Chương 121: Chapter 107 - Good Timing

++If you live long enough, you will experience both good and bad luck. I actually started tallying instances of both after a while and found that there was a heavy skew in favour of positive fortune compared to negative. Is this evidence that I am destined for success by some unseen power that is higher than even the Gods? Perhaps. Alternatively, I am simply an optimist. ++ - From the writings of Isabel Vornholt, 'The Great Lich'. 1, 891 A. E. Aryqatan felt magic humming up ahead of her. Sort of.

One thing all Demigods learned, but none liked to mention, was the fact that they actually couldn't sense the arcane as well as human magicians could, with the exception of those spawn of Kinaki, the Goddess of magic. They couldn't learn human magic as well, couldn't use it as well. It was something they were just worse at than a variety of common man. Much worse at. That always stung divine egos in any field. Aryqatan fancied that she was somewhat inoculated against that sort of bitterness, though.

There had to be some advantages to existing as the outcast-spawn of a divine traitor, right? Maybe the advantage was that her name wouldn't be noted down as the leader of this expedition when records were kept. She still had no clue what the magic she'd sensed was, nor did Nu'chista, but she was suddenly glad to not be officially in charge of the city it emerged in. There must've been signs, surely. This kind of surge didn't come without signs. Whether there were or not, she decided, was somewhat immaterial now.

It had happened, was happening, and may happen again. Until they had more information, they were all firmly stuck on damage control. Aryqatan picked up the pace a little, moving as fast as her legs would take her. The stone here was almost magically hard, barely cracking as her heels slammed down onto it, and she flitted down along the corridor like she'd been fired out of a pistol. It felt like she was running through water.

In one moment, one rush of unfathomable power, she'd felt the confidence in her own power that always left her reassured shatter, and even now she was still reeling from it. Even now she could barely fathom what to do about it. Aryqatan really hoped she found something to do further down this corridor, she didn't know what in the world she'd do next if she didn't. Luck appeared to be on her side. As she reached the end of the tunnel, darkness was broken by… things.

Creatures, she thought at first, perhaps giant jackals, but drawing closer let Aryqatan see more clearly and recognise the animated beings for what they were. Beast-like golems of dark colouration and formidable power. There had to be dozens, and they were crowding around something. A shield. The magic was almost impossible to feel, like a candle set down in the heart of a volcano, but Aryqatan recognised it anyway. Isabel Vornholt's power had a terribly distinctive note that she'd not have missed anywhere.

And that power was now surrounded by hostile constructs bent on destroying its controller. With one stride Aryqatan was on the monsters, with one swing she was scattering them. They must have been heavy, probably dense stone all the way through, because their speed upon being launched wasn't that great at all. There were recognisable chunks left from some of them, and the one that missed both walls and ceilings flew a mere hundred paces before touching down on the floor.

Some of the monsters had missed her swing entirely, and they quickly rounded on Aryqatan. To her eyes they moved through molasses, like all other things, but a shade quicker than humans, and came close to landing a blow thanks to numbers and her own surprise. She twisted from the path of their fangs and swung again, leaving the hall silent as she finished her destruction. After that, there was only the aether shield they had been attacking left over. The aether shield, and the person beneath it.

Aryqatan watched it crumble to expose Isabel Vornholt lying on the stone, staring up at her with a mixed expression made of disbelief, awe and relief.

"You…are here," the girl croaked. Her voice sounded pained, and one glance was enough to show Aryqatan just why that was. The girl's leg seemed to have been snapped nearly in half, a jagged chunk of femur bone stabbing out through the skin. There was surprisingly little blood. That only made the wound look gnarlier, leaving it all too obvious what kind of ruination had befallen her.

"The necromancers," Aryqatan asked the girl.

"Where did they go?" Vornholt was always pale, and right now she was even paler than usual. The girl looked practically corpselike herself as she blinked and tried to formulate an answer. Eventually, naturally, she pointed down the corridor, the only direction that was left in this damned hall for anything to go without having passed Aryqatan on her approach.

"That way." Aryqatan swallowed her anger. She found herself hating this child for a moment, hating her weakness and fragility. Then she saw Vornholt's tears, and her hatred slipped away. Aryqatan reached down to scoop the girl up without fully meaning to. What had she been thinking? Of course she was scared and confused, she was a sixteen year-old with a shattered leg who'd just barely escaped re-capture by necromancers.

"You're safe now," she assured Vornholt.

"I'm here, and I won't let you be taken again." Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation. Vornholt buried her face into Aryqatan's shoulder, unfortunately making it impossible to see her expression. The girl didn't say anything, just stayed there while Aryqatan awkwardly held her. The proper social protocols were certainly not being followed right now, reduced to more of an abstract ideal than a solid set of rules.

She could easily have insisted on them, but holding the child as she was, the very thought of that seemed… monstrous. Still, Aryqatan needed to continue her work. She weighed leaving Vornholt where she was and taking off to pursue the enemy once more, but she could already see there were turns at the end of the corridor, and Vornholt had given her no indication of which one the necromancers took. Aryqatan would enjoy maybe fifty-fifty odds of taking the right one now.

If there were only two more turns further down the path, her chances of remaining right would drop to almost ten percent. And the mana around her was still too strong to follow the enemy by feeling.

"I…am calm now," Vornholt said abruptly. She leaned back from Aryqatan, surprising her with the sight of a face that was now as level and stoic as any she had seen before. Every trace of the girl's previous terror seemed to have disappeared in that one instant. Almost. Aryqatan saw a slight quiver to her eyes and heard an uncertainty threading her voice. This was a performance, albeit an exceptionally good one. She wondered where this child had learned to emulate strength so well.

"What happened to you?" Aryqatan asked Vornholt, separating from her and suddenly feeling embarrassed for having held her as she did. A Demigod ought not do such things with a human, handle them like a common woman comforting a child. It was beneath them.

"I…struggle to remember," Vornholt replied. She seemed increasingly annoyed by the fact.

"I recall my capture at least, I went to…I went to find my servant after she disappeared, thinking she was being held by the necromancers, and yet when I arrived at the building I thought she was located in, it turned out to be an ambush. I was overpowered and…taken prisoner." She looked equal parts embarrassed and furious at the fact.

"They didn't kill you?" Aryqatan asked her.

"No, they wanted me for something. They said it was a ritual, I am not sure what the purpose was but… well, I would assume it was responsible for the magic we are feeling now. I was watching their leader when the mana flow began. It surprised… her as much as it did me. I do not believe this event was produced on purpose."

Aryqatan felt the throbbing waves of mana around her, and tried to wrap her head around the idea that it could all be the result of nothing more than an arcane misfire"Do you know what they intended to do?" she asked.

"No," Vornholt replied.

"But I think their goal is escape, they seem to want to flee the city." Aryqatan heard something thunder up behind her before she could ask anything more, and turned to see Nu'chista, appeared mere feet at her back practically in an instant. Of course he had, he was even faster than she was.

"Why are you not in pursuit?" the looming Demigod asked her. It was a difficult question.

"The path forks up ahead," she explained.

"I could only take one route."

"There's two of us now," Nu'chista spat.

"We can take one each." He started moving past her, and Aryqatan hurried onto her feet, realising he was right.

"I believe Sakhent was with them," Vornholt added hastily." Both Demigods froze at once, and their eyes fell upon the girl like dropped boulders.

"What makes you think that?" Nu'chista asked. Aryqatan saw fear on his face. Demigods didn't sweat, but their skin quivered slightly as the pores worked in phantom motions to let sweat pass. Her vision could just about pick it out from Nu'chista now.

"I overheard a few conversations," Vornholt replied.

"Like what!?" Nu'chista demanded. The air quivered with the volume of his voice, and Aryqatan feared for a moment that he might deafen the girl. Admirably, Vornholt managed to answer anyway.

"Just some of the necromancers, they talked about 'their master' and his orders, spoke of how he had assured them not to fear the Demigods." Vornholt delivered her information as clinically as a surgeon giving a prognosis, but that did not seem to reduce the sting of her words to Nu'chista. His temper was clearly fraying more with every sentence.

"You said I was more powerful than Sakhent," he growled to Aryqatan.

"You are," she replied.

"As far as I could tell. I did fight him, and he was stronger than me, but not by that much." Admittedly, she didn't think the fight would be easy either. Perhaps the lich would win as often as three times out of ten if Nu'chista fought by himself. Aryqatan had no intention of allowing that to happen, though.

She'd just started worrying that her superior might rush off to try and take the glory of killing Sakhent himself when she saw his eyes drop down onto Isabel Vornholt, and realised he had something else in mind.

"We can't know," Nu'chista murmured.

"We can't know he isn't hiding his power, or that this whole ritual wasn't intentional." Aryqatan's blood heated almost to boiling in a moment. He was going to eat Vornholt's heart and consume her power, converting all that potential into divine magic. She should have acted, but instead she just froze and stared. Useless. It was Agrian Vornholt who stopped the murder, his footsteps ringing out down the corridor and drawing both Demigods' eyes to him as he approached.

Nu'chista looked so stunned at the boy's arrival that Aryqatan thought he might collapse.

"Where did he come from?" he gasped.

"Reinforcements are arriving, clearly," Aryqatan added hastily, just as the boy reached them and hurried for his sister.

"Isabel!" he yelled.

"Isabel, you're alive. Oh Gods, you're alive!"

"Hello Agri—ARGH!" Isabel Vornholt was interrupted as her brother wrapped her in a hug, her arms flailing to try and dislodge him but, evidently, completely powerless against his strength. After a few moments she just surrendered and went limp until it was over. Aryqatan looked away, trying to find something else to rest her eyes on and being forced to settle for Nu'chista.

"We should hurry after the necromancers, or leave and return to the rest of our forces," she suggested.

"But lingering here is just vulnerability with no benefit." He kept his gaze on the two magicians, the two prodigies, and for a moment, Aryqatan thought he would kill them anyway. That he would decide to risk it even knowing they were not as isolated here as he had hoped. But good sense won out over fear, eventually. Even a Demigod of Nu'chista's standing could not unilaterally kill two magicians of such high profile without facing consequences.

"Right," he growled.

"We will return."