Chương 293: Meadwhite's Leverage

"Tell us where the dragon's scraps are," Septimus demanded. But unfortunately Emeritus Duke Meadwhite is not the sort of cunning, deathless, malevolent abomination that would give us what we needed just because we told him to.

"You won't find it without my help. The closer you get, the denser and the deadlier the traps will get," he bragged and snarled at the patriarch of the necromancer House.

"I can only use a quarter of my cloaking sigils on living flesh, and you cannot penetrate those, my last lair is more well-hidden than anything you've dreamed. And when I-""He's not exaggerating," I told the marquis.

"It really is that bad. But I don't think the hide is there." I've found and invaded Meadwhite's stronghold a dozen times, and I've never seen any weird scraps of golden-glowing flesh and scales covered in barbs and thorns and possessing a living warmth. It's the kind of thing that I'd have remembered, I'm sure. Ebonder's face snapped up to me, eyes dark and darting.

"You know where it is?!"

"His lair? Oh, yeah, it's outside the town of Johnpur," I said.

"About fifteen miles northeast across the badlands. But it is just as dangerous as he claims, and we won't be ready to walk inside of it for another couple of years. Also, I'm pretty sure it's not where he hid the thing you need."

"Why will we be able to in a couple years?" the Marquis asked me.

"I'll be stronger by then," I said.

"But for all-""Arrogance! Suicidal hubris," Meadwhite sneered.

"You'll never have the power to breach my lair." This man once invited me to explode him with the void just so he could see what it felt like. If someone like that tells you that your hubris is out of control, maybe that's one to listen to. But not today, not like this. I reached down and patted his head like I was calming a dog that wanted attention.

"Not now," I said to him." You dare!

"he roared." You would put your ha - mngfh." He didn't go all quiet and muffled at the end of his own free will. But I can conjure a variety of fabrics, and a fistful of cotton wadding sure did shut him up. Funny thing is, dead men don't have any spit, so the cotton stayed springy, fluffy, and sound-absorbent. A thin band of gauze held the batting in place and muffled him easily. It's a bit funny that the undead are so much easier to muzzle.

The look on the marquis's face when he saw me do that was absolutely priceless. I love being able to freak out powerful people just a little bit like that. And if that lich thought that I was inexcusably arrogant before I patted him like a dog and muted him, he was trying to light me on fire with his eyes right now.

"As I was saying," I continued, "For all that I have approximate knowledge of many things, there are some big important gaps in my awareness. For example, I'm still working out what this is all about. I'm missing something about this dragon issue." Marquis Ebonder folded his hands together.

"I am nothing if not a teacher!" he said. I have my doubts. I'm pretty sure he's a politician, administrator, scrivener, necromancer, spymaster, racketeering don, and several other things that have nothing to do with educating others. But sometimes the small glimpses we get into other people's self-image will surprise us.

"So, start with what you know. Tell me where you're starting from." I relaxed myself. If he wants to do a lecture, we'll do a lecture.

"So, on the far side of the Tumnassed Wall, there is... something." Something that lights the whole sky gold, something that fills the landscape. Something that they try to hold at bay by stacking twenty-ton blocks of stone into a wall hundreds of feet tall.

"Unlike the other Marches, where they secure a border against the hordes of wild monsters outside the kingdom, your wall is to hold exactly one creature at bay." One creature that outpowers all others. Meadwhite made some noises, trying to speak, I ignored him. I'm sure it wasn't anything productive to the conversation.

"It's probably not naturally occurring, not really," I said, taking a bit of a sidetrack. I'm like any student of history, I've got my personal theories.

"Its properties are too useful in specific ways. It is not likely that anyone stumbled across these substances by accident. Most likely, the ancient peoples created, designed, or altered it from whatever it was before, so that they could use it. And then they lost control of it. And now it's out there. And necromancers, especially liches, like to break out through the wall and carve pieces off of it, to use in their spells."

"An integral part of the process by which liches prepare their next vessel," the Marquis said.

"A certain concoction, brewed together and then boiled to a vapor to saturate the body. It has other properties too, related. Most of them relevant to the soul itself. The barbs and horns and claws of the dragon can be crafted to weapon that injure the soul itself. Rather a niche trick, since bodies are easier to cut and bleed. Why injure the soul when it's the hardest part of a person to kill?" Meadwhite glared back and forth at us.

This is probably a unique form of torture to him: we're chatting back and forth with our best guesses about a subject he had mastered entirely. Hearing someone be wrong, and unable to correct them, is definitely a form of hell. And I wish this and man other forms of torture onto him. Knowing that we're annoying him is more important than whatever useful information he might want to provide to us. He's not been very useful so far.

Odds are he just wants to tell us that we're stupid and then demand outrageous concessions for small bits of information.

"But some enterprising types, such as him," I said, indicating our captive, "have deduced that anything that can injure a soul should be able to affect a soul in more refined ways. And they have spent a long time figuring out the right combination of factors to get a soul out of the way without destroying it. Trapping the soul, inside the shell but separated from it. Hidden." A breadcrumb trail of XP notifications were appearing in my field of vision while we laid all this out.

After all, you can do all the investigation and deduction you want, the quest still has a cutscene that puts all the puzzle pieces together. Gotta play the part.

"But," I said, "That's only part of the deal. If this is all it is, we'd just get rid of him. But you were very, very clear about the fact that you want to retrieve his portion of the dragon's body. And that I don't get. You've got plenty of opportunities to cut away pieces if that's what you want." His face flashed so angry for a second that I was pretty sure that this was going to be how I die. Something I said was the opposite of what he wanted to hear. Noted: don't imply that he could cut pieces off the dragon.

He took a deep breath, found his inner calm, maybe he channeled the essence of capybaras too, and then he let himself answer.

"First of all, don't fucking joke about that," he said, with only incomplete calm.

"Second, I don't want it for myself. We need to return the thing. Your misinterpretation of the dragon's nature is fundamental. The role of the dragon smoke in crafting a lich-vessel is not to animate a body. Ordinary necromancy is quite good at making corpses walk and talk. The dragon's role in this magic is in the connectedness. Getting a soul to transfer to the next step instead of moving on like the dead are supposed to.

The dragon's magic is not the animation, it's the way the bodies are linked together, the old to the new. Without that, a lich would need to be right next to a new corpse to move their soul into it. The dragon's properties are not death-related, they're about cohesion and association. Even when the dragon's flesh has been cut away from it, they are still connected. Every piece of its body is still in contact, no matter how far away. So every scrap of its body that gets smuggled over the Wall is still part of it.

And it feels that. And it wants them back. And that is why it throws its coils at the Wall. That is why it tries to cross into our kingdom. It is looking for its stolen flesh, to mend itself back together. The same incalculable pressure that drove this asshole to drive his carriage until it broke and then sprint here like a madman- that is the pressure that forces the dragon to batter down the barricade. Every piece of it that we can return causes it to ease up.

If we ever return all of its missing pieces then the dragon will finally be at rest. My mandate as Marquis demands that I secure the border and pacify that dragon. And I can't do that with these asshole liches-" he paused to kick the door that Meadwhite was attached to, "keep stealing pieces for their damned ritual!"

"Ah," I said.

"I just thought the dragon was full of special death-magic, I did not really understand the role. I had pieces of the truth, that was all."

"And until we get that golden dragonhide back, we're not done with him," Septimus said, glaring down at the lich.

"So now I need to get the truth, and that's something that you can never force from a lich. Trickery is as much a part of them as death and power. And now it's going to waste my time, and give me false leads, and give me lies to try to trick me into sending my people into traps... dammit." I discorporated the cotton batting in Meadwhite's mouth, and the corpse cackled. A good evil cackle, that. Proper villain fare. Until I've got a cackle like that, I may be an [Antagonist] but never properly a [Villain].

The lich glared up at us.

"And that's my leverage. My only leverage. You poor fools, if I had even two cards to play, there might be room for negotiation. Instead, you've backed me so tightly into a corner that I can never give up my collateral. You'll keep me alive, and eventually I will manage to escape. All I ever needed was one chance, and you can never take that one chance away from me! Poor, deluded mortal fools!" He was certainly having fun playing his part. I turned to the Marquis, and shrugged.

"Well, if it's any consolation, every hour that he's not in contact with Belisa is a hellish agony for him. Shame that torture doesn't get useful information, or he'd be giving us everything we need." The marquis wrapped the lich's dried-out face in a pincher-like hand, fingertips digging into the temples, the forehead, his palm blocking out those mocking eyes.

"Dammit," he swore.

"If his soul was properly dead, then I'd just retrieve him and compel the answers. But if we destroy this body then he's just... gone wandering for a suitable vessel. Lost forever, but still undead. The parts of him that I need will never be fully dead. If I tried using dragonclaw weapons to injure and kill his soul, he'll just release the body and send himself wandering. Dead people can give me answers. But a lich- a twisted perversion of what death is and is not... It is infuriatingly just out of my reach."

Meadwhite taunted him further while I tried to put pieces together in my head. This was leading to something. I've been getting quest rewards. This is a trail, we've got progress. If this really was the end of the quest, it would give me a notification that I've failed that quest. But I don't have that. I've been led this far. There is another step. I just need to see it. I glanced over at the arch-necromancer and the undead duke. They were bickering now, antagonizing each other, but it was starting to wear thin.

Neither of them was going to push the other one to do something rash. They were waiting on me. This is a quest I have to win. I need to figure out the next step in Belisa's questline to- Oh right. This is not about dragons or liches or the marquis. This is all about Belisa, [The Broken]. About souls and soullessness. About Souls and Soullessness.

"Septimus?" I said.

"All you need to get your answers is a way to trap his soul and then destroy it utterly, right?"

"Pretty much," he said, planting his hands on his hips as he glared at the lich, stooping over.

"The more thoroughly the better."

"And you're gonna be happy when I tell you I know exactly how to do that?" Well now I had all the attention in this whole room planted directly on me, and I smiled broadly. I clasped my hands like a sweet little innocent, as the necromancer marquis looked at me with bafflement and hope, and the lich who we held prisoner glared with an undying outrage and indignation. He seemed offended that I had spoken up. Fuck it. We're taking out endgame bosses in Year Two.

After all, one thing the book had made absolutely clear, absolutely certain of. No question, no excuses: there cannot be two souls occupying the same body. And that's a rule I'm going to abuse.

"What do you need?" Septimus asked. Meadwhite got ready to yell something that was going to be far less conducive to productive conversation, so I shushed him again. He gummed on cotton while I answered the marquis.

"Well," I said.

"I need Belisa Roadaway, who is just on the other side of that door there, and I need a small knife." I held up my hand, and conjured up a small clean scalpel.

"Well, look at that," I said in mock-wonder.

"There's the knife I need!" Now Septimus would have been well within his rights to demand a full accounting and explanation instead of my pithy quips. But the man must respect a moment of drama, because he glanced over at one of the special-ops mana-warriors who have been so silent that I almost forgot to be perpetually unnerved in their presence, and he snapped his fingers. A really imperious gesture, not everyone can pull it off. When I try it just looks petulant. But he's got it and he flaunts it.

The mana warriors move to new postures, adjusting their sight-lines and footwork as one of their own fishes out a sigil-engraved key and does something that looks magical and complicated to it. The lock on Belisa's cell door opens itself, and she steps out. She should look ragged as hell after spending a full week in a cell the size of a telephone booth, taking food and water that is passed through a slot and... honestly, I don't know what else they have going on there.

I bet it's just as extravagantly magical as the kitchenette in this place. Anyway, she is not befouled and befilthed as I was expecting, she just stood there ready to shamble, just like I always see her. I held out my hand, and she lunged for it. I confess, I almost screamed. I've been seeing her moving with painful slowness for a year, and now suddenly she moves with motivated alacrity. Imagine the surprise of expecting a slow zombie and getting a fast zombie instead!

Both of her hands clasped around mine, gripping me fervently as if she was trying to wring my soul out of my flesh so she could take it for herself. And with that firm grip, I led her over to the trapped lich, bound to a plank of wood laying on the floor. I knelt over Meadwhite's struggling form, and Belisa came with me, her hands with mine. I laid our joined hands over his back, over his heart. We held that pose, while my free hand took the razor-sharp blade and cut a long slit in her skirt.

Her leg was revealed (scandalous!) from her knee down. I found the small scar at the back of her knee, The timing here was going to be important.

"On three," I said. But that was just for form's sake. Nobody would be acting but me.

"One," I said, and took a steadying breath. Time to risk everything.

"Two," I said, and our joined hands smashed downward. My hand was wrapped protectively over hers, and it was my knuckles that caved in Meadwhite's spine, and ribs, and the dried-out unbeating heart. And, holding my hand, she was wrist-deep in his corpse when the soul was forced free. His soul jarred loose of his ravaged shell, and her arm was overlapping the smokey essence of his very being. She drew him in like a tornado. And in that instant her face changed.

Someone that did not belong was riding her flesh and invading her mind. The muscles of her face moved to hold a personality that was not hers; expressions matching emotions she had never felt. Her eyes darted towards me, with that sudden start-stop that his eyes always did, that looked like it should audibly click into place.

"Three," I said, and stabbed the scalpel into her, following the scar, and the curious interruption of her vacant essence. The knife resisted at first, her skin was too durable. I put more strength into it, and plunged an inch into her leg, and then it caught and cut the dragon's barb, embedded in her leg. And the soul of Belisa Roadaway, trapped in an inch-long thorn of dragonhorn, burst out of her prison. When I ruptured the walls of that barb, she snapped back into place.

It was as instant as anything could be, a motion that defied mass and inertia. Souls have neither, they move by their own rules. And Belisa's soul, released inside of a shell that Meadwhite was forced into, had a dramatic response. When I implode space, all matter is compressed into a tiny space, subatomic, and then when I release it all that expands back at devastating speeds. I'm going to need some extremely powerful microscopes and testing equipment before I know exactly what my limits and output really are.

I have some really good napkin math, but that's not the same thing as having an accurate gauge for atomic reactions. I can say with conviction though, that the rate of a soul expanding out of captivity does not have even the theoretical limits that my void-bursts have to abide by. And the materials that I shred with my shockwaves cannot be rendered down to anything smaller than atoms. Meadwhite's soul, on the other hand, has no such limits.

The damage that she inflicted on him was orders of magnitude more thorough than anything I've done. The portion of me that can perceive souls watched as he was blasted more thoroughly than any destruction I've ever seen. If there was any conversion rate from soul energy to physical energy, that moment would have incinerated us all.

"Is he dead?" Marquis Ebonder asked.

"Oh yeah," I assured him. I am now the understatement champion of the world. And then a personality that I have not seen in a long, long time started to move within Belisa Roadaway's face, animating her eyes again.