Tinkermage (Book 2) (5 page)

“I didn’t think you would listen. Even now, after all you’ve been through, perhaps it will be easier now…”

Jancy looked back and forth between the two, her mirth all but fled. “The shadow of fate deepens, Nika. I’ve felt the pull of it all along. Normally, I would not have remained in Hightower this long. I would have gone as soon as your brother ran out of coin. You have to understand, that’s just how it is with him. You stay until he pays, and then you go. Lingering too long around him is a sure way to get yourself killed.” She looked mystified. “But lately, I’ve had the urge to protect you both. Especially you, Nika. It has felt… important. I wonder if the Prophetess has been in my dreams too?”

“You’re just kind, Jancy.”

“No, I’m not.” She answered too quickly, then swallowed. “I mean… I wasn’t always.”

Niksabella didn’t want to think of Jancy as anything but a friend right now no matter what her past. And besides, all that was overshadowed by the news of her device being sought out by this Prophetess and the stonekin; slowly but surely, the shadows were lifting. Who knew what might be revealed if she probed hard enough. She imagined herself with a torch, poking it into the corners of some vast, dark cave. “Did the gnomestress tell you what my device does? Its secret?”

“Not entirely. No, not much at all. I have not heard from the Prophetess since leaving my world.”

“Then how do we know what my device can do for your people? I won’t explain it to you in detail, but it’s nothing more than a battery if you understand that concept. I don’t understand how it can help.” Niksabella, for all her technical experience and knowledge of the basics of many magicks, could not for the life of her understand where this could possibly go.

“I do not know. Perhaps she will tell you.”

Niksabella wasn’t thrilled about those prospects. “I don’t see how we—how
I
—can depend on that. It’s not even a promise.”

“I think I know a way.” Jontuk got down on his knee again and thumped his good fist against his chest, his voice growling with power so that the rock around them seemed to vibrate. “If you will but trust me. I told you my story in hopes you would sympathize with our fate, but you must understand the Baron will surely return here to Sullenor. The thing you fought in that alley, the amorphs, those things your brother fought, are just the first wave. He’s already preparing, rest assured. One of his warlords will arrive soon. If we’re lucky, it will be one of his stupid, foul-bred fools. At least that would buy some time. If you’re unlucky, it will be the father of the one you killed in the alley that dark night, Martreuse the Foul. Either way, the Baron will surely lay waste to Sullenor. Hightower first.”

Jontuk’s words froze Niksabella’s heart. She didn’t know anything about Sullenor outside of what went on in Hightower. Perhaps she should have felt more defiant, angry, or threatened at the thought of someone making war in these lands. It was bad enough to know Hightower was under threat. Her few friends: Fritzy, Jambraden, even the guard from the High Tower anteroom. She couldn’t pretend to know if the threat was real, but shouldn’t she err on the side of caution?

Her thoughts, as they often did these days, turned to Termund. What would he say to all this? Perhaps he would panic and whisk her off to Thrasperville, which would be fine as long as her conscience allowed for it. And she wasn’t sure it would. On the other hand, Termund might be intrigued by the idea of trying to save an entire nation of stonekin. Of saving the world as they knew it. He’d mentioned wanting to develop her device for good, and this would certainly give them a cause.

And which would you prefer, Nika? A grand adventure filled with treachery and possibly death? Or a cozy lifetime with Termund in a nook beneath a mountain, complete with all the gnomish amenities, surrounded by those who would never judge you? A retreat where you and Termund might develop the recursive mirror in your own sweet time and play house too? I think you know what you want, but what will you actually
do?

In either case, she needed time. She hardly knew this stonekin, this
Jontuk,
and she wasn’t ready to give him an answer just yet. She had to think it through, speak to Jancy in private. Speak to
Termund
. And her brother… she could never leave her brother until she knew he was well on the way to recovery.

“I will think about it.”

“Think? But you know what I say to be true. We’re caught in the pull. We are inseparable now.”

“I will let you know if we’re inseparable
tomorrow.
Or at least soon.”

The stonekin seemed to struggle with his emotions. He looked from Niksabella to Jancy and back again. His face smoothed over as if he’d found a cache of patience. “I hear the wisdom in your words. I shall await your decision. But please, don’t keep both our worlds waiting too long.”

Chapter Six

He dragged himself out of the deep, dark, hole where he’d been existing for so long. A painful hole. A place where his head wrung like the inside of a heavy bell as a bronze hammer smashed against the side. A place where every nook and cranny of his being screamed with aches and pains and misery as he bled out in some cursed darkness. It wrung him out, crushed him, dug its heel into his neck so hard that his will threatened to snap in a twist of vertebrae.

Yes, it was one
bastard
of a hole, but he’d been at the bottom of many in his lifetime.

He’d been aware at times, even down here with his nightmares. Bits and pieces of memory, flashes of images dissipating like the bite of a bitter ale. He remembered. He knew. Dowelville. Swicki Hill. Rad Ricker’s place. He’d fought and killed many amorphs, creatures bent on destroying his world. He’d caught on fire and was smothered in blistering soil. He’d worn a bloody crown on his head. He remembered the witch with lanky, black hair and then a beautiful gnomestress with bouncing red curls.

All of these things helped him climb out of the hole. He was curious and beyond fear. What else was there to be afraid of?

A sense of righteous victory was buried somewhere under all that pain. Victory that was
worth
all that pain. It was all quite confusing and strange, and part of him wanted to stay down here and work it all out. Take whatever time he needed to piece it all together.

Yet he sensed it was time to leave this place even though to escape meant perhaps facing the damage he’d done to himself and others, knowing there were friends likely hurt, maybe even killed, because of him. Facing consequences. No, he needed to find out what happened, and the quickest way was to simply wake up.

Nikselpik Nur bolted upright and hurled vomit across his bed sheets.

“Oh,” someone said, fumbling with something outside his field of vision.

Nikselpik was instantly aware of an empty space inside him, a space once filled with heady power. There was sense of loss, of missing something vital to the core of his being. Some missing center.
Where was it? What was it?

His arms itched faintly.

He moaned.

A bucket, brought too late, moved into his field of vision.

“Sorry. You woke so fast, and I was sleeping…
oh
, you’re choking. Here.” The bucket disappeared, and a cup of water appeared near his right hand. He reached for it, awkwardly, knocking it to the floor. He found himself surprisingly patient while waiting for another, bile charring his throat the whole time. He was too weak to care. If he drowned in his own vomit, so be it.

The cup appeared again, and this time, he was able to grasp it and hang on although a soft, pale hand wrapped around his to guide the vessel to his lips. He drank, choked the sting out of his lungs, drank again. A hiccup wracked his middle, and he vomited again, the rest of that horrible-tasting tea he’d been forced to drink.

He got the bucket in front of him this time.

An exasperated sigh from the wielder of the bucket as it vanished and a cool, wet cloth emerged to wipe at his mouth. He slumped over his sodden bedspread while someone cleaned him up.

“Better?” It was a sweet voice, and even in his decrepit state, he could tell it was Fara.

He nodded. “Yes.” And it
was
mildly better, a notch up from dead. But he was not the same gnome as before the battle of Swicki Forest. And when had that been? Some days ago? A week? Longer? He remembered fighting Raulnock, winning in the end. The smell of burned hair and skin.
His
hair and skin. Terrifying to think of him burning, but he looked at the events with a certain detached awe. It wasn’t the first time he’d nearly
bugged
himself to death.

That’s what is missing. The bugs.

During those moments, with bug juice flowing through his veins, he seemed like another person, someone with power he’d only fantasized about, a dangerous spellcaster respected and awed throughout the land. A quiet and deadly foe. Possibly even a legend.

But the truth was, he’d never be that kind of wizard. Not without those little insects, which had obviously become their own sort of problem. No, this false hope for greatness… He needed to wrap it up and put it on a shelf, to forget about it, to make a new start, to be satisfied with something less. He would never bug again.

No more bugging.

Part of him didn’t believe it, but the other part of him had faith in his own stubbornness, a character flaw he carried in droves.

“Let me get this filthy thing off you.” Fara’s arms reached in to carefully remove the stinking bedspread, but Nikselpik stayed her with a gentle nudge of his hand.

“I want to do it. If I’m to vomit frequently, I need to learn to clean up after myself.”

Fara stepped away. “Okay, but don’t complain to me when your head starts screaming. It’ll be more of my special tea for you then…”

Nikselpik closed his eyes and searched for his wellspring.
Ouch!
There it was, that same effervescent pool of sparkling blue he always imagined. Finding it was an art he’d refined so many years ago in his brief stint at the Guild of High Magick before being summarily tossed out. His very first teacher, Spanski himself, had shown Nikselpik how to do it.

The old wizard had said, “Now, there are times your wellspring doesn’t want to come, just like those mornings when you can’t seem to wake up, rather lay in bed in the dark and under your warm covers picking the wax out of your ears. But you have to coax it. Try different angles, touch it different ways. Lift the covers. Like a good dog, it’ll eventually rouse.”

And that’s exactly what Nikselpik did. His wellspring was sore to the touch; just the thought of tampering with it started a headache on the edges of his brain. But he played with it, a hand rubbing across the surface of a pool, letting his fingers dip in and pull it upward, droplets falling away until he could finally get them strung together. Once he’d gathered the magick behind his eyes (it felt like shouldering a boulder) he turned his attention to the soiled garment.

He poured his will into the soggy fabric, infiltrated the fibers, and tried to lift the thing off him. It was thick and heavy, a plush blanket meant to defend him against the coolest of drafts, so it didn’t come easily. But it
did
come, heavy and sagging where the vomit had soaked in, lifting off his legs to hang prone in the air.

He folded up the ends and levitated the bundle to the edge of the bed. Once clear of the oaken bed frame, he let it drop in a pile on the floor.

Nikselpik collapsed back in exhaustion. Fara had been right; his head was screaming, but he’d not complain. It was a poor start, but a start nonetheless.

“It’s okay,” Fara brushed some curls out of her eyes and gave him a grin. “When you learn to channel the Goddess, you’ll see it taxes your wellspring very little. You will be merely a conduit for Evana, a way to bestow her love from the heavens. I just hope you learn to have faith.”

Nikselpik winced inwardly, remembering some promise he’d made during one of his more lucid moments that he would at least
try
to learn some healing. He was sure Fara saw this as some way to convert him while he was vulnerable. Lili wouldn’t take it so well when she realized what Fara was doing. But that might be fun to see. A nice gnomestress wrestling match right here in the room would be just the thing to lift his spirits. Perhaps they’d lose everything but their small clothes…

“Nik?”

“Faith in what now? A goddess? You need to understand one thing about ol’ Nik, Cleric of Evana. Nik simply doesn’t believe
in
anything
.”

Fara put her hands on her hips with a look that said she was happy for the challenge. “Faith in
everything
it is then. And if you’ll be okay on your own for a bit, I need to collect some things and bring Lili up for her shift.”

The two gnomestresses were getting along, it seemed, even though they both had to know how he felt about them.
And what, exactly, is that?
He grunted. “What I need right now is a nice cold pint.”

“In a few days, maybe. If you can eat some actual food and keep it down, then I’ll serve you one myself.”

“Well, that’s promising. It’s a date.”

Fara shook her head and shrugged on her coat. She gave him a wave and exited, leaving him with nothing but emptiness. Nikselpik looked around, cleared his throat a few times and ran his hands through his hair, finally found himself gazing out the large window. He wouldn’t be able to see the harbor unless he went over there, but he could tell by the sky it was cold outside. Was it dawn or dusk though? The ornate clock on the wall simply read an approximation of the sixth hour, and that was all he had to go by.

Breakfast then? Or dinner?
The thought of food, for the first time since he could remember, made his stomach growl. He was damn hungry. He would ask Lili to bring him something when she came up, and, yes, it would be breakfast, no matter the hour.

Or, you could just get it your damn self. The receiving port is right over there.
He tested moving his arms and legs. They still ached. Everything ached. Yes, if Lili didn’t show in a few more minutes, he’d just have to go get something himself.

Solitary snowflakes whipped against the window in a sudden gust of wind, filling him with a sense of peace he’d not experienced in a long time, a sort of weary clarity one finds after a long sleep. He reviewed recent events again to glean any tidbit of insight or enlightenment from his memories. The discovery of the amorphs in Dowelville, deadspeak and its residuals, the weight of souls heaped on him so suddenly. The fight to escape.

And all the rest.

The most important question on his mind was what had happened to the witch? Had she been mortally wounded when he’d flooded the amorph hive mind with his powerful suggestion of death? Would she return? He recalled her hatred for him, her will to see him destroyed, her arrogance. If she yet lived—and he guessed she did—there was something between them now, some unbreakable link that could only be severed when one of them died.

What of the rest? Had they retreated to their own world or perished at the ends of precisor swords? Perhaps some but not all. The thing in Harwood Lake remained. He’d warned Dale, but had the precisor general taken the fight to the enemy? He vaguely remembered a recent visit from Dale, the gnomish leader standing the foot of his bed, absent Roto, flanked by a rather crass-looking young gnomestress.

There’d been others, too. Spanski, Madesa, the Thrasperville gnomes. He remembered snippets of conversations, some more important than others, but all mostly buried beneath the cramping pains of bug withdrawal.

And the mess he’d made of that last bit. Challenging Raulnock to a duel. Had he really done that? “Heh. I believe you actually did, you troll-faced idiot.” He chuckled. He’d pushed himself to the limit,
beyond
the limit, nearly to death, to prove he could take down the First Wizard. What were gnomes saying about him? Was he a hero? Would they shy away from him, terrified, the next time he walked down the street?

He supposed he’d know soon enough.

Nikselpik leaned over, opposite the side Fara had been sitting, and fished between the nightstand and bed. He clutched the grain-dusty cover of a very old book and pulled it into his lap.

Concentration Re-Animation: Five Habits of the Highly Effective Necromancer.

It was a small tome, half the size of any one of Raulnock’s colossal volumes, its pages thin and delicate between his fingers. Luckily for him, it was not so well-used as to be falling apart or missing pages. In fact, the book was a rare, relatively untouched volume, tucked away below the Guild of High Magick in a secret vault, a well-guarded room established by self-righteous gnomes to protect otherwise respectable practitioners of magick from immorality and impropriety.

Nikselpik was not a respectable practitioner.

It was a vault that his friend, Kalaquick, had access to, and he had done Nikselpik a favor by fetching it.

Fara would be angry. Hells,
everyone
would be angry. Necromancy was not something to tamper with. There was a reason guild academics shied away from the dark arts. Aside from accidentally calling unsavory spirits into the world of the living, it could easily get one killed. But he already had a foot in the pond with his deadspeak, so playing in darkness was nothing new.

What else was he to do? Healing? Did Fara really believe he could go from slinging tremendous power around to donning the gray and blue of Evana? Those pompous asses. He’d never give Etty Vinkerwinkle the satisfaction, nor would Etty likely allow it anyway.

“Hah! Foolish, pretty gnomestress.” It felt terrible to laugh at Fara because she meant well and he genuinely liked her, but it was good to have a little of his old self returning.

He thumbed through the pages of the book, glancing over incantations, spell components, and rituals, already forming ideas about how he might approach it. How would he take this new path and deal with whatever dark consequences befell him? Was he just giving up one bad habit for another?