Caladin’s Climb—Part Three (Patreon)

This story was brought to you by a cooperation between the Tuan'diath's Morph and No.1 Brorn Stan, who requested to continue the story of Caladin's Climb.

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          Caladin breathed in, then out. In, then out. He focused on just breathing. In and out. In and out.

          He expanded his senses, taking in every part of his body. He felt… wet. Sort of. It was hard to say. The water was just the right temperature so that it didn’t feel hot or cold. He’d double checked that. Maybe there wasn’t enough salt?

          Dammit! His mind was drifting again.

          Breath in. Breath out. Expand the senses. He could do it. He knew he could do it. He had to believe it was possible. Brorn kept telling him that believing that it wasn’t possible was part of his problem. Agh! He was doing it again!

          In and out. In and out…

          He felt something. Maybe. It was hard to say if it was a real sensation or just his body doing body things. No. There it was again—a slight itch in his left leg, on the back of his calf.

          “Okay. I got something!” Caladin shouted out. His voice echoed around in the small space, bouncing off the walls and the water and back into his ears again. After nearly an hour of absolute silence his ears had gotten awfully sensitive. He regretted yelling.

          There was no reply.

          Caladin opened his eyes. Doing so changed absolutely nothing about his situation. There was nothing to see, or hear, or feel. That was the whole point.

          “Hello?” Caladin called out, a bit more quietly this time.

          Nothing.

          Caladin stood up, as much as he could anyway. The chamber he was in wasn’t designed for standing. There was really only enough space for one person to comfortably float without bumping into the walls. He stood anyway, hunched over so as not to hit his head on the ceiling he couldn’t see. He grasped around blindly until he found the chamber door, then banged on it a few times.

          “Hello!” repeated. “I’m done in here. Let me out already!”

          He waited a minute, hunched over in the dark in knee deep water. After some time went by with no response he gave up. Clearly he’d been forgotten about. He drew on his magic and… there was no paper in here. Caladin was at a loss as to what to do. Inscribe… the walls? That seemed like a bad idea, but considering his other options, which were pretty much to wait here indefinitely to be rescued or inscribe a spell onto the walls, there wasn’t much of a choice in the matter.

          Caladin picked a spell for metal shaping. Ferromancy. He had to inscribe the instructions for a spell that would carve a section out of the chamber on the chamber itself. He had learned a long time ago that anytime he tried to inscribe a spell using lithomancy on something he wasn’t specifically touching it almost never worked, so he pressed his hands firmly against the metal walls of the chamber before attempting his spell. He just hoped it would work. He used paper for a reason. It was an easy material to mark and it didn’t matter if it burned up from having a spell pushed through because it was disposable. Metal would be quite a bit harder to mark up, and the chamber he was in was something he’d worked rather hard to make. The thought of the metal walls burning up like so much paper worried him. He released the spell anyways. And, just to be safe, he spoke part of the verbal incantation at the same time. “Ferrum!” he shouted.

          His words rang out through the small space. A soft, barely perceptible, glow of deep blue light washed over the wall in front of him. It lit up the runes, then spread out and took the shape of a large square. The blue light burned along the edges of the square as it forced the metal to take the shape of a door about as large as his splayed fingers.

          There was a spark of lightning, then the metal walls of the chamber groaned and creaked. The perfect square shape warped and stretched into an unrecognizable shape. A single pinhole of light broke through from a crack in the wall, then the spell stopped.

          “I knew inscribing on the walls was a bad idea,” Caladin grumbled to himself. He tried to bang on the failed hole he’d tried to create. It complained, but with enough force he was able to force it open. Light blasted into Caladin’s eyes. Of course. It was easy to forget it was still daylight outside when he hadn’t seen any light in at least an hour. Caladin squinted as he reached through the small, square hole and fumbled around for the latch. His hand closed on a metal handle. He yanked it down and pushed the main doors on the ceiling open.

          He was out on the veranda, as Brorn had insisted on keeping the tank out of the main house. The fading light of early evening came through the open arches of the wooden structure. Caladin turned his attention back to the suspension tank. There wasn’t a question of if he’d damaged it, only a question of degree. A quick look revealed that the formation of his new little opening had moved enough metal around that now the main door’s hinges were misaligned. They would let light in so he’d have to repair the thing before he could use it again.

          And salt water was leaking out onto the ground. There was probably a crack somewhere on the bottom. Just great.

          The deck of the veranda was made of an expensive imported wood of some kind. Something black. Brorn had seemed awfully proud of it. Caladin hoped the salt wouldn’t cause any long-term damage. He’d never hear the end of it. He turned around and nearly bumped right into one of Brorn’s servant zombies. It looked like it had been a female elf or eldrin in life. Brorn only liked to keep the clean and undamaged zombies in the house so if not for the green glow to her eyes she might have passed for living. She was wearing a pink apron and holding a thick black towel.

          “Gods!” Caladin cursed. “Were you there the whole time?”

          “Gaaa?” the zombie moaned.

          It was useless trying to talk to the damned things. Caladin knew that, but he still couldn’t help himself sometimes. They only did specific tasks, and helping Caladin escape a locked sensory deprivation tank apparently wasn’t one of them… but once he broke himself out they seemed to have no trouble bringing him a towel. Perfect. If he started choking on a chicken bone during dinner one of them would probably dab the spittle from his lips as he died.

          Caladin snatched the towel out of the zombie’s hands. “Where is Brorn?” he asked. That was at least something every zombie knew. The woman pointed inside the main house. Little surprise there. Caladin snatched up his clothes in a huff and tried to maintain his indignation the entire time he got dressed. Even still, by the time he meandered through the halls and actually located Brorn his anger had faded to mere annoyance.

          The sound of music led to Brorn’s study. Caladin walked in and found the necromancer sitting in his favorite armchair, plucking at the strings of a polished wooden lute with golden tuning pegs at the top of the headstock. The bright glow of his eyes marked him as the master of the house despite the unfamiliar body. He was wearing a short and slender human today, with grey hair around his temples. Shelves of books lined the walls and the large window’s silk drapes were pulled open to let in the warm evening light as the sun made its slow path down to the horizon. Glowing orbs of a variety of colors hovered at strategic places around the room. In addition to providing light, Caladin knew they helped regulate air temperature and humidity to keep the swamp out.

          “Excuse me!” Caladin shouted at him. “Are you forgetting something?”

          Brorn looked up. He frowned slightly. “I am quite sure I—why is your hair wet?”

          Caladin practically steamed. He almost opened his mouth to say something rude before thinking better of it. He’d grown comfortable with Brorn these last few months. It was easy to forget about his reputation for wanton murder and disregard of any laws but his own. It was best not to make him mad if it could be avoided. “You—I—” Caladin started to say.

          “You look upset,” Brorn said casually. “Here, let me play you this song I’ve been working on. It’s quite lovely. The previous inhabitant of this body never quite finished it before he died, but I think I’ve figured out—”

          That was it. Caladin blew up. “I don’t care about your dumb song! You were supposed to be helping me with an experiment! You left me in the sensory deprivation tank. Alone. I had to break the thing to escape! That was a week of work down the drain. Literally. It’s got a leak now and we don’t even have enough salt to fill it up again.”

          Brorn raised an eyebrow. “Is that what you’re upset about? Worry not, child.” He waggled a finger, then looked off into the middle distance for a second. “There. I’ve sent a servant to fetch us a big bag of salt from Syntas Village. Now sit and listen to this song. This body enjoys playing music.” He went back to strumming the lute. His lithe fingers were quite dexterous and had thick calluses on their tips. A master of the craft, to be sure.

          Caladin threw down his wet towel. “No,” he said firmly. “I’m not sitting down. You said you would help train me but you’ve only been putting in two days of work a week at most. You’re much more concerned with your music, your food, your brandy… and… and all the pointless remodeling! You already live like a prince. Why are you always so concerned with making things more and more comfortable?”

          Brorn let out a put-upon sigh and reached down to a leather case at his feet. He placed it on the wooden table in front of him and snapped it open. “If you want to do this, you might as well take a seat,” he said, gesturing to the study’s only other chair across the table from his own.

          “Do what?” Caladin asked. He did take the seat though.

          Brorn carefully laid his lute in the case and closed it. He lifted it up and dangled it in the air to his right; a zombie servant was already there ready to take it away. The servant also picked up Caladin’s wet towel on its way out the door. “Would you like some brandy?” Brorn asked. “It feels like a good evening for some nice brandy.”

          Caladin scowled. “For the last time, no. Drinking like you do gets in the way of my work.”

          “Tea then?” Brorn asked smoothly. A zombie servant came into the room with a silver tray. Resting on it was a glass of brandy and a steaming mug of tea.

          “Ugh. Fine,” Caladin relented. He took the proffered tea. Brorn was always doing that: anticipating what Caladin would want and providing it. Caladin vaguely wondered what would have happened if he’d said yes to the brandy. Would the zombie have that on the tray instead? Maybe he would do it one of these days just to trip Brorn up, even though he secretly wondered if maybe getting him to accept the brandy was the whole point. “And what is it you think we’re doing here?” Caladin asked.

          “You’re complaining,” Brorn said. “Go ahead. Get it all out of your system. You younger ones always have something to complain about. I make the place comfortable and you complain it’s too comfortable. Do you want rats chewing on your toes while you sleep? Would that make you happy?”

          “You know what would make me happy? Getting more than two hours of instruction from you in a day! I told you I’d need you to let me out of that tank when I was done but you were nowhere nearby when I was ready to come out!”

          “Oh, that.” Brorn took a slow sip of his brandy. “Yes, well… you can’t exactly expect me to sit around and wait while you float in that thing, can you? I got bored. Did it work? Any progress to report?”

          “I don’t know,” Caladin said with a stubborn frown. “You were supposed to expose me to mana while I was in there until I could figure out how to feel it. If you just wandered off right away then progress is impossible!”

          Brorn made a lazy gesture with one hand. “Yes, yes. I infused mana into your left leg. You didn’t notice, so I left.”

          Caladin shot upright in his seat. “My left leg? That was where I felt it! I felt a distinct itch in my left leg!”

          Brorn hummed to himself and frowned. “I must admit, I did not expect any results at all. Mana is not supposed to itch though. Are you quite certain it wasn’t something else?”

          “There was nothing else to feel!” Caladin insisted. “That was the whole point of the sensory deprivation chamber. It was an itch. I definitely felt an itch in my left leg. That means I can feel mana. I was right!”

          “I am not so sure,” Brorn responded in a somber tone. “I don’t think it’s the mana you’re feeling, but its secondary effect. Either way, if you need to lie in a special tank for an hour then how would this even be useful?”

          “It just seems tedious for now,” Caladin replied. “Everyone has to start somewhere. Once I figure out how to detect it, I can learn to get better at doing so. What’s this secondary effect you mentioned?” That was more like it. He could be annoying to work under, but Brorn had a tendency to throw out long-forgotten knowledge of magic that couldn’t be found in even the oldest books like it was nothing. Caladin never knew when a new morsel was going to come his way. He’d learned to pursue them quickly before the lich’s fickle mood changed.

          “Corrosion,” Brorn answered simply. “Sufficient quantities of magic will destroy most anything, given enough time. Just look at the prodigious rate I have to turn over new servants for the house despite my best efforts to preserve them. I imagine the damage from even small amounts of mana might be felt if the subject was sufficiently sensitive.” He took another sip of his brandy and looked out the window. “Looks like another fine sunset tonight.”

          “Hmmm,” Caladin hummed to himself. “Maybe I’ve been looking at this all wrong. If the only thing I’m able to feel is the effect of mana corroding my skin, then maybe the trick is to enhance my senses.”

          “Your sense of pain?” Brorn asked, for clarification. He turned back from the window, his eyes suddenly alight with curiosity. Caladin didn’t like that, only the moribund and amoral ever seemed to catch the Necro-King’s interest like that.

          “Well, yeah, I guess,” Caladin replied. “If I could feel it better, I might be able to isolate the specific pain the mana’s corrosion causes.”

          “I know just the spell,” Brorn announced with a twinge at the corner of his lip. “It’s a visceramancy spell I inventively call, ‘Torture.’”

          “Torture?” Caladin repeated. He very nearly spit out the sip of tea he’d just taken. That would have been a shame, as it was a very nice blend. “I’m not sure how comfortable I’d be having a spell like that cast on me…”

          “Well, yes,” Brorn said easily. “The spell inflicts intense pain while also enhancing the target’s sense of pain at the same time. I could teach it to you. You don’t have to use it in its current form. I’m sure you can figure out how to pick apart the spell to isolate the effect you want.”

          “Uhh,” Caladin hedged. That seemed like a risky venture. Still, it was better than nothing. If he enhanced his sense of pain magically, maybe he’d finally learn to feel magic in a roundabout way. “What other choice do I have? All your magical textbooks are written for people who can feel magic. All the most advanced spells are useless to me if I can’t feel anything. It can’t hurt to at least try.”

          Brorn raised one brow and let out a soft chuckle.

          “Okay. Obviously it can hurt to try,” Caladin admitted. “Have you at least made any progress on Belorian’s Crown?”

          Brorn froze with his glass of brandy halfway to his lips. His glowing green eyes went unfocused and stared off into the middle distance. Caladin waited and after a moment he blinked and finished taking his drink. He set the glass down. “I made progress,” was all he said.

          “And?” Caladin prompted.

          “I advise you not to meddle with the thing. It is wish-made. It doesn’t belong in this world.”

          “What? Why not? I thought it gave the user—”

          “The cost is too high,” Brorn said sternly.

          “What cost? I thought you said you knew how to use it. This is the first you’re saying of any cost.”

          “Magic always comes with a cost,” Brorn said. “If there is any fundamental law of magic, that’s it. For great power you must pay a great price.”

          “Magic costs mana, sure, but that’s hardly that big of a price to pay. Mana wells pump out mana for free all day long. Did you forget you built this very house on a permanent well? That hardly seems like—”

          “There. Is. Always. A. Cost,” Brorn repeated in a stilted tone full of authority. That was it. He was putting the conversation to bed. Caladin knew better than to press him when he got like this.

          “Okay, there’s always a cost,” Caladin relented. “Assume for a moment that I’ve already agreed with your supposition that the price is too high. Can you offer me an academic indulgence at least? What kind of cost are you talking about? You use necromancy all day long. You’ve stretched your life far beyond its natural limit. Paying the price of magic doesn’t seem to be that big of a problem for you.”

          “That’s a price I have yet to pay,” Brorn said calmly. “It will come due in the end. It’s inevitable. But that’s neither here nor there. The price one would have to pay to use that artifact is more… immediate.”

          “Immediate how?”

          “Do you recognize this body I am currently wearing?” Brorn asked.

          Caladin hesitated. “I mean… did you have it this morning? I guess it’s a little new. It’s always a little disconcerting when you switch like that. I liked that body you were wearing yesterday. The sommelier. It’s more familiar to me.”

          Brorn nodded. “It is unlikely I will be using it again,” he said. “I did an experiment last night. I wore the crown. I was wearing the body you were more familiar with at the time.”

          “Why didn’t you tell me? I could have at least watched. I’m the one that got you that crown in the first place! I feel like I should at least be involved.”

          Brorn frowned. “It is good you were not. You are still too fragile.”

          “So what happened?” Caladin demanded. “I have to know. You have me on the edge of my seat.” Caladin scooted forward a bit until he was actually on the edge of his seat. That got a half smile out of Brorn.

          “There was… a presence inside the crown. I don’t think you could call it anything like a conscious being, but it definitely had a will of its own. When I wore the crown it started guiding my actions. It made me want to do things I wouldn’t normally be interested in doing. Nothing specific, just vague impulses.”

          “What kind of impulses?” Caladin asked.

          “Murder. Destruction. The death of everyone and everything around me.”

          “No offense,” Caladin said. “But that doesn’t seem all that far from your normal personality. Do you know what kind of reputation you have? I’ve seen you kill three trespassers just since I got here.”

          Brorn shook his head. “No. It was different. I have no passion for killing. I am indifferent to it. I do not kill without purpose. When I wore that crown my desire for death was strong. Palpable.”

          “So what happened?” Caladin asked. “What happened to your old body?”

          “I destroyed a few of my own undead servants before I even realized I was not myself. The crown would not allow me to remove it, so I abandoned the body. I keep the house well-stocked with likely replacements, so it was only an inconvenience. It could have been worse. Would have, with most people that command the kind of power I do. You have a strength of your own, child. I forbid you to touch this crown. In the strongest possible terms.”

          “Okay, so the crown makes people who wear it want to murder everyone around them. That’s definitely a problem, but I’m sure we can work with that. How much cerebromancy do you know? Perhaps for the next test we can try—”

          “No,” Brorn said firmly. “You do not understand. I am not testing your resolve here. I am being quite serious. There is not going to be another test. The empty body I left behind. It is still functioning. It is still trying to kill anything that moves. I have lost the ability to control it. The crown is too dangerous.”

          “What? Where is it? And what do you mean by empty?”

          “You are too curious to be trusted with that sort of information. It is somewhere safe for now. This is my own problem to deal with. I will figure out how to retrieve the crown myself. If more comes of this I will be sure to inform you, but in the meantime I encourage you to continue with your other studies.”

          Caladin’s eyes went wide with the sudden realization that struck him. “You weren’t going to tell me! You did an experiment in secret and when it messed up you were just going to not tell me until you could figure out how to fix it without me ever finding out!”

          Brorn grabbed his glass and took another sip of his brandy. He leaned back into his armchair. “I am quite sure I do not know what you are talking about. The problem is being dealt with. I did not tell you because you did not need to know. That is all. Now you have asked, so I told you.”

          Caladin raised his own eyebrow at Brorn as if to say, “You really expect me to believe that?” But Brorn either didn’t notice or didn’t care. The lich held out his empty glass and an undead servant darted out of the corner of the room and retrieved it. “Well, it sounds to me like you messed up,” Caladin told him. “So I think I get to be in charge of the next crown experiment.”

          “Fine,” Brorn relented, “but only when I’ve determined it is safe to do so. And I will be enforcing ground-rules.”

          “Sure, sure. I’ll take all necessary precautions… But do you mind telling me what’s so hard about dealing with a single murderous zombie? It can’t be that hard for a necromancer like yourself, can it?”

          “It is not so simple,” Brorn said. “I did not tell you about the other effect of that crown. It gave me perfect mastery of lunamancy while I wore it. The empty vessel still wearing the crown appears to have retained the ability to wield lunamancy as well. As I said. It is a problem. I have contained the problem for the foreseeable future as few wizards on this planet could possibly have done. I must insist that you let me deal with it. Put it out of your mind and focus on your studies.”

          “My studies?” Caladin complained. “Every book on magic in your stupid library is either too basic to be any good or tries to give me instructions for how to feel my way through a spell. They’re all worthless!”

          Brorn shrugged. “That is how advanced casting works. You are a clever boy. I’m sure you can figure out how to glean the information you require from the texts available if you apply yourself.” He swiveled in his chair to look out the window. “If not, I can promise you that the process of unbinding your soul from your body will also grant you this magic-sensing ability you so desire. My offer still stands.”

          That again. Caladin scoffed. “Ask me again when I’m an old man.”

          Brorn chuckled. It was a dance they liked to play: Brorn finding chances to encourage Caladin to become a lich with him, and Caladin continually insisting he was much too young to even consider it. “Oh I will,” Brorn promised, “I certainly will.”

          A silence returned to the room while Brorn studied the gathering sunset out the window. It was certainly nice, but didn’t seem especially unique to Caladin. Caladin grabbed his teacup and took a sip. It had cooled to the perfect drinking temperature, so he gulped it down. “Well,” he announced as he set the cup back on the table, “I was expecting a lot more one-on-one time when I took on this apprenticeship, or whatever it is. I’m supposed to be learning how to cast powerful magics from the master Necro-King himself, right? You keep acting like the apprenticeship can only start once I let you kill me.”

          Brorn turned back around to face Caladin. “That is an intentionally uncharitable interpretation of the process,” he complained. “Your method of casting is wholly unique. I don’t think anyone in the world could teach you anything new about it. Even I cannot figure out how it works.”

          “I told you. You just use lithomancy to inscribe a scroll. It’s not that complicated.”

          “And yet it must be. You are the only who can do it.” Brorn stood up.

          “Wait, you’re leaving already? What about my lessons?”

          “There are things I must attend to,” Brorn said as he left the room. “I have sent one of my servants to retrieve the text with instructions for the Torture spell. I will have it deliver the scroll to your chambers. I expect a report on how well you did with it by the time I return.”

          “And when will that be?” Caladin asked of Brorn’s back.

          He got no response. Brorn stalked out of the room without another word. Two undead servants joined him as he walked, taking position at each of his shoulders. He walked down the stairs and right out the front door. If experience was any judge, Caladin didn’t expect he’d see him again for at least a few days.

          Caladin was left to his own devices yet again.

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