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