Caladin’s Climb—Part Eleven (Patreon)

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          Caladin blanched. He didn’t have a response prepared for Brorn’s question. He’d not expected to be caught out so soon. Sure, he hadn’t actually done anything disloyal yet, but the moment he heard that some of his family might still be alive, that was all he cared about. Brorn was expecting his new apprentice to follow at his heel like a well-trained dog for the next century or so, not leave after a few months of training. He searched his mind for something to say that would satisfy the necromancer, then composed himself. “I was interviewing these undead servants, Master,” Caladin said. “I know you don’t like it when I restore their minds like that, but it’s the only way to learn what they knew in their past lives. Sometimes it requires… forceful interrogation methods. I apologize if the noise bothered you.”

          “Oh?” Brorn replied, cocking an eyebrow. He looked down at the bloody mess that was the undead soldier, Jaeryl. The crowd of undead servants had ripped him to pieces. “Your interrogation methods lack finesse,” Brorn said disdainfully. “But I approve of the initiative. What did you learn? I heard something about a rescue? I do hope you aren’t planning to do anything rash, Caladin.”

          “No, nothing like that,” Caladin lied. Assassinating a king would definitely meet Brorn’s definition of “rash”, but that wasn’t about to stop Caladin from trying it. “I was still gathering information. You know… for the stores you approved. Brorn-mart is what I believe we agreed to name them?”

          “I approved only one store,” Brorn pointed out, eyes narrowing.

          “Yes,” Caladin agreed. “And I wanted to pick the very best location possible.”

          Brorn crossed his arms. “And what criteria, pray tell, were you using to determine this location? Somewhere you could coordinate some kind of short-sighted rescue, perhaps? Do not take me for a fool, Caladin. I will not be granting you carte blanche to use my resources for whatever you want.”

          Caladin could feel a bead of nervous sweat start to work its way down the small of his back. “Well… you know about the war going on, right?” he asked. Brorn nodded. Caladin gestured at the mutilated remains of Jaeryl. “This man was a soldier in that war,” he explained. “He served… King Philipus Haedril. The one leading the rebellion against Queen Fayse.”

          “I know of the war,” Brorn said. “Do not assume I bother myself with the ins and outs of every minor squabble between nations.”

          “Of course not,” Caladin agreed, perhaps a little too easily. “But if we want to really make money, we need to know what’s going on. We have a real opportunity to make a tidy profit here. I want to use your zombies to make weapons, then sell them to both sides. I just need to know where the rebels are hiding so I can establish a store close enough for them to come to us for supplies. I was getting this soldier here to tell me where that was, he was just being… difficult.”

          Brorn stroked his goatee. “Seems risky,” he said. “But you are correct that kings tend to spend obscene amounts of money funding their little wars.” Caladin smiled at the encouragement. “Do not think I forgot what I heard though,” he added seriously. “You spoke of rescue. Who were you planning to rescue? I fail to see how any sort of rescue might be related to the goals you just outlined.”

          “Just some prisoners, this soldier’s unit took captive,” Caladin admitted. It was actually the truth. “I thought they could be useful.”

          Brorn narrowed his eyes into a glare. “Useful,” he said in a harsh tone, “is not getting me pulled into an eldrin civil war. I am fine with profiting from it; making money was the whole point of the endeavor, after all. But I draw the line at getting involved in the actual conflict! That means no rescuing prisoners. The last thing I need is an actual army marching into my swamp. There are limits to the threats I am capable of managing.”

          Caladin looked down at the ground. “Yes, Master. I’m sorry. I just got carried away with the interrogation and didn’t consider the consequences.”

          “As long as you understand,” Brorn said. “Now you have a mess that needs to be cleaned up. Honestly, didn’t I teach you a torture spell for just such an occasion? Ripping the man’s body apart only makes a mess and look how much harder you’ve made it to get the information you wanted out of him! Half his jaw is missing now. How is he supposed to answer your questions?”

          “Sorry, Master. I will do better,” Caladin said. He found Brorn really liked to be called “Master”. It always helped calm him down when he got upset.

          “Don’t ‘yes, Master’ me,” Brorn said. “Think for yourself next time. That is the whole point of keeping you around. Now come inside for dinner. You can explain more about your plans for Brorn-Mart while we eat.”

          “Of course,” Caladin said. He cleared his throat. “But uh, it would be a lot easier to clean up the mess if you re-animated the undead you just turned off.”

          Brorn looked around at the limp bodies scattered around the lawn. He sighed. “Very well. You were using that repair spell of yours again, weren’t you?”

          “A bit,” Caladin admitted. “Only when it’s necessary.”

          “Well then it will be your responsibility to keep any undead you repair in line,” Brorn warned. “I don’t want to have to keep intervening like this.” He flicked his wrist in annoyance, returning the pale green light of unlife to the scattered bodies. They began to stand up on their own, all except Jaeryl, who was no longer capable of standing. Caladin offered a hand to Lenny, shaking his head and pursing his lips subtly to warn him against speaking.

          “Ah! Ih hurth!” Jaeryl screamed. “Why doeth ih hurth tho muth? Make ih thop! Make ih thop!” His mangled lower jaw still made it difficult to speak.

          Brorn pinched the bridge of his nose in annoyance, then one of the nearby zombies brought a foot down on Jaeryl’s head, caving in his skull. The green light didn’t leave his eyes, but he at least stopped screaming. “What a bother,” Brorn complained. “In the future, make sure any screaming is contained to the shed. Or head out to the swamp. I don’t care, as long as it doesn’t rattle the windows when I’m trying to enjoy my evening.” He waved a hand at Jaeryl’s unmoving corpse. It seemed once the brain was destroyed any intelligence went with it. “Come inside when you’re done,” Brorn instructed. “I already started eating. Your braised lamb is getting cold without you.”

          “I’ll be in as soon as I’m done,” Caladin promised.

          Brorn turned and walked back inside, muttering a complaint about “inconsiderate apprentices” that Caladin was pretty sure he was intended to overhear. Caladin didn’t release the pent-up breath he was holding until the door closed.

          “Master, eh?” Lenny said with a laugh. “Never thought I’d hear something like that out of you.”

          “It’s Necro-King Brorn,” Caladin pointed out. “Would you rather I was rude? He’s probably the single most powerful wizard on the planet. You should be thankful I calmed him down before he figured out you were conscious. You want that to happen to you?” Caladin pointed to the mindless Jaeryl zombie with the crushed skull. “In case you didn’t realize it, you ended up on the ground because he turned you off. He can do that whenever he wants. He has a greater mastery of necromancy than I could hope to master in a thousand lifetimes.” He said that just to make a point, but Caladin didn’t actually believe that. He secretly suspected it would only take him fifty years of dedicated research to catch up to Brorn. It wasn’t like he was very interested anymore in learning new things.

          Lenny shrugged. “I’m already dead. What’s he gonna do to me?”

          “You really don’t want to know the answer to that question,” Caladin said. “He’s got a spell specifically for torturing people and if he doesn’t want you to die you never will. We’re both lucky he’s too lazy to be as evil as he’s capable of being.”

          “And you serve this guy?” Lenny asked. “What made you think that was a good idea? Aren’t there less evil people you could learn from?”

          “He’s not evil evil,” Caladin insisted. “Not really. He just doesn’t have the same moral framework as other people. He had a chance to kill me once and he didn’t take it. I think it’s mostly that he’s been around so long he just sees regular people like… ants, or something. He may not think about them or get upset when they die, but he also doesn’t go out of his way to kill them either. The only thing that causes him to really lash out is when people attack him.” Caladin thought about that. “…or annoy him,” he amended.

          “Sounds pretty evil if you ask me,” Lenny said. “And you sound like you’re trying just a bit too hard to justify his behavior.”

          “Fine, whatever. He’s evil!” Caladin relented. “But did you miss the part about how he’s also the single most powerful wizard in the world? What I said about him not caring about regular people goes both ways. He doesn’t care that I’m human! Where else am I possibly going to find someone willing to train a human hedge mage in the secrets of magic? He’s forgotten more about magic than most nations.”

          Lenny rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Eh, well… sounds like you got your reasons then. Just so long as you don’t end up thinkin’ like him I guess I can’t complain.”

          “I can think for myself just fine,” Caladin maintained. He snapped his fingers to get the attention of the assembled undead. “You there. Clean up this mess,” he commanded them, motioning towards the remains of Jaeryl. The undead servants moved into action. Even Jaeryl himself started scooping up his own intestines. His skull was caved in and his eyes were little more than pinpoints of green light, but that didn’t stop him from moving to obey Caladin’s command. “Just gather everything into one place,” Caladin told the undead, “then everyone who can walk, go back to the storage shed.” He turned back to Lenny. “I’ll put Jaeryl back together later,” he told him. “I don’t have enough mana at the moment to fix him again anyway. Now I really need to go eat before Brorn realizes something’s wrong.”

          “You’re just going to… put him back together?” Lenny asked. “Do you remember what he wanted? The man didn’t want to live like that. I mean, I get that he killed me and all, but even I wouldn’t want that. Rip him apart over and over without letting him die? That’s a whole different kind o’ cruel.”

          “It’s not—” Caladin stopped himself. Lenny was right and he knew it. “You’re right,” he said. “It is cruel, but he has information we need. If I had a better way to get that information, I would do that instead. I’ve got to work with the tools I have. Look, as soon as he tells me where the prisoners were taken I’ll put his bones to rest myself. Okay?”

          Lenny rubbed his chin again. He had a habit of doing that when he was making a difficult decision. “Aye,” he finally said. “If we don’t got a choice…”

          Caladin backed away towards the door before Lenny could make him feel any guiltier about how far his morals had bent since meeting Brorn. He didn't want to become like Brorn, but… how much had the necromancer already made him “think like him” as Lenny would say. No, Caladin told himself. This was different. Jaeryl was a murderer. He didn’t deserve sympathy. He hadn’t yet lost himself so badly that he couldn’t tell the difference between a murderer and everyone else. “Just stay out here with the others,” Caladin told Lenny. “And if you see Brorn just do whatever he says like the others. Try to blend in. I’ll work on getting us both out of here.”

          “Enjoy that dinner,” Lenny said somewhat sadly as he watched Caladin go back inside. Caladin left him out there. In the cold, the dark… alone beyond the company of a few dozen mindless zombies.

          Inside, Caladin found a plate waiting for him. It was tastefully adorned with three charred shanks of braised lamb, accompanied by a dollop of garlic-infused mashed potatoes all drizzled in a creamy mushroom gravy. It didn’t escape Caladin’s attention that a lot of dishes had mushroom in them lately. They lived in a swamp. Brorn’s undead servants patrolled the surrounding area and he’d seen a few regularly deliver sacks of foraged goods. Brorn, of course, claimed that exotic mushrooms were an expensive delicacy few could afford, but Caladin saw it for what it was: Brorn was starting to run out of money. His extravagant lifestyle required an extravagant expense account, and with the civil war still going on it was unlikely his Eldesian accounts were going to be unfrozen anytime soon. The meal Brorn had managed to put together would still leave even a prince satisfied, but how much longer could he maintain such luxuries? It didn’t seem he’d actually had to stoop to working for his money for centuries. It seemed to Caladin like the only reason Brorn had approved his store idea.

          “So,” Caladin said between bites, trying to sound conversational. Brorn was down to picking at his last shank between sips of brandy. “I think I picked out the ten undead I want to use to build the first store.”

          “Mhmm,” Brorn replied lazily. He motioned for a servant to take away his plate.

          “And I was thinking I could be ready to leave to set it up by tomorrow afternoon,” Caladin continued.

          “How are your vocomancy studies coming?” Brorn asked.

          “O…kay,” Caladin answered evasively. He still wasn’t very confident when it came to traveling long distances and his little foray into literal space while trying to flee from the Eldira Savings and Loan security forces had given him a little anxiety about teleporting except when it was strictly necessary.

          “I will expect you to set up a teleportation circle at this store as soon as it is built so that I can check on your progress. Is that something you think you can manage?”

          Caladin nodded. “Definitely. But, uh, I’d prefer to test it with an undead servant first, just in case.” Caladin was just starting to realize the real reason Brorn had been pushing him to practice making his own teleportation circles: to keep tabs on him when he left. It seemed like too much to expect that leaving the manor for this Brorn-Mart project would give him as much of a break from Brorn’s oversight as he’d been hoping for. With the way Brorn kept pestering him with questions and checking in on him lately he suspected his ulterior motives for setting up the store might not be as secret as he’d hoped.

          “I am sure you will do just fine,” Brorn said. “The last circle you made was perfectly acceptable.”

          Caladin never told him that he’d just copied that design wholesale right out of a book. Circles were supposed to be personalized and adjusted based on the coordinates. That circle would never have worked if it had been used to travel more than a few yards. But that was tomorrow’s problem. Caladin smiled. “So about that store, I was thinking of putting it up a few leagues South of here, at the edge of the Eldesian border.”

          “Oh?” Brorn said. “Near those prisoners you weren’t planning to rescue?”

          Caladin almost choked on his bite of lamb. He quickly recovered and tried to play it off like a genuine mistake swallowing. While he gulped down a mouthful of water to clear his throat, he had time to come up with a convincing cover. “I wouldn’t know that because I never actually learned where those prisoners even are,” Caladin answered honestly. It was true, too, the only reason Caladin wanted to set things up there was that it was close to where his family’s last camp had been. If any survivors had been taken prisoner, it stood to reason that would be a good place to start his investigation. Caladin set down his glass, then waved off Brorn’s concerns. “Those prisoners are already forgotten about. I was just thinking about a centralized location where we could reach both markets. Eldesia and King Philipus’s rebels. We could sell weapons to both sides.”

          “Do not think I don’t know what you are thinking,” Brorn warned him. Caladin could feel the blood drain from his face. He froze his features into a mask. “You think you can get your hands on some extra bodies. Raise your own army. I was young once, too. I know the way these things go. Put it out of your head. I will be checking up on you regularly. If you have even a single extra undead servant, I will find out and I will make you will regret it.” He set his glass down. “I need to hear you say you understand.”

          Brorn had completely missed the mark. Caladin thought that probably said a lot more about his own sensibilities that he assumed Caladin was secretly planning to raise an army and not rescue imprisoned family. He hung his head as though he were ashamed he’d been caught out. “Dammit,” he said. “You figured me out. I should have known I wouldn’t be able to get anything past you.”

          A slight smile touched Brorn’s lips. He snapped his fingers. An undead servant stepped forward with a serving tray; only instead of food it had a fist-sized rock.

          “What’s this?” Caladin asked.

          “A sending stone,” Brorn explained. “It looks perfectly mundane, but that is by design. Do not lose it. I expect you to keep it with you when you go. You can use it to communicate with me at any time. If you have any questions, or need my help, do not hesitate to call.” At a nod from Brorn, the servant placed the stone on the table in front of Caladin. “And if I call you,” Brorn added in an icy tone, “I expect you to answer. Every time.”

          “Oh. Thanks,” Caladin said. He actually meant it. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d almost think you cared about my wellbeing.”

          Brorn frowned at that comment. “I have made a significant investment in you, and I expect to get a return on that. I might make it look easy, but creating undead servants is no casual magic. I purchase most of the bodies you see out in my shed and their usefulness decreases over time. I will not suffer you to waste them.” And there was the other shoe dropping. Anytime a glimmer of humanity started to shine through Brorn’s icy exterior he deliberately snuffed it out.

          “Noted,” Caladin said. He shoveled the last bite of food into his mouth and pushed himself up from the table. “Well, I should go. I’ve got preparations to make for the morning.”

          Brorn waved him away. “You are excused,” he said.

          Caladin went straight for the mana well to recharge, then spent the better part of an hour preparing scroll after scroll. It was annoying he couldn’t carry around more mana on his person. His belt of mana bars were useful, but they had their limits. The paper he inscribed his spells on had limits too. For instance, the more mana he tried to imbue into a scroll, the less time it would remain stable before burning itself up. Only small spells could remain stable in paper for any significant length of time. What Caladin really needed was a way to make his own mana crystals. By weight they were the most potent and stable way to store mana. He knew they formed naturally over a long period of time, he just didn’t yet know of a way to artificially manufacture them. It would be a game changer if he figured it out, but so far every book he’d found on the topic said the same thing: artificial creation of mana crystals was impossible.

          While Caladin worked through the repetitive task of imbuing spell scrolls for later, his mind wandered. This time it wandered in a useful direction. What was really the problem preventing creation of mana crystals? It was that they were made of pure mana, and any attempt to manipulate mana always shaped it into a specific harmonic. He’d read an old book in Brorn’s library on harmonic theory about a week ago that said harmonics were formed in a similar way to how a prism would split light that struck it into different colors. In the case of magic, though, the “prism” was the person channeling the mana. But… there might be a solution that nobody had tried before. What would happen if someone channeled every harmonic in equal volumes at the same time? Could it not recombine back into pure mana? Sure, the balance would have to be perfect, but he couldn’t see a reason it wouldn’t work.

          Okay… there were actually lots of reasons it wouldn’t work, not least of all being that it was entirely possible that not all harmonics of magic had yet been discovered. Even if they weren’t, the property of harmonic interference would very likely break the spell apart. But to Caladin’s mind none of that meant impossible, just implausible. He liked implausible. He could work with implausible. He could already do things with his spell scrolls that most scholars would consider impossible. Why not one more? The biggest hurdle to the idea forming in Caladin’s mind was that it would require a genuine archmage to even attempt it, and he was not a real archmage. But he also wasn’t definitely not an archmage. On paper, at least, he was one.

          The idea was worth exploring… but later. He’d need to learn how to channel lunamancy before he could expand on it, and there was frighteningly little knowledge on that particular harmonic. His belt was fully charged and all the scrolls he could reasonably prepare were ready to go. Caladin sat up from the well and returned to the back yard where he’d left Lenny and the other undead servants.

          When he got there, it was too dark to see without a light. Lenny was the only one that hadn’t gone back in the storage shed. He was standing in the dark when Caladin opened the back door, looking down at the dismembered body of Jaeryl. It looked like the undead servants had just gathered the broken pieces of his body and dumped them in a pile. A wet pile of guts were just piled on top of his belly. It was pretty gruesome.

          “You’re back,” Lenny said. “I was starting to worry about what I was going to do if you didn’t return.”

          “I wasn’t gone that long,” Caladin replied dismissively. He pulled out one of the scrolls he had prepared. It had the repair spell inscribed on it. With as much mana as it took to use the spell on a zombie, Caladin couldn’t fit it on the actual paper, instead he left an addendum in the inscription to pull mana from the user—in this case, the fully-charged mana bars on his belt. He pressed the paper for his repair scroll against the least bloody section of flesh he could find on Jaeryl and triggered the scroll. Golden fire washed over Jaeryl’s body and stitched his flesh back together. He took a shuddering breath in as soon as the spell was complete.

          “I’m… alive… again,” Jaeryl said. He sounded downright despondent about it.

          “Get used to it,” Caladin told him. “You’re going to lead me to that fort your king is holed up in whether you want to or not. You can die when I’m done with you.”

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