with the caressing hand movements. Occasionally she managed to drain through moan and caress. She was able to moan, lick and caress, then swallow a man as the drain kicked in, but she was not able to come up with verbal components that would work with her mouth full. Perhaps the greatest epiphany she got during her studies of spell modification, was the realization that most of her drain spell forcibly pulled the power out of her victim. The physical manifestation of this was that he developed a very rapid erection and then he came. Yet, only a small bit of the spell was needed to transfer the power, once released, to her hungry vagina. It was this transfer that she had stumbled on while trying to incorporate some of the casting variations Thane had given her from the ranged version of his drain spell. Moreover, this transfer made it possible for her to get the energy drained into her reserves. This knowledge led her to create a tiny little spell and many variations that would transfer energy to her vagina from some other part of her body when a man naturally released it through orgasm. The trick was she had to time it so that the spell would go off as he was coming, but she could feel a man's lust, so this was not so difficult as it might have seemed. She felt that this simpler enchantment might be possible to do with her mouth full, and began to work on it. It seemed half of what Thane talked about in his daily magic lessons had something to do with energy drain, transmission and bestowal. Thane even spent extra time with Rapina trying to get her knowledge in this area beyond the norm. If a lesson's topic was not energy drain, it was usually something about mage-sight and the detection and analysis of magic. As winter turned to spring, Rapina learned why. "The orc tribe with the giants suffered a serious defeat in attacking a large fort three days ago," Thane said. "As I had suspected, Avengene will always stoop to breaking his own rules if his power is threatened. He despises the orcs for their intermittent use of poison and more rarely of shamanistic magic. Nevertheless, the loss of so many forts has led him to hire himself a mage. He also used poisoned ballista bolts from engines hidden within fortress towers in an attempt to wipe out the giants before they attack his remaining forts. The mage is none other than Nordula. It appears he has managed to retain the ability to teleport. He carried a cadre of Avengene's best priests of the vindicator to the fort in question not long after it came under attack. The priests used their magic on the giants, as did Nordula. Avengene has struck a great blow by killing many giants. Thankfully, the giants and the orcs who hired them are now possessed of considerable wealth. The orcs have seen to it that the giants have armor and shields, yet the wounds Avengene's special forces have inflicted on the giants have made them more timid, and more likely to rest for long periods between forays. I fear that the number of giants remaining is insufficient to destroy many of Avengene's larger remaining fortresses. It appears that their hatred of Red Jack has brought Lord Avengene and Lord Li'Yeiraun together. We have seen stone masons and labor crews imported up the river from Yeiraun arriving in Avengene to repair forts. I suspect that some of the magic books Avengene has confiscated from his citizens who are not allowed the practice of magic, have wound up in Nordula's hands rather than in the usual bon fires. This is a dangerous development since Li'Yieraun is Avengene's neighbor to the south." "Lord Li'Yieraun controls a county that is made up of his wife Cynid's barony of Liaern and his own barony of Yieraun. Cynid is a half elf who is directly related to the elven monarchs of the forest East of Liaern. Sometime in the past, the human warlord of Liaern settled his differences with the elves by marrying an elven princess. Their child, upon her father's death, was to become the ruler of a part of the elven forest as well as the human lands North of the Eastern Augustana river. Cynid was that child. You can see why Lord Li'Yiraun did not break off his marriage to Cynid even though he probably knows by now that his daughter was really the daughter of Red Jack. Now that he is making an alliance with Avengene, Cynid's barony becomes all the more important. It is all that separates Avengene from Yieraun." "Ew, I feel sorry for Cynid. If Lord Li'Yieraun swallows the faith of the vindicator, or even just throws in with them, Cynid will be caught between them," Rapina said. Indeed, but Cynid, like so many others will likely be fooled by Avengene's mask of goodness. He is, after all, a war hero who protects Clairmont from the orc threat. Why, the king himself holds Avengene in high esteem. It is true that Avengene does not have the best record in regard to keeping his people from cutting the trees of the elven forest, but the elves will not realize they are in a vice until far too late. After all, the elves are enemies of the orcs, and Avengene keeps the orcs at bay for them. The elves will not realize that Avengene will have no compunction about expanding right over them until it is too late, but he is not likely to expand over the elves until it becomes convenient to do so. As long as there are orcs, he still needs the elves to back him up, especially with so many of his forts destroyed last summer. For that reason, I expect him to remain tight with the elves. --- [Rapina]043 Shadowland Winter passed rapidly, and Thane's hopes were realized when Avengene could not spare the troops to prey on the temples of Mortaebius during the winter. Beyond consolidating power within his own territory, Avengene had his hands full trying to guard and rebuild his demolished forts, a task that could not easily be done in the winter because of the characteristics of mortar in cold weather. The seasons on the desert mountain top ranged from almost cool, to quite warm, though not nearly so unbearably hot as was the case far below in the desert proper. In early spring, the abode was still quite comfortable, and during one particular night, Thane took his servitors down to the base of the mountain to the valley of the ghouls. With him he took Elizabetta and a sizable force of reaving and double-animated skeletons. Oddly, two of Thane's best reavers were unarmed and unarmored. The temperature in the desert warred between a cool wind and a sand-strewn pave that still gave off waves of warmth. Moonlight illuminated the valley. "I brought you down here to familiarize you with the plain of shadow. Ordinarily I would have done it in the outdoor area of the abode, but now that we have the new wards, plain-shifting of any kind is difficult and requires the use of the ward keys. These are complex magical methods for entering our particular wards. I have grown adept at using the keys while casting graveyard mists, but I am new at plain-shifting. I cast graveyard mists so many times during the building of the abode that I can practically cast it in my sleep. Thus adding the ward-key operation into the spell was not so difficult. Outside the wards, Elizabetta and I have been working on this plain shift off and on so that it is now reliable, and I have already started on a one handed version. As you see I am wearing a black hooded cape in addition to my black robes. Although it is uncomfortably warm to wear it here, it has utility when there is not a border between a deep shadow and a brighter one. With the cape I can cast a large shadow and create a borderland." Thane handed Elizabetta a dagger and Rames an ancient sword. "It is possible to take objects with you, but they must be within six inches to one foot of your person. Skeletons have even less latitude, for they lack a living aura. Thus I have brought the two unarmed and unarmored reavers, and Elizabetta. "The sword and dagger I just handed out are enchanted weapons bought at great expense. It took me quite sometime to locate affordable weapons that would suffice. In order for a blade to function as a blade where we are going, it must be either highly magical, or less strongly magical with an alloy to which shadow essence has been added. When I replaced my singing bones after narrowly defeating Uler, I bartered some advanced animations to a colleague so that my new bones could sport enchanted spike blades containing shadow essence." "We are about to enter the plain of shadow. Rames, you will be the first in. It is your job to establish a beachhead. The plain is mostly deserted, but there are some rather dangerous shades and other monsters that live there. Undead shadows are fairly common in the plain of shadow but we can command them using the power of Mortaebius as always. The last semantic gesture of this spell is something on the order of a mimed push. When you see this gesture, Thane demonstrated, you must take a step backward. Now stand right here, Rames. You see that the hill behind you casts a deep shadow in the moonlight and that this is the line it draws," Thane pointed. "I want you standing just inside the moonlight so that one step backwards will put you fully in the deeper shadow. Good. Draw your blade now and take a step back as I complete the spell. As others join Rames you shall grab hold of him, and Rames, as the skeletons arrive you will need to order them to grab hold of you." Rapina watched Thane's casting with interest. She wondered if she would ever seem so competent. She smiled, at least she now knew she could cast. After her first successful spell, she had taken to hunting up and copying down any sort of minor cantrip she could find in the library, or beg from Thane when she was not trying to figure out variations of her life-drain spell. She failed miserably at many of the minor magics in her growing collection, but she could actually do some, and she knew it would only be a matter of time before more of them fell before the onslaught of her learning. Startled out of her reverie, Rapina opened her mouth as Thane completed his spell and Rames stepped back and disappeared. "Elizabetta, prepare yourself as did Rames. You will be next. Naked reavers stand here and here. When I cast the spell on you, you will step back with the last gesture as you see Elizabetta will soon be doing," Thane said. The spell took perhaps fifteen seconds to cast, but had to be cast on each person separately. Soon both the reavers had disappeared and Rapina had taken up a position just in front of the border of shadow. "Good, you will allow the others to protect you, my dear," Thane said. "Your unarmed combat techniques will be usable in an emergency, but I have not yet been able to locate an appropriate magical weapon for you to use." As Thane finished the last gesture, Rapina stepped backward. She felt different, yet she could still see Thane standing in the light. Rapina heard an oddly muffled, insubstantial voice. "Welcome to the realm of shadow, Rapina," Rames said. Rapina could see the real world fine, but her compatriots within the plain of shadow were indistinct like phantoms. She reached and found Rames left wrist. Had he been more than a yard from her, she would never have found him. He seemed more like a field of energy than a solid person. Perhaps she was wrong, but it felt almost as though, if she squeezed hard enough, her fingers would pass through his wrist. Before she was fully oriented, She saw Thane disappear from the real world and appear as a shadow next to her. "Good, now I will cast a spell of telekinesis in case I need to grab one of you on short notice." Thane's voiced droned a bit as he cast. "In the realm of shadow, you are little more than a phantom. Thane cast a spell on Rames that caused him to glow with blue light. The main problem with the plain of shadow is visibility. We can see the real world quite well, but we cannot normally see each other well, and those in the real world cannot see us save in the best lighting conditions. You see I am walking around you, but I am nothing more than a shadow. In truth I move because I am so used to associating movement with the action of walking that my belief propels me. Here it is the power of your mind that gives you motive force. This is a great blessing for traversing long distances because a shadow can move at far greater speeds than a corporeal man. There are dangers, however. For the purposes of this training exercise I have cast a minor blue light spell on Rames so you can see him at a greater distance, but this also would make him visible to corporeal people. Some magical weapons could hit him; strong light spells cast against him would wound him and make him plainly visible. A spell or item that cancels magic, if properly targeted, would displace him back to the material plain, and mind influencing spells would have their full effect on him. I will cast blue light on each of us so that we can safely practice movement. Normally I would be a fool to cast light on anyone. My vision in darkness spell would work for locating living people, but would be of little help for seeing our undead servitors. Monsters from the plain of shadow tend to attack illuminated individuals in preference to others, and those on the material plain can see and attack an illuminated shadow-walker. Thane cast blue light on all of his servitors in turn, and then on himself. "Now you will be able to see one another for some distance. Most skeletons can only use their normal walking and running modes of movement here. Advanced animations seem to have enough will to speed these somewhat. Being a creature of shadow, however, the skeletal assassin can travel in this plain as fast as many human beings. Here it does not matter how physically fit you are. The power of your mind determines your speed, thus an ancient wizened mage with a powerful mind can run circles around a young, athletic warrior. The purpose of our exercise tonight will be to familiarize you with movement in the plain of shadow. For now you shall stay within this valley. Elizabetta, the reavers and I will stand in the middle of the valley. Rapina, Rames, you will stay in the valley and you will run around us perfecting your ability to move. Before you begin let me caution you, avoid entering solid objects. You will find some objects more difficult to enter than others. The more holes and porosity in an object, the easier it will be to seep into it. Within an object you can see nothing, and your sense of direction can easily become confused. If you stop within an object you could drift down into the ground where it is difficult to determine the force of gravity and you may seep down into the dirt and entomb yourself." "There is only one time you should ever enter an object, and that time is when you are trapped in the shadow plain at dawn. Direct sunlight will burn you up. It is quite deadly. If you are caught in the plain of shadow your ideal location is within as shaded an area as possible, and within an object that stands alone so that the danger of you heading into the ground is minimized. In underground catacombs you can stay in shadowy rooms and such. This is the ideal, for you will not be likely to drift into the ground and loose your bearings." "Now you must practice movement. I have read several conflicting recommendations. Some practitioners recommend that you not allow human beings to use walking or running since it will hamper them in attaining maximum speeds. Others recommend that warriors run and mages glide. I will let you experiment as you see fit, however I have found that I can move much faster without moving my feet. Will is the thing here, clomping and stomping are unnecessary distractions." Rapina tried simply willing herself into motion, but she didn't budge. Next she tried running. It worked but it was not much faster than it would have been had she been in material form. Rames seemed to be having similar problems. Rapina smiled. She remembered sliding around on the frozen lake in the valley of the dead on Graveston isle. Perhaps that was just the transition she needed. She ran over a small rise of sand and then just made as though she were going to slide. Her strategy worked; she slid for quite a distance, much farther than she would have been able to slide on the sandy pave of the desert valley had she been a material being. After that she managed to extend her slide into a very long glide. Rames seemed to be trying to run and jump. Perhaps he thought he should think like a bird. Whatever he was doing didn't seem to be working for him. Rames did have a point, however; Rapina was thinking of the ground as solid, and her body as heavy. It was two-dimensional thought. She knew she would need to amend her thinking, but for the first hour she practiced gliding. She went from a slide, to a long slippery glide to what she thought of as a power glide. It was a never-ending glide like a skier on an infinite slope. After a bit of practice she could 'ski' uphill as well as down. Thane chuckled, Rames was running and jumping gradually longer distances, and Rapina seemed to be skiing. Her ghostly giggles filled the air as she became more and more adept. Thane had long known his apprentice had an exceptional mind, but now he had the opportunity to see a more concrete measure of its power. As the young woman gained skill, she gained speed and soon she was little more than a laughing blue streak, traversing the length of the valley in an eyeblink, banking off the valley walls and zipping around the rim, like a metal ball shot from a miniature ballistae rolling around in an irregular bowl. After she was confident doing her high speed sliding technique, Rapina decided she would try passing through some objects. Thane's material armored skeletons were the perfect subjects. At first she kind of hugged them to no avail. Thane raised an eyebrow as Rapina attempted to occupy the same space as one of his corporeal guards. Metals were difficult to seep through, but armor often had many holes in it and it was thin, so given time she might manage it. Once inside she might be able to see out, which was good because it would keep her from becoming disoriented. Gravity had an infinitesimal effect on shadows, but it was a subtle thing like the effect of gravity on a wisp of down, and being inside an object tended to make it less obvious. After a while Rapina learned to adjust her thinking so that she could seep slowly into a solid object. She decided that she would not practice it too much, because then she might sink through the earth and her sliding technique would be lost to her. That would be a horrible thing since power sliding was more fun than skiing and skating put together. After she was confident she could enter solid objects if there was a need for it, Rapina decided she needed to try to learn to fly. Rames was already making some amazingly long jumps, and Rapina saw the utility of having that ability. After all, what if she was gliding along and came to a cliff? The lesson ended sometime after Rapina had mastered what she called power-jumping. Rames had settled on a technique Rapina called giant-stepping. It was half running, half flying and worked pretty well for the warrior-priest. When they were finished with their practice, Thane gathered them together. The cancellation of the spell took Thane only a second. Each person treated with the cancellation faded back into material being in a second or two. The story continues in [Rapina]044 The Best Laid Plans copyright 2001, by Rapina The Chronicles of Rapina, Chapters 39-43 The Sorcerer's Apprentice Back to the, Daelrath, page [Rapina]039 An Intellectual Giant [Rapina]040 The Old Grind [Rapina]041 The Sorcerer's Apprentice [Rapina]042 Cast at last [Rapina]043 Shadow Land [Rapina]039 An Intellectual Giant Several mornings after Rapina returned from Daelrath, Thane got up from the breakfast table ending their magic lesson a few minutes early. He then told his apprentices to meet him in the lounge in a few minutes. "Rapina, if I ever had any doubts as to your value as a servant of Mortaebius, you have utterly dispelled them. Your work in Daelrath turned out magnificently and you put yourself at great personal risk to accomplish it. You may only have been guessing when you pulled your little coup and made yourself a deaconess, but your logic was impeccable. The order has access to church records, and they are aware of your latest deeds. As a deaconess in the church, you are no longer an outside contractor. If an order wishes to make use of your services, it is customary for them to ask you to join." Thane handed Rapina a scroll. Rapina rolled out the scroll, read it and smiled. "Do I sign it in blood or something?" Thane handed Rapina a quill. "Ink actually, blood could identify you, and The Order of the Shroud is a secret organization. Just sign Rapina; the idea is to sign with the name other members are to address you by." Rapina carefully signed the document. "Welcome to the Order of the Shroud, Deaconess Rapina," Thane said. "Welcome chess mistress," Rames chuckled. "It is good to have you on our side." "Thank you Guardians," Rapina beamed. "Actually I believe It was very fortunate that you were able to deaconize yourself and obtain the favor of the order," Thane said. "Really?" Rapina asked. "Yes, now that you are a member of the order, I can allow you to read more of my books on necromancy and you will be able to help in nearly every aspect of my laboratory work except those aspects that are purely clerical. It is well that you will be able to. Our duties are expanding with the conflict, but thanks to the giants we saved from the trolls and Red Jack, I believe we may be able to buy ourselves some respite. "How's that?" Rapina asked. "Thane chuckled, "I had some luck using a minor language translation spell that formerly belonged to Nordula on the giants. It is supposed to work on humanoids, but it has so far been a dismal failure on trolls. Mayhap I am simply not adept enough at the background skills required to do a thorough casting, but in any case, it did work upon Giants. We tracked a large group of trolls right to the scene of a battle with four giants. Our combined forces were able to best the trolls with the loss of only one giant, and we packed the trolls away for our foray against the Avengene settlements. I asked the giants if they knew where any forts were and surprisingly they did. They knew where Keep Daelrath was and they knew that it was the home of a troll-hating tribe of humans. I told them that they were indeed correct and that I knew about the man who led that tribe and he greatly hated trolls. They also knew of other forts to the east that belonged to an orc-killing tribe of humans. I told them that I had heard much about the leader of that tribe. In any case I told them he was a greedy trouble-maker who attacked other human tribes as well as the orcs. Rames even taught them to say Avengene," Thane chuckled. "During the battle one of them impressed the others greatly because of the damage he did with a two-handed sword Rames gave him while he was down and I was transferring life force to him from a troll body. It turned out that they wanted such weapons as the sword, but were afraid to work for the orcs destroying forts to get them, because so many of their brothers had died doing just that. I told them that forts were something like trolls. If only one giant tried to kill many trolls, he would die, but if many giants went, they would win. This seemed to make sense to them. Furthermore I told them that forts had special weapons that were dangerous to giants, and that if the giants destroyed these weapons first by throwing boulders at them from behind cover, the forts would be much less dangerous. I was also able to discover which orc tribes normally hired the giants. I am planning to get a hold of some giant weapons from an area of the world where fire giants battle dwarves and humans. I will make sure that one of these tribes of orcs manages to find them in a tomb I have Kent and the ghouls preparing. The ruins atop the tomb were built on a grand scale suggestive of giants. When the weapons are discovered, my belief is that the orcs will use them to entice the giants, and the winner will be the church of Mortaebius," Thane said. "I get it, you are hoping if Avengene looses enough forts he will have to make up for it with extra troops to protect the areas in question. Thus he may be unable to spare the men for a winter campaign against the church of Mortaebius," Rapina said. "Exactly! We have an enormous amount of work to do, and I hope this maneuver will buy us the time we need," Thane said. "Evidently Red Jack once had several ships, but they were wiped out by a mercenary fleet. He had been building up from that setback when you originally found him. Roger has been kind enough to give me the location of the river battle in which Red Jack took heavy losses and lost all but one commandeered ship. I hope to locate some deceased pirates to man the longship I have sunk in my cove. I should just barely be able to move such a vessel with a lengthy casting of the graveyard mists spell. We will be able to use it to pick up bodies and to dump tailings from the new abode into the sea. Moreover we can use it to pick up necessaries for the abode at port cities if I can find a way to disguise the undead mariners. We must, however, create a water corridor in the new abode complete with water-entombed bodies, and consecrate it as a graveyard." [Rapina]040 The Old Grind The last part of the winter was one of intense learning and study for Rapina. The topic was chemistry and alchemy and the magical principles involved with substances. It was no secret that Thane was grooming her to be his laboratory assistant. Rapina found the medical and herbal knowledge she had gleaned while working with the pirate leech served her well as a foundation, but much was added atop that. Her cleaning duties in the upper abode were largely taken over by Kent who was thus learning the art of commanding skeletons to do jobs they were never designed for. After she planted everything, Rames began caring for the gardens with some help from Kent who would pluck off any bugs and eat them. Evidently, the animal life force of the insects was easy for Kent to distinguish from the background of plant life force. By early spring, Rapina had helped to make the first healing potion Thane's laboratory had ever produced. It contained many ingredients, but the most important ones were troll's blood and an infusion of life force that Thane had drawn from the troll shaman. For the sake of economy, Thane had discarded the second troll and now kept only the shaman. Without legs, hands or forearms and lacking his rattle or any other spell components, the shaman did not seem to be able to cast spells. Either that or he did not see the point since he was in no condition to escape. The stumps of the troll's legs and arms were capped in bronze. His leg caps and his body were bolted and strapped in a standing position to a small, wheeled cart with a chamber pot set in the appropriate location to catch offal. Rapina felt sorry for the troll. She supervised his cleaning and hygiene and drew blood from him for the laboratory. During the times she washed him she tried to talk to him and to teach and learn words. Her vocabulary in trollish was still quite dismal, but she had a start. Ironically, Thane had decided that her talents were more useful in the laboratory than they were in the construction of the new abode. Thus she did not see it until the middle of spring. At that time, two main areas had been completed. She thought she would be in for a torturous climb up innumerable staircases into the heart of the mountain from its base in the hot desert, but that did not turn out to be at all correct. "Ah here we are," the necromancer rasped as the mists cleared. "Welcome to the abode. Guards, set down those supplies. Rapina can fetch them later." The plate armored reaving skeletons that served as the personal guards of Thane set down various crates of supplies. The first thing that struck her was the scale of the place. They had arrived in a corridor that had been carved out of the inside of the mountain and was no doubt consecrated as a graveyard. The ceiling was a tall barrel vault supported by pillars that marched down either side of the corridor. Beyond the pillars to her right Rapina could see a nearly identical corridor, but one could not actually walk on its floor because that corridor was a long pool of water. Beyond the water corridor farther to the right was a huge vaulted warehouse-like space. An identical warehouse space could be seen to the left of the stone corridor Rapina had appeared in. The warehouse had many crates of laboratory supplies and fixtures for the abode. No doubt, they had cost a fortune. An old longship was tied up against some cork buttresses at the near end of the water corridor. Rapina had seen the skeletal mariners on it before. Thane had worked hard on every one of them. They were basically reaving skeletons, but they incorporated a double-animation technique to make them a little stronger and faster than Thane's first few reaving skeletons. They also had some magic placed on them as part of the necromancer's ghost ship enchantments. Rapina ran over and jumped aboard the ship. "I never did see this after you finished it." "It has been a very busy vessel since I finished the magic on it. Ironically, I could not use the ship sunk in my cove. This one is from the old river battle where Jack lost his fleet. You joined him sometime after that setback when he was rebuilding. The undead crew died on that ship. In order for the ghost ship enchantments to work, men had to die as the ship sank. Naval battles are actually very good for such a craft. The violent deaths occurring as the ship sinks make an excellent foundation for the necessary enchantments. The fact that it was a pirate ship made my job even easier." Rapina climbed over a number of huge crates full of stone tailings. "Oh my goodness!" Rapina stared down at the ship's deck; there was a hole right through the hull. Ghostly translucent planks that glowed an eerie blue color seemed to hold the water from flooding through the hole into the boat. "Ghost ships sink as daylight hits them or as ordered by their pilot. They are always wrecks. This one is one of the most structurally sound of the lot, but it still sinks rather readily in the light of day. At dusk, however it rises and the ghost wind fills the shredded sails even when the night is dead calm. It is a work of art, and quite useful. I have used it to transport barrels of fresh water into and a great deal of stone tailings out of this new abode." "In the beginning we used processions of Skeletal horses and wagons and we still do use those, but not for the tailings produced by mining new rooms. All tailings are dumped into the sea so that our abode cannot be detected from some unsightly pile of tailings at the base of the mountain. Through the doors at the end of the land corridor is the skeletal carriage house. This entry complex is by far the largest and most impressive in the abode. I wanted it done first in case we needed to move away from Graveston isle on short notice. It is also the transport center and is thus the heart of our construction efforts. It represents thousands of castings of the graveyard mists spell to remove the mined out stone tailings, and was truly a labor to complete. Now come this way, we shall go through the carriage house and up the corridor from there." "The laboratories are not particularly secure because of the fumes they produce. I did not wish to poison you, my dear, so the labs have chimneys and windows to the outdoors. The corridor continued to a large stone gate, but Thane turned left before they reached it and unlocked a bronze door. The door led to a short corridor that ended in a guardroom. In the room were six skeletal guards. "Skeleton guards, protect and obey Rapina," Thane pointed to his apprentice. Rapina, these will be your guards. Thane unlocked a door at the other end of the guardroom and walked in. "In here are our first two laboratories and their storage rooms. These, as you see, have windows to the outdoors," Thane said. Rapina looked out the windows. They were actually miniature corridors about two feet wide, four feet tall, and twenty feet deep. Rapina jumped up into one and traveled to its end. The window was barred with a grid of bronze bars, and about two feet farther out a grid of iron ones. At the very end of the window corridor was a rope net with cloth strips in it that were the color of the stone to camouflage the window, but she could still see into a barren valley of stone. The wind coming in from outside was light and not nearly as oppressively hot as she had remembered it from the desert. "Wow, where are we?" "We are near the top of the mountain's peak. The top of the mountain does not come to a perfect point. It is a blunt point that actually has a depression in the center of it, a valley, a natural if irregular amphitheater. The laboratory windows are set in the side of the bowl of the natural amphitheater and look out into it. The bowl will be a good outdoor area for growing plants and doing archery practice and the like." "There is also a spar of rock that goes up from the edge of the bowl as it were. We are currently at work up there tunneling the stair cases that will lead to a water tank and above that, at the pinnacle, an observatory. We have not yet put in the living quarters, but I felt that you could live in one of the laboratory storage rooms while you set things up here. There are ovens and such already installed as you see in this lab. In the next one I want you to set up the apparatus for making healing potions, one after another. I know it will be a sacrifice, but I need you to prepare potion after potion for me. I realize your reading will suffer, and that we will be slowing our instruction in magic, but I am running very short on cash. Red Jack's bottomless chest of gems is all but gone." "Have you had any luck on the moaning skeletons?" Rapina asked. "Thane chuckled mischievously. "Since I had so much luck doing the other animations, I did not ask for instruction on these. Instead I read the procedures from a book and got a bit of advice, then dove in. I botched the enchantments twice but just three days ago I successfully animated a priest of the vindicator. He moans incessantly; it is magnificent! Now that I know what I am doing, I plan to continue with as many as I have good subjects for. The moaners are quite annoying, but if this priest is any indication, they retain intelligence much like the death skeletons, skeletal assassins, and to a lesser extent, the reaving skeletons. This moaner has intelligence of the more bookish variety. He moans all the while but he is actually quite a good scribe. I have him making copies of some of my books; you will now be spared that drudgery." "Woohoo!" Rapina jumped up and down. "Could I use them as lab assistants?" Thane chuckled, "you might be able to if you were a full priest of Mortaebius, but I am afraid that even if you were to become used to the moaners, you would periodically fall to your knees in fits of fear. The magical effect is really quite powerful." "Darn!" Rapina said. "I can make you some double animated skeletons if you can find a way to utilize them in the lab. Here is a set of keys, My dear. You should keep this complex locked. After a short stint cleaning the abode, Kent is now up here helping Elizabetta manage the skeletal miners who are excavating our rooms. Kent is perhaps my most trustworthy ghoul, but it is still not good policy to invest complete trust in such a creature. If you go to check on the work, you should always take armed skeletons with you. Edgar and the other ghouls have been set loose at the foot of the mountain. They will be making some tunnels in a sandy valley between the base of the mountain and a couple of the foothills. I have removed most of the undead from Gravestone isle. As you see some of the flaming skeletons are integral to your laboratory ovens." "Yes, this lab is rather hot," Rapina said. "It is late afternoon. The lab will not get much hotter. The oven chimneys and the windows in here keep it bearable. Now, I have much to do. I believe you will find the laboratory furnishings you need in those crates, and food and cooking supplies in those. I am here nearly every other afternoon just after I get up, to move accumulated tailings out of the abode. If Rames has garnered any meat, I will bring it. Should you need any double-animated skeletons to help you, come find me. I have made quite a few for use as miners and there are fresh ones standing by for when Elizabetta needs them. She is working on rather narrow corridors at this time, so is not using many of them. I can always replace any you need from bodies given us by Red Jack. Try not to break the glassware, it is expensive. Your first job will be to fetch the troll and the supplies I brought from the other labs when I brought you. After that, I want you to set up these laboratories and then start constructing the healing potion setup. I will check on your progress tomorrow." Rapina nodded. --- Setting up the laboratories had been easy enough, but once she was up and running with the potions, Rapina got hardly any time for herself. She missed her lounging and reading. She missed the magical conversations, and most of all she missed Rames. Celibacy was rearing its ugly head and she felt like a slave, albeit an educated laboratory slave, but a slave nevertheless. After two weeks she could make healing potions in her sleep, but the work was constant, and she was climbing the walls. She saw Rames once a week on Sunday but that was not nearly often enough and it was driving her to distraction. "Gods I need a man!" Rapina screamed, but there was no one there to hear her. She had tried to use the skeletons to make her work easier but the movements were complex, the skeletal fingers slippery, and the glassware expensive. During the second week, Rapina had just set a beaker to simmer over an alcohol lamp. She knew she would have twenty whole minutes before the next flurry of activity was necessary in the potion- making process. She tried to read but she felt so distracted. Rapina slammed her book closed and set it aside. She paced around the room, unbidden she flashed back to her dance before the pirates. "Oh please," She said as she felt between her legs. "Thane, I am going to go crazy!" Rapina stamped and fumed but it did not help at all. She stalked over to the troll, "I used to feel sorry for you, but now I realize you are not the only one who is a fixture in this lab!" Rapina sat down on the floor at the foot of the cart the troll was mounted on. "I just want to go back home, I want to see Rames, and Red Jack, and Zit, and Dealrath, and..." Rapina looked up at the troll and shut her eyes. Suddenly she go to her knees, reached around the troll and snatched off the loincloth she kept on him. There was nothing where his genitals ought to have been but a patch of cauterized skin. Rapina snarled and dug in a drawer. She found a knife and sterilized it in the flame of the alcohol lamp and then she quenched it until it was cool. She ran to the troll and cut the patch of cauterized skin away from its groin. The troll shaman yelled and made his cart vibrate as he struggled to try to get away from the knife. He could not knock himself over and the brake was on so he could not even get the cart to creep forward or back appreciably. Thane had made sure that the cart was constructed to render the troll unable to move, even if that movement was just falling over. "Sorry, but it's not like I could get you drunk before the operation." Rapina saw the blood dripping from the wound and then the troll's natural regeneration began to kick in. She set a bowl under the wound to catch stray blood then got some extra food she had from times when Thane had brought meat. She fed the troll for a few minutes then went back to her lab work. Periodically she glanced over at the shaman. Two hours later she prepared for another cycle of potion making. She set some reagents on the stove and instructing a skeleton to strike an empty burner plate with an iron ladle when any one of the reagents began to boil. She needed time. Rapina came back to the troll and knelt down. There, hanging between his legs were two large, new mottled green balls in a fleshy sack. The troll's shaft hung down even farther than Pike's. Rapina tugged at the shaman's lust, and watched as the shaft began to rise. If Zit had been there to look into her eyes, he would have been sure she was a vampire. --- Thane walked through the guardroom and wandered into the first laboratory. He had not been to see Rapina in three days. He was wearing his death mask as he always did when around the troll. These days he wore it most of the time save when he was sitting down to eat. Today he knew that he must work most of the day to get rid of the tailings that had accumulated in the warehouse room beside the water corridor in his absence. He brought news and some fish Rames had caught on the isle. "Oh my," Thane said as he heard some peculiar snarling noises from the next lab. He rushed to open the door and raised an eyebrow. The troll cart had been upset and the troll shaman was lying on its back atop a large crate. Rapina was on top of the shaman naked and moving heatedly. He was not sure who was snarling louder, the troll or the woman. In any case, they did not seem to notice him at all. The troll let out an earsplitting howl and Rapina's back arched gracefully as she moaned like a severely dehydrated woman who had just been given a gallon of water. She snuggled onto the troll shaman's chest and breathed hard before noticing Thane and blushing profusely. "I am not sure that is advisable," Thane said. "What do you think I am, a priest of the vindicator?" Rapina snapped with such ferocity that Thane took a step backwards. Thane sounded a little sheepish but behind his mask he wore a satisfied grin. "Oh, please forgive me. It appears that I have provided for all your needs here save one," Thane said. "I thought that troll had been emasculated." Rapina smiled cunningly. "Trolls regenerate." "Ah, and you were trained as a leech. I am curious, do you find his sexual energy different than a man's?" Thane asked. "It's not that different. He is really very potent and he recovers rapidly. I didn't know how to ask him if he wanted to, you know in trollish, but I knew how to ask him if he wanted to feed me, and he said yes." Thane chuckled, "I really should have made some provision for your needs, but in all the excitement it slipped my mind," Thane said. Rapina cleared her throat, "Please don't tell Rames, or Daelrath or anyone that I have been, you know, with a legless troll shaman. Thane chuckled, "My lips are sealed. Tell me, does he like you any better now?" Rapina giggled, "Well, yes, Uhler is teaching me more words in trollish, and I am teaching him our language too," Rapina said. "The next thing you know you'll be wanting me to give him his legs back, but he is far too large and deadly to allow such liberties. As you know if you pull that cord that hangs from the top of his head, a lightning glyph will be activated within his skull and he will be killed, but I still do not trust him. He is a spell- caster after all and he must be quite intelligent. I do hope you will not let him bite a chunk out of your neck. I am very glad he is more than a head taller than you are or we would be in trouble. Isn't he rather large?" Rapina grinned and shrugged, "He's no thicker than Pike, just longer is all." "Ordinarily I would say he was a dirty brute, but since you are the one who washes him, perhaps he is a clean brute," Thane observed. Rapina giggled, "He's clean, the only trouble is, the more I get to know him the sorrier I am for him." "In view of his size and power, his incarceration must be severe. I realize we are not nice to him, but I am not always a nice man. Currently we face poverty. You, he, and I are the wage earners for this abode. Since I often come here at the beginning of the day approximately every other day, I will bring Rames for you. He has complained that he does not see you enough, and I now see the folly of not heeding his words. As for the troll, I am only allowing this to continue because it may facilitate your learning what he knows. I have as yet discovered no other way to get it out of him but to learn his language and get him to tell it. Trolls do not write, so there are no books on troll magic. You might wish to write one." "I have started a troll dictionary," Rapina said. "Excellent. I have some fish for you and some news," Thane said. Rapina ordered her skeletons to lift the shaman and set him upright, then set out a wash tub in preparation for bathing. "Oh good. I could really use a little more food for Uhler too; he has been exerting himself. What's the news?" "According to one of my colleagues who is far more advanced than I at the art of skrying, the orcs have indeed hired the giants, a record number of them. They seem to refuse to separate or work for other tribes, so this one orc tribe has a large cadre of giants. They have been an absolute terror in Northern Avengene. These orcs have become fort specialists. The giants come to battle with huge sacks brimming with throwing boulders. They first attack the siege engines, and afterwards they blitz the gate or a weak wall. The orcs storm the forts once the walls are breeched. Avengene's system of forts was his bulwark against the orcs. He is being taken apart as they pillage the forts and then raze them to the ground. This group of orcs and giants is gaining experience and confidence, not to mention wealth and caches of arms. When the orcs leave the scene of battle at a fort near a graveyard known to us, Rames moves in and consecrates a graveyard on the site, then we remove the dead. I have even gotten myself a few new priests of the vindicator." "The mortancer who is the circle's best skryer was so impressed with my work, he offered to sell me the wards from his abode cheaply when he next changes them, which he does periodically. He also loaned me copies of several fine books on skrying. Ah, that reminds me, we are really not the only wage earners for the abode. I will soon have two more; the skeletons of reverend Vindictine and governess Rhona are currently drying after soaking for the requisite number of days in the appropriate resins. If all goes well, in one week's time I will have two more moaning skeletons, and therefore two more scribes. Rapina began washing, "Oh, that's good. Do you have plans to move the necromantic laboratories out here soon?" Rapina asked. Behind his mask Thane licked his lips. "Rapina is a most delicious and uninhibited young woman. It is such a pity she has a way of warping a man's reasoning ability," the necromancer thought. "Yes, but I wanted to get the water tank in the tower so that we could do plumbing. Soon Elizabetta will start on the septic system, and once that is done, we will get started on the necro-labs. I am already storing the bodies and much of the raw materials here because I am anxious to move. I am a necromancer now; I have little interest in that dreary post as Guardian Thane of The Order of Death's Peace, and much to do for The Order of the Shroud." --- By the beginning of Summer, Elizabetta was steadily completing the necromancy labs. Rapina could hear the noises of picks and chisels twenty-four hours a day. Rames had already started on the plumbing for the new abode. Thankfully, a long corridor separated Rapina's labs from the neromantic labs. One day it would be turned into additional mundane labs. The corridor was hung with oil cloths and the door on Rapina's side remained firmly closed and sealed to keep airborne dust out. Elizabetta was having the tailings removed through the windows of the new labs so that Rapina did not have to deal with a constant procession of skeletal workers and dust. She looked up from her reading and smiled. With both Rames and Uler keeping her from climbing the walls, she was much happier, and her mind boasted much greater clarity. She was now able to work on her latest coup nearly twenty hours a day. --- "Goodness this is obscene, Rapina! It seems the number of skeletons in your two laboratory rooms is greater than the number on Elizabetta's construction crew. Thane carefully wended his way to the 'finish' table. How can this be? You have six base potions for me to infuse and it has only been three days. You are producing two finished base potions per day. The normal rate for an alchemist working eight hours a day is one per three days. You must be working around the clock and then some." Rapina grinned, "You wanted income. I have sixty-seven skeletons packed in here if you count the ones in the storage rooms. They have rubber tubing on their digits so the glass does not slip out of their hands. It sometimes takes a team of six to accomplish an involved task, but I have been working on this for nearly a month. I got very tired of not being able to read and lounge. The skeletons do absolutely all of the work. I just check their fingers once a day and stop things if something goes haywire, which it used to do quite regularly, but I have gotten most of the bugs worked out now. By the way, I need a couch for in here." Thane laughed but the pleasure in his voice was evident, "My dear you missed your calling as a clock- maker. This has to be the most sophisticated use of bone-heads I have ever seen. It is rather crowded, however. Elizabetta will soon add more non-necromantic laboratories, and a lounge, kitchen and alchemist's quarters for you. Let us work together to design a lab specifically for your setup here. I never would have imagined it would be possible to automate this process to such a degree. My only problem is I do not know where I will find two infusions of life force every day. The shaman is good for one, but I think two might be too much for him over the long haul, and I do not want to compromise the potency of his blood." "I just make the base; the infusion is your problem. You could drain it from me, but only if you want to keep a hoard of men around." Rapina grinned. Thane chuckled, "I think what I will do is drain one a day from Uler, and simply set one aside each day, thus accumulating five for the weekend. I can get two from Uler on the weekend, and I will still need three more. If you have the reserves, you can help." "I could normally give you maybe one, but I won't have great reserves unless I can visit friends on the weekends," Rapina said. "Then I will see to it you are able to visit. I pick up bodies from Red Jack periodically anyway. I will simply try to have them saved until Friday or Saturday night. In addition, it will not hurt for you to visit Daelrath periodically. I know you enjoy teaching Bruhnhilda moves with the rapier, and the knights there enjoy dallying with you." Rapina grinned; she was quite pleased with herself. She still needed to keep an eye on the skeletons, but she would be able to make love and learn trollish all week, and then visit her friends on the weekends. With her potent new trollish lover, she would be able to read nearly all night, every night, and she would finally attain the command of magical theory she had always craved. --- [Rapina]041 The Sorcerer's Apprentice By mid summer the laboratories were all finished and Thane began doing all of his work on advanced animations at the new abode. Rapina now had quarters, a lounge and a kitchen. Her elaborate healing potion setup had been moved to a special laboratory that Rapina had helped design specifically to house it. The security for the lab was such that Kent could supervise it. He would ring a bell and retire to a small room if anything he could not handle went wrong. It almost never did. Rapina again cooked the meals for Thane, Rames and herself. They had their regular morning magic lesson and an outdoor weapons practice right after it. She helped Thane somewhat with the lab work for his advanced animations, and oftentimes went on corpse recovery missions to ruined forts in Avengene. She also frequently visited the pirates, but otherwise she had a great deal of time to read and work on plans for herb gardens. Red Jack had left his his old stomping grounds because of the heat from Turnmoor and the incensed Lord Li'Yieraun. Since Thane had told him the giants and orcs were doing well against Avengene's forts, Jack had reasoned that the nobleman would have his hands full. He had sailed East and North through the forest and into Northeastern Avengene where he began to prey on settlements along the three branches of the river. Thane was overjoyed, not only because Jack was making life worse for Avengene, but because just about every town in Avengene had a church and a priest of the vindicator. Thane was very pleased with himself for mastering the advanced techniques for the creation of moaning skeletons. Thanks to the giants, and Red Jack's raiding, he now had fourteen of them serving as scribes. The very thought of priests of the vindicator being obliged to copy books on necromancy and other arcane subjects twenty-four hours a day made Rapina giggle. Thane had gotten permission to have the books on scrying he had borrowed from a colleague copied, and the moaning priests had recently finished the project. Mid summer marked her first anniversary with Thane. When August arrived she celebrated her seventeenth birthday. Probably because her potion set-up was the mainstay of his magical income, Thane had been extremely generous on her birthday. He gave her a lot of clothing and lingerie some of which she could wear when extremely charged with the energy of many lovers. He and Rames also got her a crossbow and various other weapons. After a year of intensive study, Rapina could still not do so much as a single cantrip. She realized how difficult the road ahead of her was. True magicians were rare for a reason. She had devoured hundreds of books during her nights and days of reading powered by the energy of her lovers, but she still felt so far from being a real caster. It often took years and years of study before a person developed the ability to cast. Some never developed it at all. The second year of Rapina's apprenticeship brought new trials and new accomplishments. Her herb gardens were planted and flourished, and she set up a new skeleton lab for the making of powder of disenchantment. She studied intensely, reading a great number of works from Thane's library, a library that Nordula's books had greatly enhanced. All the while Guardian Thane continued his lessons for his two apprentices. With Rapina he concentrated on the necromantic principles behind energy drain and on a comprehensive set of exercises that she was to do to develop her talents in that area. The necromancer maintained that Rapina had the potential to be a better healer than he was, and healing was essential in this time of conflict. In spite of all of her knowledge, Rapina was unsure it would ever take her anywhere, she could not say if she would ever cast like Thane. On the other hand, she could see real improvements in her skill with the rapier, archery and in unarmed combat. Elizabetta now offered training in stealth, climbing, crossbow archery and in small thrown weapons such as knives and stars. Thane was so satisfied with her skills of deportment that he drilled her only occasionally. Instead, Rames was now giving her lessons on military tactics. --- [Rapina]042 Cast at last It was early autumn when Thane walked into the lab room where Rapina was reading and supervising the manufacture of dust of disenchantment. Earlier that day she had seen to the undressing of numerous cadavers, and their immersion in the scarab pits. Thane had adopted the insects as his preferred method for cleaning the flesh off dead people's skeletons. Currently she was lounging in a black lace bustier, the cups full of her magnificent development. Now that she was seventeen, she had filled out a bit more, and her girlish figure was well on its way to attaining the full flower of womanhood. With her extravagant hour glass shape, she was becoming every bit the woman the lust spirit had promised she would be. "Have you been doing the drills I assigned?" Thane asked. Rapina nodded, "right after I get up and before I go to bed I always do them, and a bunch of my own as well. I'm really trying to get it, but it just isn't working," Rapina said. Thane looked around to make sure Uler was not in the room then took off his death mask. "Have you also gone over the spell?" He asked. "Yes, but I have had no luck doing it on Uler. Rapina sighed, maybe I'm just not cut out to be a necromancer," Rapina said. On the contrary, you drain life force when you lie with a man; the nature of the force is a bit different, but I expect the feel must be somewhat the same. Getting a feel for a spell is the most difficult part for you, my dear. I have no doubt you know every theory surrounding life energy drain. Yet knowing and doing are slightly different things, and it is easy to see your confidence is much as mine was when trying to reach this desert with the graveyard mists spell. Now I want to see if you are weaving the spell right. See if you can drain energy from me," Thane said. Rapina went through the semantics and intoned the arcane syllables for the life-drain spell, then placed her hand on Thane's. Thane frowned, "It has to be something internal to your mind. Your gestures and words are flawless. Let us try some variations from a more difficult drain spell. I recently traded a copy of one of Nordula's spells for it. This one is stronger and allows the drain to be done at range. I do not expect you to be able to cast it, but I will incorporate some refinements from it that I think might be a bit lacking in the simpler spell." Hours passed. Rapina could not remember when she had ever received this much personal attention from her master. He was with her for seven hours straight with a working lunch break. He made her try variation after variation, and kept adjusting them each time she attempted one of them a few times. "I do not think you have it quite right, but I was getting something there, try again. Try to do it with confidence. You are well versed at moving life force, think of how you do it naturally. It is something internal that is lacking in your performance. Somehow you must get the hang of this," Thane said. Rapina tried the new variation once again. This time she tried to incorporate the feel from what she did when she pulled extra energy from a man's climax. As she said the magic words, she was all concentration, and when she finished the last word of the spell she clenched the muscles within her vagina and grasped Thane's hand. Thane's eyebrows shot up and staid there. His eyes opened in surprise as he grunted involuntarily. Then after a moment he began to chuckle. The chuckle became laughter. "Rapina frowned. Darn! I thought I had something there." "I believe you did, my dear. It was not quite what I had expected but you got some results. Thane jotted some quick notes on the most recent variation that he had, had Rapina try. "You must write down exactly what you did for your future reference. I believe we are on to something here. I must fetch Rames. Thane practically ran out of the room. He returned a few minutes later with Rames." Rapina finished her notes, "Okay, should I try it again?" "Indeed, this time try it on Rames," Thane said. Rapina summoned her concentration and tried to do exactly as she had done with Thane only more so. Thane had told her she was on to something, so she must be. Rames eyes bulged as Rapina grabbed his hand. He half doubled over, twitched and grunted a bit, and then he started laughing madly. "Rames! What is with you two, I am trying really hard here, and I am positive I got something on that one." Thane looked at Rames. Rames looked at Thane, and the two of them began laughing uncontrollably once again. Rapina huffed. "Well I'd sure as hell rather get drained by her than you Guardian," Rames vibrated. "But mine are so much more tidy," Thane fell into a chair. He could hardly speak; he was laughing so hard. Rapina put her hands on her hips and glared at the two men. It took quite some time for the men to recompose themselves. "Rapina, you are a caster. Congratulations! This is likely the biggest breakthrough of your life," Thane said. Confusion was written all over Rapina's face. "But what is so funny?" The two men were unable to reply as gales of laughter overtook them. Finally Thane managed to get a few words out, "The drain went well, but you seem to be on a different wavelength than me." "I'll say," Rames chuckled. "Tell her," Thane said. "Well you see, when you drain," The rest of Rames statement was drowned in a flood of laughter. Thane laughed, "I believe we are crippled with humor. Go do it on Uler, but pull his loin cloth off first." "Rapina shook her head and frowned, "Oh all right." She left the room and went to the lab where they kept the troll shaman. She had him in front of one of the windows, though she doubted he could really see much. At least he could smell the air. "Hello Uler," Rapina said in trollish as she smoothed back the hair-like growth on his head. She carefully avoided the red cord within his 'hair' that would set off a deadly glyph inside the troll's skull if pulled, and the blue one that Thane had more recently installed that would cause a stun effect. She knew they would require a good tug to activate, but she was careful just the same. "I need to try a spell I've been working on. It won't hurt much." Rapina pulled off the troll's loincloth and briefly admired his large, mottled green balls. "You have spell? Uhler not know you cast." "It's my first ever. It's supposed to be an energy drain, but Kroz and Karmoz kept laughing at me after I did it. I guess something went somewhat amiss, but Kroz said it was a success of sorts." "You try, Uler figure out what wrong." "Okay, thanks. Rapina summoned up her concentration and did the spell her third time. "Shoot, I messed up the changes. Let me try again." Rapina cast again, this time she saw Uhler's eyes bulge much as Rames' had, but instead of grunting, he gasped and began a howl like the howls he loosed when... Rapina looked down at the troll shaman's crotch. "Oh my goodness!" Rapina put her hand to her mouth as Uler squirted jets of cum all over the front of her bustier. Uler panted, "Uler like Rapina drain better. Kroz drain hurt. Rapina drain feel gud." "Oh, that's what he meant by me being on a different wavelength," Rapina said. Thane walked in wearing his death mask. He looked at the cum splattered over Rapina's midriff. "I see you have been successful a third time," Thane's rasping laugh filled the air. "You get gud at drain, you do with hands, you do with mouth, you be sex shamaness." "Uler has a point, my dear, until now you could only absorb energy with, as Jack put it, your magic snatch. Perfect this spell and you will be much more flexible. If a man fears to bed you, but will allow you to suck him, you can still obtain his power." "But how am I going to do the verbal components with my mouth full?" Rapina asked. Thane chuckled, "Theoretically, a spell can be done in a great variety of languages, and in nonsense syllables. The sound shapes the magic. It should be possible for you to shape this spell using trollish words, or the language of oral sex, such sounds as suckles, gurgles, moans, smacks and chokes. It will simply be more challenging, but once you get the hang of the spell as it is formally cast, you could come up with variations. The semantic components could be a pattern of caresses. In fact, this would be a perfect way to exercise your theoretical grasp of magic. I shall be doing research along similar lines with a new spell I bartered for called shadow shift. Therefore we will be able to compare notes. Once I master the spell, I want to try to come up with a one-handed version. I believe it will be the perfect escape spell. It is much faster than graveyard mists. I am afraid that if Avengenes or orcs pursue us, graveyard mists will be far too slow unless we can buy at least ten minutes, but shadow shift is quite a different matter. This invention of new analogs for verbal or semantic components of an existing spell is an extremely minor form of spell research. Let us make this a formal assignment. Do this spell frequently and see if you can come up with variations. We must build on this and rapidly. Once you have fully grasped draining we must work on the reverse, the bestowal of energy." Late during the summer as he moved his necromantic labs to the new abode, Thane had removed everything of magical note from Gravestone isle, locked the secret laboratory wing from within, and officially resigned his post on the isle. According to current church records, he had gone into a life of seclusion and devotion, and in a way, he had. Periodically he collected his investment income from the temple of Mortaebius in Rosehaven, but that was about as much as the priests of Mortaebius saw of him. After completing the potion setups, Rapina had worked on many things, including helping prepare the bodies for a new animation that Thane was researching. Thane called his new animation the improved skeleton. He had a very large number of rotting bodies from Red Jack and from the sites of destroyed forts in Avengene that he and his servitors had visited when he or Rames knew of a nearby graveyard. Rapina had kept the scarab pits constantly busy removing the flesh from the bones of the accumulated dead. After they were cleaned she would bag and tag each skeleton for future use. Thane had developed a new resin. It was not as magical as the resins he created in his font for true advanced animations. Two thirds of the new resin was made from ingredients that could be purchased on the open market, and all but three percent of the remainder could be produced in a font by a relatively low-level priest like Rames. Improved skeletons incorporated Thane's double animation techniques and could retain larger sets of instructions even than mundane double-animated skeletons. The resin-soaked bones of improved skeletons were very durable compared to those of a mundane skeleton. Blunt weapons would not shatter them as they could shatter normal skeletons. A sword was a better weapon against them than a bludgeon, and they were very resistant to missile fire. They did not have the ability to speak or reason as did the true advanced animations. However, as cannon fodder or servants, they were superior even to mundane double animated skeletons. They took more time to animate, but Thane believed that it was important that the rank and file skeleton in his army be stronger if he was to face the forces of Avengene. Over the winter, Thane had spent most of the time he was not creating improved or advanced animations working on his skrying techniques, and learning a few new spells. He now had a mirror as well as his pool. The pool was more the tool of a cleric, whereas mirrors and crystal balls were the province of mages. Periodically he took Rames, Rapina and a few skeletons on trips so that they could journey to new areas and consecrate graveyards for later use with the graveyard mists spell. Rapina studied the principles of spell research, but she found that the troll shaman's suggestions were often just as valuable as those from the best treatises on the tailoring of spells. Trolls were not brilliant, and although Uler was extremely intelligent for a troll, he was only fairly intelligent by human standards. He was however a troll of extreme, cunning, creativity and common sense. He had distilled magic down to something a troll could understand, and his understanding was perfect for a beginner like Rapina. With Uhler's knowledge and the knowledge that came to her from books, Rapina began painstakingly to attempt variations of the spell. Her first success was to vary the part of her body she used to do the drain with. At first she used her hands, and then her foot. After that, she slowly added the ability to pull the energy in through other parts of her body, working intensively before she got each to work, and then practicing in order to attain consistent success. She drained using her tongue, her breasts and her rectum. There was a pattern. The energy flowed down to her vagina and then surged up to her breasts as if she were simply pulling the energy into herself using the spell, and then absorbing and storing it using her regular channels. After she got the hang of it, she found those areas of her body rich in nerves, especially those closest to her vagina, were easiest. Once she was adept at draining with the various parts of her body, she attempted to use caresses to shape the spell rather than the usual motions of her hands. It was not easy, but eventually she was successful. Once she got the hang of it, she rather liked the effect. When using caresses and an odd part of her body, her success was spotty, but she knew that with enough practice, one day the spell would become second nature. The last thing she tried was to change the language component. This proved very difficult. Eventually, because Uler was very motivated to help, she was able to get a trollish version to work, and then an open- mouthed moaning version, but she found it difficult to combine these with the caressing hand movements. Occasionally she managed to drain through moan and caress. She was able to moan, lick and caress, then swallow a man as the drain kicked in, but she was not able to come up with verbal components that would work with her mouth full. Perhaps the greatest epiphany she got during her studies of spell modification, was the realization that most of her drain spell forcibly pulled the power out of her victim. The physical manifestation of this was that he developed a very rapid erection and then he came. Yet, only a small bit of the spell was needed to transfer the power, once released, to her hungry vagina. It was this transfer that she had stumbled on while trying to incorporate some of the casting variations Thane had given her from the ranged version of his drain spell. Moreover, this transfer made it possible for her to get the energy drained into her reserves. This knowledge led her to create a tiny little spell and many variations that would transfer energy to her vagina from some other part of her body when a man naturally released it through orgasm. The trick was she had to time it so that the spell would go off as he was coming, but she could feel a man's lust, so this was not so difficult as it might have seemed. She felt that this simpler enchantment might be possible to do with her mouth full, and began to work on it. It seemed half of what Thane talked about in his daily magic lessons had something to do with energy drain, transmission and bestowal. Thane even spent extra time with Rapina trying to get her knowledge in this area beyond the norm. If a lesson's topic was not energy drain, it was usually something about mage-sight and the detection and analysis of magic. As winter turned to spring, Rapina learned why. "The orc tribe with the giants suffered a serious defeat in attacking a large fort three days ago," Thane said. "As I had suspected, Avengene will always stoop to breaking his own rules if his power is threatened. He despises the orcs for their intermittent use of poison and more rarely of shamanistic magic. Nevertheless, the loss of so many forts has led him to hire himself a mage. He also used poisoned ballista bolts from engines hidden within fortress towers in an attempt to wipe out the giants before they attack his remaining forts. The mage is none other than Nordula. It appears he has managed to retain the ability to teleport. He carried a cadre of Avengene's best priests of the vindicator to the fort in question not long after it came under attack. The priests used their magic on the giants, as did Nordula. Avengene has struck a great blow by killing many giants. Thankfully, the giants and the orcs who hired them are now possessed of considerable wealth. The orcs have seen to it that the giants have armor and shields, yet the wounds Avengene's special forces have inflicted on the giants have made them more timid, and more likely to rest for long periods between forays. I fear that the number of giants remaining is insufficient to destroy many of Avengene's larger remaining fortresses. It appears that their hatred of Red Jack has brought Lord Avengene and Lord Li'Yeiraun together. We have seen stone masons and labor crews imported up the river from Yeiraun arriving in Avengene to repair forts. I suspect that some of the magic books Avengene has confiscated from his citizens who are not allowed the practice of magic, have wound up in Nordula's hands rather than in the usual bon fires. This is a dangerous development since Li'Yieraun is Avengene's neighbor to the south." "Lord Li'Yieraun controls a county that is made up of his wife Cynid's barony of Liaern and his own barony of Yieraun. Cynid is a half elf who is directly related to the elven monarchs of the forest East of Liaern. Sometime in the past, the human warlord of Liaern settled his differences with the elves by marrying an elven princess. Their child, upon her father's death, was to become the ruler of a part of the elven forest as well as the human lands North of the Eastern Augustana river. Cynid was that child. You can see why Lord Li'Yiraun did not break off his marriage to Cynid even though he probably knows by now that his daughter was really the daughter of Red Jack. Now that he is making an alliance with Avengene, Cynid's barony becomes all the more important. It is all that separates Avengene from Yieraun." "Ew, I feel sorry for Cynid. If Lord Li'Yieraun swallows the faith of the vindicator, or even just throws in with them, Cynid will be caught between them," Rapina said. Indeed, but Cynid, like so many others will likely be fooled by Avengene's mask of goodness. He is, after all, a war hero who protects Clairmont from the orc threat. Why, the king himself holds Avengene in high esteem. It is true that Avengene does not have the best record in regard to keeping his people from cutting the trees of the elven forest, but the elves will not realize they are in a vice until far too late. After all, the elves are enemies of the orcs, and Avengene keeps the orcs at bay for them. The elves will not realize that Avengene will have no compunction about expanding right over them until it is too late, but he is not likely to expand over the elves until it becomes convenient to do so. As long as there are orcs, he still needs the elves to back him up, especially with so many of his forts destroyed last summer. For that reason, I expect him to remain tight with the elves. --- [Rapina]043 Shadowland Winter passed rapidly, and Thane's hopes were realized when Avengene could not spare the troops to prey on the temples of Mortaebius during the winter. Beyond consolidating power within his own territory, Avengene had his hands full trying to guard and rebuild his demolished forts, a task that could not easily be done in the winter because of the characteristics of mortar in cold weather. The seasons on the desert mountain top ranged from almost cool, to quite warm, though not nearly so unbearably hot as was the case far below in the desert proper. In early spring, the abode was still quite comfortable, and during one particular night, Thane took his servitors down to the base of the mountain to the valley of the ghouls. With him he took Elizabetta and a sizable force of reaving and double-animated skeletons. Oddly, two of Thane's best reavers were unarmed and unarmored. The temperature in the desert warred between a cool wind and a sand-strewn pave that still gave off waves of warmth. Moonlight illuminated the valley. "I brought you down here to familiarize you with the plain of shadow. Ordinarily I would have done it in the outdoor area of the abode, but now that we have the new wards, plain-shifting of any kind is difficult and requires the use of the ward keys. These are complex magical methods for entering our particular wards. I have grown adept at using the keys while casting graveyard mists, but I am new at plain-shifting. I cast graveyard mists so many times during the building of the abode that I can practically cast it in my sleep. Thus adding the ward-key operation into the spell was not so difficult. Outside the wards, Elizabetta and I have been working on this plain shift off and on so that it is now reliable, and I have already started on a one handed version. As you see I am wearing a black hooded cape in addition to my black robes. Although it is uncomfortably warm to wear it here, it has utility when there is not a border between a deep shadow and a brighter one. With the cape I can cast a large shadow and create a borderland." Thane handed Elizabetta a dagger and Rames an ancient sword. "It is possible to take objects with you, but they must be within six inches to one foot of your person. Skeletons have even less latitude, for they lack a living aura. Thus I have brought the two unarmed and unarmored reavers, and Elizabetta. "The sword and dagger I just handed out are enchanted weapons bought at great expense. It took me quite sometime to locate affordable weapons that would suffice. In order for a blade to function as a blade where we are going, it must be either highly magical, or less strongly magical with an alloy to which shadow essence has been added. When I replaced my singing bones after narrowly defeating Uler, I bartered some advanced animations to a colleague so that my new bones could sport enchanted spike blades containing shadow essence." "We are about to enter the plain of shadow. Rames, you will be the first in. It is your job to establish a beachhead. The plain is mostly deserted, but there are some rather dangerous shades and other monsters that live there. Undead shadows are fairly common in the plain of shadow but we can command them using the power of Mortaebius as always. The last semantic gesture of this spell is something on the order of a mimed push. When you see this gesture, Thane demonstrated, you must take a step backward. Now stand right here, Rames. You see that the hill behind you casts a deep shadow in the moonlight and that this is the line it draws," Thane pointed. "I want you standing just inside the moonlight so that one step backwards will put you fully in the deeper shadow. Good. Draw your blade now and take a step back as I complete the spell. As others join Rames you shall grab hold of him, and Rames, as the skeletons arrive you will need to order them to grab hold of you." Rapina watched Thane's casting with interest. She wondered if she would ever seem so competent. She smiled, at least she now knew she could cast. After her first successful spell, she had taken to hunting up and copying down any sort of minor cantrip she could find in the library, or beg from Thane when she was not trying to figure out variations of her life-drain spell. She failed miserably at many of the minor magics in her growing collection, but she could actually do some, and she knew it would only be a matter of time before more of them fell before the onslaught of her learning. Startled out of her reverie, Rapina opened her mouth as Thane completed his spell and Rames stepped back and disappeared. "Elizabetta, prepare yourself as did Rames. You will be next. Naked reavers stand here and here. When I cast the spell on you, you will step back with the last gesture as you see Elizabetta will soon be doing," Thane said. The spell took perhaps fifteen seconds to cast, but had to be cast on each person separately. Soon both the reavers had disappeared and Rapina had taken up a position just in front of the border of shadow. "Good, you will allow the others to protect you, my dear," Thane said. "Your unarmed combat techniques will be usable in an emergency, but I have not yet been able to locate an appropriate magical weapon for you to use." As Thane finished the last gesture, Rapina stepped backward. She felt different, yet she could still see Thane standing in the light. Rapina heard an oddly muffled, insubstantial voice. "Welcome to the realm of shadow, Rapina," Rames said. Rapina could see the real world fine, but her compatriots within the plain of shadow were indistinct like phantoms. She reached and found Rames left wrist. Had he been more than a yard from her, she would never have found him. He seemed more like a field of energy than a solid person. Perhaps she was wrong, but it felt almost as though, if she squeezed hard enough, her fingers would pass through his wrist. Before she was fully oriented, She saw Thane disappear from the real world and appear as a shadow next to her. "Good, now I will cast a spell of telekinesis in case I need to grab one of you on short notice." Thane's voiced droned a bit as he cast. "In the realm of shadow, you are little more than a phantom. Thane cast a spell on Rames that caused him to glow with blue light. The main problem with the plain of shadow is visibility. We can see the real world quite well, but we cannot normally see each other well, and those in the real world cannot see us save in the best lighting conditions. You see I am walking around you, but I am nothing more than a shadow. In truth I move because I am so used to associating movement with the action of walking that my belief propels me. Here it is the power of your mind that gives you motive force. This is a great blessing for traversing long distances because a shadow can move at far greater speeds than a corporeal man. There are dangers, however. For the purposes of this training exercise I have cast a minor blue light spell on Rames so you can see him at a greater distance, but this also would make him visible to corporeal people. Some magical weapons could hit him; strong light spells cast against him would wound him and make him plainly visible. A spell or item that cancels magic, if properly targeted, would displace him back to the material plain, and mind influencing spells would have their full effect on him. I will cast blue light on each of us so that we can safely practice movement. Normally I would be a fool to cast light on anyone. My vision in darkness spell would work for locating living people, but would be of little help for seeing our undead servitors. Monsters from the plain of shadow tend to attack illuminated individuals in preference to others, and those on the material plain can see and attack an illuminated shadow-walker. Thane cast blue light on all of his servitors in turn, and then on himself. "Now you will be able to see one another for some distance. Most skeletons can only use their normal walking and running modes of movement here. Advanced animations seem to have enough will to speed these somewhat. Being a creature of shadow, however, the skeletal assassin can travel in this plain as fast as many human beings. Here it does not matter how physically fit you are. The power of your mind determines your speed, thus an ancient wizened mage with a powerful mind can run circles around a young, athletic warrior. The purpose of our exercise tonight will be to familiarize you with movement in the plain of shadow. For now you shall stay within this valley. Elizabetta, the reavers and I will stand in the middle of the valley. Rapina, Rames, you will stay in the valley and you will run around us perfecting your ability to move. Before you begin let me caution you, avoid entering solid objects. You will find some objects more difficult to enter than others. The more holes and porosity in an object, the easier it will be to seep into it. Within an object you can see nothing, and your sense of direction can easily become confused. If you stop within an object you could drift down into the ground where it is difficult to determine the force of gravity and you may seep down into the dirt and entomb yourself." "There is only one time you should ever enter an object, and that time is when you are trapped in the shadow plain at dawn. Direct sunlight will burn you up. It is quite deadly. If you are caught in the plain of shadow your ideal location is within as shaded an area as possible, and within an object that stands alone so that the danger of you heading into the ground is minimized. In underground catacombs you can stay in shadowy rooms and such. This is the ideal, for you will not be likely to drift into the ground and loose your bearings." "Now you must practice movement. I have read several conflicting recommendations. Some practitioners recommend that you not allow human beings to use walking or running since it will hamper them in attaining maximum speeds. Others recommend that warriors run and mages glide. I will let you experiment as you see fit, however I have found that I can move much faster without moving my feet. Will is the thing here, clomping and stomping are unnecessary distractions." Rapina tried simply willing herself into motion, but she didn't budge. Next she tried running. It worked but it was not much faster than it would have been had she been in material form. Rames seemed to be having similar problems. Rapina smiled. She remembered sliding around on the frozen lake in the valley of the dead on Graveston isle. Perhaps that was just the transition she needed. She ran over a small rise of sand and then just made as though she were going to slide. Her strategy worked; she slid for quite a distance, much farther than she would have been able to slide on the sandy pave of the desert valley had she been a material being. After that she managed to extend her slide into a very long glide. Rames seemed to be trying to run and jump. Perhaps he thought he should think like a bird. Whatever he was doing didn't seem to be working for him. Rames did have a point, however; Rapina was thinking of the ground as solid, and her body as heavy. It was two-dimensional thought. She knew she would need to amend her thinking, but for the first hour she practiced gliding. She went from a slide, to a long slippery glide to what she thought of as a power glide. It was a never-ending glide like a skier on an infinite slope. After a bit of practice she could 'ski' uphill as well as down. Thane chuckled, Rames was running and jumping gradually longer distances, and Rapina seemed to be skiing. Her ghostly giggles filled the air as she became more and more adept. Thane had long known his apprentice had an exceptional mind, but now he had the opportunity to see a more concrete measure of its power. As the young woman gained skill, she gained speed and soon she was little more than a laughing blue streak, traversing the length of the valley in an eyeblink, banking off the valley walls and zipping around the rim, like a metal ball shot from a miniature ballistae rolling around in an irregular bowl. After she was confident doing her high speed sliding technique, Rapina decided she would try passing through some objects. Thane's material armored skeletons were the perfect subjects. At first she kind of hugged them to no avail. Thane raised an eyebrow as Rapina attempted to occupy the same space as one of his corporeal guards. Metals were difficult to seep through, but armor often had many holes in it and it was thin, so given time she might manage it. Once inside she might be able to see out, which was good because it would keep her from becoming disoriented. Gravity had an infinitesimal effect on shadows, but it was a subtle thing like the effect of gravity on a wisp of down, and being inside an object tended to make it less obvious. After a while Rapina learned to adjust her thinking so that she could seep slowly into a solid object. She decided that she would not practice it too much, because then she might sink through the earth and her sliding technique would be lost to her. That would be a horrible thing since power sliding was more fun than skiing and skating put together. After she was confident she could enter solid objects if there was a need for it, Rapina decided she needed to try to learn to fly. Rames was already making some amazingly long jumps, and Rapina saw the utility of having that ability. After all, what if she was gliding along and came to a cliff? The lesson ended sometime after Rapina had mastered what she called power-jumping. Rames had settled on a technique Rapina called giant-stepping. It was half running, half flying and worked pretty well for the warrior-priest. When they were finished with their practice, Thane gathered them together. The cancellation of the spell took Thane only a second. Each person treated with the cancellation faded back into material being in a second or two. The story continues in [Rapina]044 The Best Laid Plans copyright 2001, by Rapina