“See to Master Harlune,” Briggs ordered me in no uncertain terms, while I hooked them all into the Heavens-Up Display and their gazes all turned toward the fortress nearby. “Masters Konrad, Sumzun, Neskai, Isaam, with us. The rest kindly guard Harlune. He should be surrounded by friendly faces at this time.”

  “The rest of you, follow us,” Kris added with a silk over steel smile that promised even more mayhem than they’d probably just come from.

  A Null and a Source bloomed to full strength in the night, everyone who could feel magic feeling that combination of instantly immovable magic and softly burning, utterly domineering force wiping magic away, both beyond their ability to affect.

  Lost Light swirled on a lot of Weapons as over a score of very focused combatants followed the two Forsaken towards the fort nearby much too quickly to be only human.

  ‘There’s going to be shore guards coming,’ I /said in Fellowship, before any of the skeletons could protest. ‘He left the sneaky ones behind.’

  Pinpoints of light glittered in empty eye sockets in understanding. Master Ben Ten gestured, and the three other skeletal swordmasters trotted into the darkness and were rapidly out of sight, if still visible in the HUD.

  I moved over to take Konrad’s position on the other side of the Empyrean, who gave me a curious look as I did so, glancing at my hand. “I see you’ve one of my Rings, lass,” he rasped, his glowing eyes rising to meet my silver ones in interest.

  “Followed the breadcrumbs, elder, and the clue you left with Ulgrim led us to guessing you were here,” I said softly. “Quiet, now. You’ve a reputation as a famous grump, but you know what Healing needs at this moment. Be the patient instead of the Life Mage this time.”

  He just closed his eyes and waited as I put my hand on his chest and began to invoke.

  Regenerate would get rid of the scarring, and it looked like they had pulled a bunch of his teeth, too. The Potion had closed the wrist injuries, but he was definitely low on blood, completely exhausted, and empty of mana, too.

  “I see they were pulling out your mana with your Blood. Using it for Summoning, working with the ley lines, I am assuming.” My tone indicated I wanted no response, I was just letting him know we understood what they’d been doing. “These are two spells to ease your mental damage and help your recovery.” I didn’t normally carry Heart’s Ease and had to use Zeks to recall it from his Ring Library, but Greater Restoration was just Upcasting a higher Valence of Restoration.

  Heart’s Ease would deal with the emotional damage, trauma, and lingering mental injuries. The Restoration would take care of mental and spiritual damage, and bring him back towards his ideal state of mind, as if making a quick and full recovery. Given the length and depths to which he’d been tortured, I gave them both to him at VII.

  He gasped in spite of himself at the flowing power of Holy energies imbued in both spells shining through his mind and soul. A moment later, it was like a dam breaking as a flood of tears came down his face, gleaming like falling stars in the night. He blinked and his eyes turned up to the stars above, shining so welcoming to him… and then closed as he drifted off to healing sleep against the tree he was braced against.

  “He’s lost a good hundred pounds of weight,” Master Ben Ten said softly, reaching out to stroke the Empyrean’s patchwork of withered brown hair. The Yalain’s scalp was torn, burned, and scarred, but now regrowing with visible speed as my magic started to take effect.

  “I have to get started on a stew for him,” I told Master Ben Ten quietly. “I’ll mix it with manna so he can eat it regardless of his digestive condition. I would like to evacuate him, but I have to stay nearby in case they need me. When he wakes up he’s going to be ravenous, and probably is already, only the magic of that torture rack keeping him going.”

  Not that I really thought they would need me, but they might for Healing or some Revivify spells. The entire complex was within easy Dimension Door range, I could be there in seconds if some powerful magic went off and caught a few of the fighters.

  “Can that woman even land a spell on the Princess?” Master Ben Ten had seen Kris wade through dozens of spells without harm, and Briggs do the same, out in the Direlands.

  “Maybe a one in ten chance? And that’s if neither she nor Briggs Spellcut whatever idiocy she’s using, which they most definitely will.” I sent my gaze after the others, but they were out of visual range. I couldn’t see that portion of the HUD without going into Markspace, and wasn’t willing to split my attention here.

  “Sssaaa,” he hissed, pointing with a gauntleted finger.

  I saw the green X coming in from the east, no, two, three of them. Ugisko was over there, Arika had also seen the HUD and was moving quickly to support him.

  This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

  Master Ben Ten looked at me, I inclined my head, and gracefully and unnaturally quietly, Giri was out and wrapping him in a Sound Bubble that made sure he gave off no sound as he raced with quick and controlled steps towards the incoming Raven Hands.

  The sentries were dead men. Shouzon was waiting to the west, and doubtless any of those men alerted by magic would soon be returning, too. Unless they were quick, Master Ben and Arika would be back in position to support him before they arrived.

  I brought up a spell of Mana Renewal VII around Master Harlune. It almost seemed to gutter for a second, as if the Empyrean’s body expected the mana to be bled out of it as rapidly as it was regained. But no, this was boosted by the Sacred Metas and Holy energies, and Master Harlune visibly relaxed even further as mana dancing with blessed energies swirled about him and into him, and his massive Mana Pool, several times the size of mine, finally began to rebuild itself.

  I swirled a concealing illusion around us, Shaped up a cauldron, and pulled out an Item scroll I would normally save for emergencies, but Hells, everyone was going to want something to eat when this was over. Might as well make a whole bloody lot of it…

  -------

  “She ran like the good fucking rat she is as soon as the Raven Hands started dying. We found the emergency Portal in her chambers behind the sacristy, just out of range of our Interdictions, and then the magic she triggered behind her blew her chambers into a sludgy, Tainted mess,” Kris informed me sourly, shoving a big spoonful of healthy stew into her mouth. She made a face that it was acceptable, but I wasn’t trying for some Tremendously Spicy Gumbo, as it were.

  She was shoveling it down fast, because she and Briggs had to get back to Aphus Lassel. It wasn’t a good idea for Tim and the tuskers there to be without some firm guidance.

  Master Harlune was saying nothing and eating everything. He was on his fourth bowl, and they were good-sized bowls. Fortified with manna, there was no problems with an upset stomach or anything, and it was being digested with magical speed. Combined with Regeneration already flaking off all of his scars, regrowing his hair, refreshing his blood, and returning some color to his pale skin, the old Yalain with the glowing eyes was looking much better than he had last night.

  There wasn’t anything importantly urgent to tell us, it seemed, or at least things that could not be relayed later.

  “That sounds like her, sacrificing her servants to save herself. Takes after her mother that way, or so I’ve heard.”

  “She was using Empyrean-level magic, right?” Master Harlune looked up as I nodded at Kris’s question.

  I swirled up the Holo, replicating the three spells she’d gotten off at me, everyone watching raptly as I reconstructed them. “Those are all definitely above Incantor-level, and they are not using the Isparian modes,” I told them after the quick show was done. “That melding of Void and Blood Magic was particularly dangerous.”

  “I knew her mother was dangerous, but not how dangerous until I fell afoul of her,” Master Harlune whispered hoarsely, everyone else falling silent as he spoke. “How long has it been since the Fall?” he asked quietly.

  Any reluctance to answer was cut short by the Mick. “Nae seventeen years, Master Harlune.” His dark eyes met the softly glowing orbs of the Empyrean. “If I be not too brash… what of yer lady fair?” he asked softly.

  The pang of pain that crossed his face told us everything. “My lovely Alia,” he murmured, and his face twisted in a vicious scowl that looked entirely out of place on him, yet somehow fitting. “She was sacrificed by Nuhmudira, an offering to one of the beings that made contact with the woman. My blood and my wife, there to draw a shield around Nuhmudira and her own to shield them from the carnage that had seized Dereth, and driven the other Yalain to madness!”

  “She thought it was something in your blood?” I had to ask, and the old mage nodded somberly. “Gods, what a twit. You were never held in stasis in the aether, nor was your wife. Of course you weren’t affected like the others.”

  “She has been using my blood for years to buttress her own magic and spells. Perhaps there is something special about Empyrean blood, perhaps it is merely that it is easy to drain my mana from me through it. I have been the subject of her ministrations for over fifteen years now…” he whispered, and if his hands shook a bit, nobody noticed.

  “Dereth is not a small place, but we are tracking her. Also, she didn’t blow up the primary transport Portal, merely her escape Portal. We’ve a fair idea where she is going,” I assured the older mage.

  “Oh?” he inquired, deadly interest in his glowing eyes.

  “Count Dardante’s island, or the northern areas of Marae Lassel.”

  Harlune’s head turned, the restored brown hair stroked once with a faintly trembling hand as he looked west.

  “There are thousands of locations she could have taken over in the Direlands,” he finally spoke up. “What makes you so sure she might be on those?”

  “Because both are isolated islands that are hard to reach, and have not been visited by us yet. The Aun basically abandoned Marae Lassel, leaving the Hea to deal with the olthoi and virindi forces there. The Hea are trying to hold it in the face of the olthoi, but it is not easy for them… and not easy for the olthoi, either. Plenty of room to hide something in the north where nobody has any grip on the land.

  “As for Count Dardante’s island, there has been a thundering lack of communication from it for some time, and they didn’t even get any signals off to Castle Corcima for all this time. What survivors have trickled out of Sanamar indicated that there was no offer to link Dardante’s island up, although they had mentioned visiting Corcima and possibly taking it back.”

  “I see.” He sighed as he looked at his empty bowl, then at the cauldron now two-thirds empty of stew.

  I tugged the bowl out of his hand, floated it to mine, ladled more stew into it, sprinkled some of Kris’ zestier spices on top of it, and sent it floating back. He accepted it, dug in again, and his eyes popped open in interest at the extra punch.

  “Did Xunidara or her mother let anything slip while they were torturing you, Elder? I cannot believe that they did not try to pry as many secrets of magic from the foremost Life and Item Mage on Dereth as she possibly could, and she would have boasted to you as one of the few beings she would consider an equal,” I asked him with grave interest.

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