Chương 122: Chapter 108 - Debriefing Under Pressure

++Sometimes it was easy to forget how much older I was than my 'older' brother, how many centuries I had seen for each one of his years. At other times, it was impossible not to remember. ++ - From the writings of Isabel Vornholt, 'The Great Lich'. 1, 891 A. E. I was given the chance to think about recent events during my escort from the tunnels, and they were… a mixed bag. On one hand, I was somewhat certain now that Sethira had not actually betrayed me.

Or, rather, she very clearly had, but only a little bit, and only for what she probably saw as both of our mutual best-interest. She needed somebody to stay behind, knowing it would be a massive risk, and delay the enemy, to feed them false information from within and win her the time needed to attempt our ritual again. I was the only one suited. What she did was logical. She would pay for it, of course, but it was logical.

What was also logical was the fact that my own side, the people of Garamon's army, now wanted to debrief me about my time with the necromancers. I was given a swift reprieve to receive medical attention, but warned that I would be hauled off to give my account immediately after. That medical attention itself proved uncomfortable. My leg had been thoroughly shattered, and with the level of magic used it was proving resistant to efforts at arcane healing by the priests of Orapathaqi's new garrison.

This is a common limitation to magical healing, and the real reason why there are no accounts of powerful warriors re-knitting their wounds mid-battle. Magic used by humans is never an inert force. It is worked with intent and shaped by the will of whoever directs it. In combat, this will is almost always to hurt. That means that when magic lingers in a wound, it stays and fights against any efforts made to heal that wound.

And a body that is more durable and strong requires more magic to injure, which in turn means that the efforts of any healing magic directed at it need to be stronger still. It takes a significant power advantage for any magician to achieve their goals while their mana is being directly countered by the effects of opposing mana. If Laiel Fiq were to wound a person, it would even be difficult for me to heal them. If Agrian did the same I might well find it impossible.

Fortunately, Sethira's true power—the ancient lich's strength she could apparently call on and hide at will—came with an inhuman control as well as unearthly strength. If she had struck me with anything close to her full power my leg would simply have been vaporized clean off my body, and the rest of my corpse would likely have been reduced to black charcoal by the waste heat radiating out into the air.

Instead she had directed her power with pinpoint precision and thrown out just enough to defeat my shield and still snap my leg afterwards. That, and the prodigious healing abilities of Godtouched priests, meant that I was making a swift and easy recovery. They started by physically re-setting the bone, dosing me up with ether, against my explicit wishes, and man-handling me while I was too inebriated to protest much. I had, at this point, partaken in quite a wide variety of mind-altering substances.

The stimulants that brought out my tendency for impulsive violence and mass destruction, and now these fumes that seemed to forcibly induce sleep. I decided to let myself pass out, partly to save myself the humiliation of being touched and handled like a damned infant by these clumsy doctors, and partly to sell my story of being captured and deprived of sleep. When I woke up once more, I was, irritatingly, still dizzy. Apparently ether's effects were not convenient enough to wear off following only one nap.

When I awoke, I was also not left to enjoy my own company. There were questions for me, a great many questions posed by a great many people. Easily the least ignorable of them were, of course, those of the Demigod Nu'chista. Had I been permitted to select any one time to not have my mind addled by knockout fumes, it would have been that very moment. But life is not convenient enough for such choices. The best I could do was bear with it and answer as non-suspiciously as I could.

"How did you end up with the necromancers?" I was asked to start with. This was already dangerous ground, depending on what answer my brother had given. The room was private. It was large, necessarily so to hold Nu'chista's enormous form, but empty besides from us. I had been moved in my sleep, so I did not know exactly where we were.

"I was captured," I told him. If he wanted to kill me, he could essentially do so whenever he wanted at any time with only a mild exertion. This was not a comforting status quo, but it did mean that all of these attempts to isolate me and leave me pliable were futile. It was literally impossible for Nu'chista to be more threatening or dangerous to me than he naturally was.

"That's not enough detail," the Demigod replied. I got the distinct impression of ridiculous patience on his part, which I found very amusing. Clearly patience was not something he was accustomed to managing.

"What more do you want?" I asked him.

"I will tell you anything you would like to know, but I need to know what you are curious about." I thought his eye twitched with buried anger.

"I need to know how you first made contact with the necromancers," he told me. I had been dragging this conversation out to try and get more information from him, figure out what he already knew—or thought he knew—from Agrian. It had not worked. Should I feign loss of memory? Perhaps as a last-resort, but I needed to try and abate suspicions before a move like that would be bought. As things were now, if there was significant doubt about my loyalty, I was likely to be devoured on the spot.

"I did not make contact with them," I told him.

"Did…I am sorry your Divinity, but I assumed Agrian would have told you all of this sooner, where is he?"

"Your brother's fine," the Demigod snapped.

"And he did tell us some things after we found out about his little rescue, but his story had a few holes." If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it. Agrian's little rescue. Not 'ours', which meant they believed Agrian was working on his own. That had been a useful slip. I spoke before Nu'chista could realise that he had made it.

"Okay. I… uh, my servant went missing. I believed she was captured by the necromancers, they left a note threatening her. Not… they did not say specifically they were threatening her, but I knew they were. They said they wanted to meet with me, but I assumed it was a trap…" This was somewhat true to begin with. The note did exist, and was written in the way I had described, and would hopefully reinforce my story when found. My servant had gone missing. The tricky part would be in all those little, trivial details.

If any one of them was found not to match up, it would bring about suspicion that made people scrutinise more than just the broad strokes of my story.

"You assumed it was a trap, but went alone anyway?" Nu'chista asked.

"... I did not think I had any choice," I told him.

"They had my servant." Another technical truth, though I decided to leave out the part where I had planned to assassinate Nesariyah for my own benefit. I suspected that would leave me looking somewhat less sympathetic. Nu'chista seemed deep in thought, which was not good for me.

"What was that magic we felt?" I asked him abruptly.

"I am sorry for the question, your Divinity, but I need to know. Was…was it a God arriving?" I injected some hope into my voice, like I was some brainless dolt with such blind faith in the divine as to be certain their presence would fix all of Garamon's problems. As if I had not stood in the presence of several Gods before, and did not know for a fact that their power was nothing compared to the surge of ambient mana that escaped the Depths. And Nu'chista seemed to buy it, at least in passing.

"We're not sure yet," he admitted.

"What do you know about it? There was some ritual, right? What did it consist of?" This was the dangerous part, the part where I needed to word things very carefully. Whatever happened, Sethira needed time to repeat her efforts.

"I do not know all the details," I told him.

"But I think the necromancers are trying to manage some sort of…mass-reanimation event." Nu'chista snorted.

"We've been burning the bodies we found here."

"There are lots of bodies buried deep under Orapathaqi, and other spirits bound to it in the non-physical realms," I told him.

"I think they want to call on those." Demigods did not seem to pale like the lighter-skinned humans of Garamon do, but I got the impression Nu'chista came close.

"That's it then," he croaked. There was a mix of relief and resignation in his voice, exactly what I had hoped for. If he knew that a true God was about to have their powers stolen by an ancient lich, he would have done anything and everything to keep it from happening, knowing that he would be helpless to escape or survive once it occurred. But this was a lower threat, one that demanded action but did not leave him without choices.

"I am sorry that I cannot tell you much more," I added, like I was fearful of failure and nothing else.

"You will tell me more," Nu'chista snapped.

"We're not done here. What did you do after receiving your letter, how did you approach the necromancers?" This was the worst question he could possibly have asked. I had been so hurried to reach Nesariyah in time that I had not taken the time to coordinate a cover story with Agrian. I had no doubt that his own account had already been taken by now, and I had not yet been alone with him to find out what it was.

Everything I had worked towards might come crashing down right now if I said something that contradicted whatever claims my brother had made in my absence.

"I did not make contact with them deliberately. My plan was to sneak off and attack them myself, to strike hard and fast."

"And your brother, how does he fit into this?" Nu'chista seemed to know what the weak point would be in any story. I was being given no choice but to try and guess what Agrian had told them. How would my brother react? It was unpleasant, being forced to consider that. To shape my mind into a mold of his and see if I could make it work the same way. Agrian was not stupid, but he could be unpredictable and irrational, which only frustrated my efforts.

And I was keenly aware, as I did this, that the longer I took, the more suspicious I would seem. It did not take long thought just to remember simple events, but to fabricate a lie? That would be as much a giveaway as if I gave the wrong answer. So I did not take as long as I would have liked to, just responded fast and hoped for the best.

"I did not contact my brother before heading out, not that I recall. Why are you asking about him?" This seemed like the best lie, if only because I could pretend to have only been obscuring Agrian's involvement out of concern for his wellbeing if it was called out. But even that did not happen. Nu'chista just nodded and relaxed somewhat, and I realised I had given the exact same story as my brother.

"I see," the Demigod murmured.

"A few other things…" He continued asking, and I continued answering. I feigned increasing fatigue as we went, taking longer to talk and letting my eyes grow lidded. Part of this came naturally, I was actually feeling the rather unpleasant combination of stimulant withdrawal and after-effects from my recent dose of ether, and part of it was deliberately falsified. After another hour of interrogation, my deception bore fruit and Nu'chista sat back with a sigh.

"Looks like I won't be getting anything more of use from you tonight. How's the leg?" It actually took me a moment to realise he was talking about my wounded one.

"I was told it has healed well and will be fully recovered in just a few more days, your Divinity," I told him. Divine magic was good for fixing up organic bodies, at least. Though nothing would ever replace the convenience of a direct connection to my phylactery and the ability to simply replace damaged bodies at will. Nu'chista nodded and got up.

"Another time, then," he sighed. Then affixed me with an intense stare.

"Another time."

"Of course," I nodded as he left. The door opened to reveal Agrian standing on the other side. He froze as his eyes met the Demigod's, and I could see Nu'chista considering what to do next.

"Fine," he sighed.

"You can speak to her." Apparently he did not have any more questions planned regarding my trustworthiness. That was foolish, he should have accounted for the possibility that my matching Agrian's story was just a lucky guess. The Demigod soon cleared out and left Agrian and myself alone together, which my brother clearly enjoyed. He did not, fortunately, hug me again, just sat down opposite me and stared at me, not saying anything for a while.

"... Hello," I began at last.

"What did—""I didn't think I'd ever see you again," he blurted out, interrupting my actually important question about the story Garamon's army had been given about me.

"Gods, Isabel, I can barely believe you're even still here." His hands wavered slightly, and I knew he wanted to hug me again, despite knowing how little I liked it. I was glad he knew better than to cave into his impulse.

"I was…captured," I told him after a moment.

"But as you can see, not killed." I forced a smile, and he just laughed.

"You're completely unbothered, Gods," he palmed his forehead, giggling with a touch of hysteria.

"Does anything get to you?" My withdrawal symptoms were getting close, I had to admit. I considered pressing Agrian more heavily for what he had told the Demigods and Godtouched of this garrison, but after a few moments I decided against it. That could wait, if only precipitously, and for the moment I still needed to be in his good graces. So instead I just lay back and placed a hand on his head, making a stroking motion over his hair. Agrian fell asleep soon after.