Reawakening/Part Five
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Reawakening, Part Five
A whistling noise crept under the door, startling her into dropping her quill. She cursed herself in the Milantan tongue and pushed the parchment away. Her ordeal had left her shaken, old, and weak. These were not qualities that Nuhmudira prized. She reviled these qualities. Before her ritus, she had no inkling of fear; but something had gone horribly wrong and now as she sat alone in her sequestered cottage, away from the prying eyes of other Isparians, she began to recall the events that lead her to this.
The ritus was flawless. The casting was carefully prepared and the objects that she attained were of perfect quality. Nothing in her preparation was marred, nor was there error in the enactment. Her translation of the spell was complete, and the necessary magic was fulfilled. She had achieved the link with the creature's mind, she remembered that much. Yet, she also remembered the pain, the loss of control, and how the Olthoi Queen had shredded her psyche and pushed her into the recesses of her own mind. She shuddered.
She had nearly died. Wounds opened all over her body as the Isparians assailed the Ancient Queen. It was if she and the queen shared the same body and mind. Nuhmudira had nearly lost her fight. She recalled the feeling of the pressure on her heart and the shade that fell over her eyes. Blindness…followed by tightness in her chest, the seizing of her lungs, the feeling of piss running down her legs…Death. It hadn't left her, even now.
Every time she closed her eyes the carrion wail of the afterlife called to her. Something went horrifically wrong and nearly damned her. She had dismissed her apprentices, began to draft a charm that would drive the memories away, and found nearly a month missing from her life. But the month that had slipped through her fingers was the month she had studied the book, the time she had studied to remedy the ill feelings and tastes of hollow succor. She was still aware of the flavor of blood and the pungent smells that accompany one's demise.
She had waited a week before returning to the book. During that time she found herself crying or staring into the darkness with fear coating her heart. She found that light stung her eyes, she was cold, and even hot chocolate failed to warm her bones. Her appetite waned, and she became consumed with thoughts of dying.
She tried writing, but her tears stained the pages and smudged the ink. She tried singing but the chorus that joined her voice was dissident and fractured. She tried speaking but a shrill voice not her own strained across her vocal chords and pierced the air around her. Nothing helped. The books held the answers.
Nuhmudira drew a blanket over her shoulders and lit a single candle. The flame flickered and cast menacing shadows over her room. The wind caused the flame to wildly dance from side to side. She opened the book and failed to recognize the figure clad in white, sitting serenely across the room in a chair two sizes too small for him.
He watched as she read. A long, withered index finger slid along the ancient pages of the living tome. She lived still--remarkable. Others who had attempted what she had were reduced to incoherent states, babbling on or chittering in voices akin to the Olthoi. The madness deterred the wise members of Kellin's council, but there were many who were arrogant enough to believe they could sedate the Queen and reclaim the glory of the Cerulean Throne. Of course, he had not attempted such mania. He researched, studied and devised a way to trap one of her children, not fully grown or developed. The plan had worked well, but the link between the Olthoi was greater than he could have imagined. Their captive was consumed from within its own mind. The experiment was a failure.
Nuhmudira was consumed now, he could see it in the tentative way she approached the pages. Her hands trembled as she struggled to write notes onto a parchment she kept beside the book. She refused to mutter the words she was translating, and the room was silent. The sound of her breathing was nearly imperceptible. He drew his hand through his long beard and cleared his throat.
Nuhmudira leapt from her seat and instinctively called to the arcane forces about her. A cacophony of sound assaulted her ears as millions of voices, none her own, forced the words from her throat, but they were well formed and a wave of orange light spread from her hand, grew into a spear of crackling dark red energy, and launched itself at the old mage.
Asheron stared in amazement as she called higher magic into being. He reacted quickly and placed a shield of his own arcane knowledge to contain the energy she levied. Her intonation had been perfect but her eyes belied the truth, she heard something different than he. She collapsed to a knee and began to breathe heavily.
"Yes Nuhmudira, you failed. I still live. What's more I am aware that it was you that meant to bring about my death. I am certain you conspired to assassinate Elysa, but I am not one to pry into the minds of others, and you suffer even greater fits than I would have brought upon you."
He stood and walked to her side. She looked up at him, tears streamed from the corner of her eyes and her mouth hung agape.
"Do not look to me for aid. You have called this madness upon yourself. You traffic with knowledge that has been lost to this world. Not lost, buried beneath the weight of eternity. You cannot fathom what you have unearthed and what you have stirred." Nuhmudira grasped at his robes and made a pitiful sound.
"You turn to me now." He knelt to her side and placed a hand gently at the bottom of her chin. Her eyes met his, "The difference between you and Candeth Martine is that within Candeth, I saw qualities of a hero, qualities of a being that could be redeemed. Within you Nuhmudira, I see only hatred, malfeasance and megalomania. You remind me of an errant student that I did not wish to teach." As the words trailed off into silence he pulled his hand away from her chin.
Her sobbing ceased at once.
"I came to tell you, witch." His words were pointed. "I am leaving Dereth. But my eyes will be cast upon you wherever you may go. Elysa may be trusting of a viper in her house, but I would sooner cut its heart out then allow it to spread its venom."
The room flooded with a violet light, and then the whistling of the wind beneath the door returned. Nuhmudira began to laugh. At first she heard the cacophony, millions of shrill voices, then they retreated to a chorus of hundreds, and finally to just one, her own. Fear still plagued her mind, but there was cognizance. Asheron was ever the fool.