Chương 104: Chapter 92 - Ensnared

++If there is one drawback to being a viciously abusive tyrant, it is that it tends to inspire rebellion in one's underlings. It is fun, though. ++ - From the writings of Isabel Vornholt, 'The Great Lich'. 1, 891 A. E. Nesariyah stayed and talked to the rebels until they moved off, and then she remained outside the building for a while, putting her mana out in waves to let them know she was still on guard. Anything to deter them, anything to keep them away from the precious insides.

Once she was confident they were out of sight—and out of sensing range—she stifled her power, following one last launch back onto the balcony, and rushed to check the laboratory. Safe. No damage, no interference, no disturbance at all. She spent the next hour scraping every inch of the place just to make double-sure, knowing how tricky casters could get and how pivotal information warfare was to their order. But it seemed they really had just come to talk to her.

That actually deflated her, and she spent the next hour laying down across a sofa, nursing a sudden headache, regretting her stupid decision to jump out of the building and keep the research from being found, and going over all she'd been told. Nesariyah had started to like Vornholt, she'd thought. But she'd thought that when Vornholt was all she had. When Vornholt was as good as it got.

Nesariyah had thought that when her choices consisted of Vornholt, and ideologically-motivated idiots who were more violent than Vornholt and whose ends were the same as Vornholt's means. Now she had a third choice, and that third choice was making the others look worse by the moment. What in the world had she been thinking, working with that girl? Nesariyah had been moping about betraying her people, but it didn't sink into her just how deep that betrayal was until now.

And that was what finally let Nesariyah realise how weak she was. The fact that she'd done nothing, when doing something was hard, and took all of an hour to fully flip herself around when the opportunity made itself known. She left the quarters with a deep, sinking sensation in her gut. It came from several sources. If someone was suspicious of Vornholt, now would be their chance to search her rooms and find the laboratory.

That, though, was only Nesariyah's second greatest concern, what with the danger she was heading towards. The traps gave some level of security in the rooms, at least. Nesariyah had nothing. She had a location, and she'd memorised it. She could turn it over to the invaders. Nesariyah didn't even consider it. Funny how well a coward could keep secrets when they had a powerful fighting force at their back. She made her way through Orapathaqi's streets fast, moving straight for the spot she'd been told to.

It didn't take her long to reach it. And it took even less time for the rebels to reach her. They appeared around her on rooftops, peering down with magic hidden and bodies out in the open. One of them dropped to land before her, cushioning himself with mana, meeting her gaze. There was no chatting this time, they just gestured for her to follow and Nesariyah did. So she couldn't have turned the location over, anyway.

She'd been given a meeting point far from their base—really far, she realised after the first thirty minutes of walking—and removed from anything important. That much made sense of course. These rebels wouldn't have lasted long if they hadn't been good at keeping a damned secret. Ten more minutes and they reached what Nesariyah could only assume was the real meeting spot, and her escorts finally spoke as they neared it.

"No sudden moves," the leader of the group said.

"Don't call on your mana. If you're found to be manipulating magic, we'll assume it's a signal to give away the location and kill you on the spot." He said it so casually that Nesariyah barely even registered the words at once. By the time she'd felt the cold rush of fear running through her, they were inside. Entering through a service tunnel down into, she realised, the city's crypts. People didn't go down there, it just wasn't done.

The crypts ran under all of Orapathaqi, and in their three dimensionality they were actually larger than the city itself. They had to be, because the crypts stored Orapathaqi's preserved dead, and their population expanded with every generation. Only the rich or powerful could afford a true preservation ritual, but even the lowliest beggar was given some means of care in their death. More care in death than they were in life, for many. But that was as it should be. A life was temporary, fleeting even.

A death was for eternity. The spirits of those entombed here would feel every torment of decay and ruination that came to their mortal flesh, and the spiritual agony would not take long to become spiritual corruption. So the crypt had been built, long ago and by ancient genius and generational dedication. It still stood. The air within it practically reeked of magic, and Nesariyaj was pleased to note that it remained undisturbed. Precious few knew how to enter such a sacred place, even among the priesthood.

She herself had not yet been taught, though she had ventured into it accompanying her father. And she had been told never to go in without a High Priest to accompany her. Everyone was. It was known that the creatures of the crypt, the custodians, responded to any threat against their charges with savage aggression. Beasts of ancient magic and power, any one of them could tear apart most warriors. A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

There had been one incident just a few years ago when, somehow, a twenty-foot crocodile from the Varnil had slipped its way into the crypts. It was discovered only when its severed head was found resting near the door. The remainder of its body was distributed across about a thousand square feet of chamber. Not a single corpse had been disturbed. So Nesariyah was vividly aware of just how dangerous the space she'd been led into was, and more than a little surprised to find the people deeper inside it unmolested.

Her surprises didn't end there. When she finally came to what must have been the leader, it was a damned girl. A child no older than Vornholt. She even had a similar expression, pure, unadulterated irritation, shot out without the slightest aim into the world around her like every molecule of existence was just as annoying.

"You answered my summons," she noted.

"Good. That was a wise decision on your part." Nesariyah saw a man bristle beside the girl as she said that. Tall, he had clearly local features, just as the girl herself did, though didn't seem to be any more at ease with her than Nesariyah herself.

"I didn't have much choice, did I?" Nesariyah asked.

"Even putting aside the fact that you sent men with knives to bully me into it, you're offering actual freedom from the invaders. That beats out just about any other offer I might receive." The girl's lip curled.

"Keep your goals and intentions closer to your heart, instead of sharing them," she suggested.

"You'll do yourself no favors by walking around with a mind like an open wound." Nesariyah stiffened at that too. This one had a manner of speaking she'd heard before, or more specifically heard from a face as young as hers before. She hadn't liked it from Vornholt, and she didn't like it from this one. But, on the other hand, the angry, armed men around them didn't answer to Nesariyah.

"I am Sethira," the girl added.

"And I am the new leader of the resistance."

"New leader?" Nesariyah asked.

"What happened to the old one?" Sethira smiled.

"Evisceration." The expression was as cold as a corpse's lips. Then it shifted instantly, before Nesariyah could let it sink in, as the girl's face moved down to her finger.

"That ring," Sethira added.

"Let me see it." Obviously, Nesariyah was reluctant to let her see something as vital as her only shield charm. She held her hand behind her on reflex.

"I…would rather not." Sethira sighed, like she was dealing with a petulant child.

"It's a shielding enchantment, I can tell that much. But that's not all it does. Let me see it now. Believe me, I can already perceive how weak it is from here. If I wanted to do you harm, you'd be as well served by an extra tunic as you are by protection that flimsy." She let her magic leak out, just for a moment. That single moment was enough to let Nesariyah know the girl wasn't bluffing. Still reluctantly, and now a lot more fearful, she slipped the ring off, took a step forwards and held it out for study.

In Sethira's hands, it seemed somehow smaller.

"This is very good work," the girl noted as she turned it over and felt out its power.

"You didn't make it, who did?" Nesariyah took a moment before replying.

"Isabel Vornholt." Sethira didn't seem surprised.

"I guessed as much. Very good work. Weak, though."

"She…said it was a rush job."

"How rushed?" Nesariyah thought back, frowning.

"Uh…eight hours or so?" Sethira's lips thinned.

"Not rushed enough to explain this, not at all. The odd thing, you know, is there's more power coming off this ring than its shield enchantment alone explains. She certainly had time to imbue it with plenty of magic. It just isn't in the shielding effect." Nesariyah wasn't sure what the woman was getting at, but she snatched her ring back eagerly when it was offered.

"Do you know what I think?" Sethira asked her.

"I don't."

"I think that you're carrying around a tracking device, made to give away your location to Vornholt and let her find you anywhere, with more of its power spent on hiding this enchantment, and the remnants put into a shielding effect that will keep others from identifying the device's true function."

"No!" Nesariyah cried.

"That's impossible, she…" Nesariyah had been about to say that Vornholt wouldn't do that sort of thing, but she realised how ridiculous a claim that was before it could even leave her mouth.

"Fuck!" Nesariyah glared down at the ring, then threw it hard into the ground and prepared to stomp on it.

"Stop," Sethira cut in. Nesariyah did, barely. The rage was hard to think through, hard to see through. To have what she'd taken as an act of concern perverted like this…

"This is an advantage," Sethira added.

"Vornholt does not know we know. That means, using this device, we can make her think your location is whatever we want."

"And how do you know it can't transfer sound!?" Nesariyah asked.

"That she's not listening in on this conversation right now?" Sethira shrugged.

"Call it a hunch. She's more powerful than me, slightly, right now, but not that powerful. And the pace my men set in bringing you here, it was fast, yes?" Nesariyah's legs throbbed at the thought.

"... Yes?"

"Fast enough to resemble people hurrying with a prisoner," Sethira continued. Nesariyah understood now.

"You want her to think I'm your captive?"

"I do. If nothing else, it will hide your betrayal. You are, I assume, betraying her after all?"

"No, I'm responding to her betrayal," Nesariyah snapped. Then thought about things more as her anger came under control.

"But you think she'll come running to save me?"

"That depends on how much you know and how useful you are to her." Nesariyah hesitated only a moment more, then explained everything. Sethira listened and nodded, then stopped her before she could move onto the particulars of their magic.

"That topic is too abstract, it will take time and practical demonstrations even for me to understand. There are better places to discuss it."

"You're acting like you know I'm going to go to those places," Nesariyah snapped.

"Like you know I'm agreeing to join you." Sethira smiled, then. It was the most chilling smile she'd ever seen.

"You can head back to Vornholt, if you want," she said.

"And explain the movement of your tracking device."