Lohs had delivered yet another assortment of dire news regarding defections from various provinces, all to Nethron. Rohmhelt tried to recall that at least similar defections were plaguing his brother, including losing the crown jewel of his kingdom, the city of Zarmand, to these disloyal and fickle people.

“I’m most worried about the large segments of the north central regions,” Lohs said, as he stood behind Rohmhelt at the Emperor’s desk. It was only the two of them in the Emperor’s study in Heldraht Palace and Rohmhelt had said little during the entire session. “It essentially cuts our supply lines back to Karmand.”

“But Karmand is still loyal?” Rohmhelt murmured, his hands over his lips.

“Very much so,” Lohs proudly stated. “As is central Methrangia, for the most part.”

“The most part?” Rohmhelt queried.

“I thought you’d pick up on that,” the old man chuckled. “Nothing major, a few villages and small cities here and there. Methrangia, the city itself, is firmly on your side.”

“Brother’s armies are spreading out,” Rohmhelt said, deciding to move the conversation elsewhere. “I’m assuming he wants to put down his own rebellions. Agrehn tells me that there are no signs he means to attack us.”

“I can’t imagine that he would. He’s still firmly at the disadvantage.”

Rohmhelt stood and stared at the map on the wall behind his desk, which was barely illuminated in candlelight.

“He’s been skirmishing at some of our forts, but I think that’s just trying to provoke me again,” Rohmhelt groaned. “I won’t fall for that.”

“I’ve known the two of you long enough to know that Duronaht loves testing you.”

“I failed the test at the Nehal River. We almost won anyway, which I’m sure frightens him. He wants me to make a mistake again. I’m sure he thinks that he can make me pay dearly for it.”

“I’d advise against speculating too much about what goes on in his head,” Lohs scolded with an amused chuckle.

Rohmhelt sighed and began pacing about his study. He recalled his most recent visit from Simel, where the angel told the Emperor that Forynda’s fury would soon be unleashed on Nethron and his followers and it would then turn toward Omonrel. True to form, however, Simel was vague on when this would occur. “Soon” meant an entirely different thing to an immortal being.

Frustrated, he motioned to Lohs to go out onto the balcony as he desperately wanted to smell the crisp Autumn nighttime air. It did not disappoint. Cool breezes swept around Heldraht Palace that night. He looked down upon Methrangia, candlelight illuminating the hundreds of thousands of homes, shops, taverns, and so on. Even with the absence of Solnaht Citadel at the city’s center, it was still a glorious sight.

“Evinda wants me to crush the Nethron loyalists and quickly. She says there’s little time before we might lose the people’s affections,” he sighed. “But if Simel is right, then Forynda will resolve the matter almost immediately.”

“The Queen… Pardon me, the Empress,” Lohs began, repeating an error Rohmhelt sometimes made himself, “has a point. But I think our central appeal is our magnanimity. It was your brother and Parlon who killed your father for not adhering to their desires. That vile act bought us much goodwill while we have been kind and open. I find myself torn, though, as we mustn’t let treason go unpunished.”

“I think we’ve been around each other too long, Lohs,” Rohmhelt smiled back at the old man. “Those were exactly my thoughts.”

“Ah, glad to hear it,” Lohs chuckled.

“I think the best course right now is to wait for Forynda to make her move. If she destroys Nethron and then those who have been seduced by him still won’t come back into the fold, then far harsher measures will be needed.”

“A wise balance,” Lohs said, smiling.

“Time will tell on that.”

~~~

Once again, a flash of total abyssal blackness overcame Nethron’s vision. Complete nothingness stared back at him for what seemed to be years. When he wrenched himself free from that glimpse of oblivion, he took some moments to reorient himself to his chamber in Mount Ceuna. He found delight in the fact that he was an exile from Ceuna itself, but that he enjoyed at least a temporary refuge in a mountain irreverently named for his old home.

That delight faded as the almost imperceptible pressure he felt from time’s march built on him. He knew that his followers would soon grow impatient without a meaningful achievement from the Silver Aura.

While most of his acolytes slept, he labored furiously, experimenting on the corpses of insects to attempt to reanimate them. However, there was an essential problem: they lacked souls in the first place. Beasts in their numerous varieties had been granted souls, but pests had not. They were mindless creatures, for the most part. He recalled Vorlan’s and Aberos’s reasoning for abstaining from the granting of souls to those living things whose frequent and cruel demises were necessary for other life. Aberos especially found the concept of assigning true consciousness to such creatures to be abhorrent.

Rats that died in Mount Ceuna’s labyrinthine tunnels and caverns, however, would prove more useful. Though many of their bodies had been decaying for days, he nonetheless took to attempting to revive the miserable little creatures. On one of them, he laid his hands over it and sought to commune with the Auras that had comprised it in life. Those agglomerations that had animated the creature’s life also left a trail to where its soul ventured after death.

Moving along the Auras’ tendrils, he ventured across the different realms into the Communion of Souls in Ceuna. He worried momentarily that Forynda might discover that he was there as she was its gatekeeper. However, he only needed to be there briefly. The poor little rat’s soul was easily lured out of Ceuna and back into the mortal world. Nethron carefully guided the soul back to its rotted corpse, which it seemed to resist. He thus used the Silver Aura to mend its decay at least somewhat. Doing so was more difficult than he had assumed. He needed to use the Silver Aura to fuse the frayed and decaying fibers of the other Auras, a feat that did not come easily. Each small part of the creature’s body was comprised of impossibly complex arrays of different Auras.

How did Vorlan and Jagreth ever imagine anything like this? Nethron wondered. I never took either of them to have such disciplined minds.

His vision was marred by the disorganized and damaged strings. It was utter chaos. Fusing them back into what he believed was some semblance of what they had been proved arduous. Growing impatient, as soon as he was satisfied with the integrity of the rat’s corpse, Nethron shepherded its soul back into its body.

Once its soul was cradled in the shell of its still mangled corpse, it let out a horrid shriek. Screeches and gurgles alternated back and forth as its eyes flashed an iridescent silver, glowing hauntingly in the dimly lit cavern. It stared vacantly back at Nethron, its jaw spasming and its feet unsteady. What mending he had achieved of its body began to fail, its flesh sloughing off like ill-fitting clothes. Crawling forward, it outstretched one of its jittering paws at the Aura Liberator. With a sluggish flick of his wrist, he obliterated the beast in an argent pulse.

Sensing its soul skittering back across the ethereal realms separating Ceuna and the mortal world, Nethron sighed. His despair quickly fell away, however. He realized his expectations had been far too great. What he had achieved, reanimating the unfortunate little rat, had never been seen in the mortal world before. A soul had returned to its body and it felt life again, however brief and tortured. If it could be done at all, that meant it could be done better and then better again until perfected.

Emboldened by his achievement, he summoned Renkyk and Galdrehln to the shore of the lake on Mount Ceuna’s north end early in the morning. He pondered summoning others, but in case his demonstration failed utterly, he wanted a limited audience.

“What’s this about?” Galdrehln yawned, having just been awakened.

“Quiet!” Renkyk scolded. “This takes concentration. Right?”

“Concentration…” Nethron murmured. “Yes, it does. Thank you.”

For his subject in this instance, he chose one of what the mortals called a Temnog, a large amphibious creature with short fat legs and a long slick green body. They grew fast and lived brief lives, with a brood dying each year and washing up on nearby shores. It so happened that there was a plentiful supply of recently deceased Temnogs that had beached along the lake’s shores behind Mount Ceuna. Besides their abundance, Nethron found another characteristic of the Temnogs appealing: a far more distinctive composition of their Auras. Heavily aquatic, their watery aura was easier to focus onto. He thanked Cyrona for that gift if nothing else.

The particular corpse he chose was a relatively intact specimen, likely only having been deceased for the better part of a day. Galdrehln lethargically poked at its lifeless small orb of an eye to verify its expired status.

“My thanks. Now, please stand aside,” Nethron said and motioned. His acolyte obliged.

Again, he focused first on the Auras comprising its body, following their strains through the strange and incomprehensible ethereal realms connecting them to the soul, whose trail led to Ceuna. He guided beast’s simple spirit out from the Communion of Souls and lured it back to its putrefying remains. In this instance, mending the Temnog’s body was not necessary. It was sufficiently intact to house its erstwhile soul. Using the Silver Aura’s tendrils Nethron guided the soul back into its home, giving the motionless remains their old spark of life.

With a powerful roar, its eyes flashed the same iridescent silver as the rat before it. Its stubby legs stood as tall as they could once more. Renkyk and Galdrehln recoiled, with the spindly Renkyk hiding behind the sturdier Galdrehln. The beast looked to them, tilting its head as agonized grunts built in its throat. It then turned to the Aura Liberator and put its head down in an evident display of fealty.

Just as Nethron wished to declare a total triumph, however, the creature spasmed and gurgled. Again, as with the rat, its flesh began to slough away, falling to the ground in steaming chunks. Sighing, Nethron extinguished its life with a brief argent pulse that obliterated its body and freed its soul, which swiftly returned to Ceuna.

Though he had expected as much for his second attempt, Nethron nonetheless sighed with disappointment. Hopes had raced through him that he would be able to discover the Silver Aura’s methods quickly. He realized that was a fool’s errand now. Mortal impatience proved contagious. This would require much more work.

“Astonishing!” Renkyk exclaimed, moving toward the Temnog’s smoldering remains.

“That’s a word for it,” Galdrehln coughed. “And that wasn’t a trick? It was truly alive again?”

“Alive… yes, it was certainly alive again, briefly,” Nethron grumbled. “Its soul returned to its body and it found life’s warm embrace once more. More refinement is needed, obviously, but I will see my promise fulfilled. You will conquer death.”