[Womb of the Dark Mage]

Chapter 27 / 07

A Chance Pulse

The apparition dragged its feet, moaning in a high-pitched voice that shared its suffering. Light passed through it like foggy glass, and it had the form of a puren woman in a long gown. The shrill whine of the banshee kept Geoff on edge even when it was not screaming, so even the tapping of water dripping from the ceiling to the grey stone made him flinch. He shivered as he lay on the ground, weak and frozen from fear.

He wasn’t even cold; that spell Sparlyset put on him kept him comfortably warm, even through his drenched clothes, but the memory of the banshee’s wail kept goosebumps on his skin. His heart still pounded so hard he was surprised the ghost didn’t hear it. There was no way for him to know how long he’d been unconscious for after that first scream, but he was glad as hell it wasn’t paying attention to him anymore.

It stumbled across the uneven ground, nearly tripping on stiff weeds that flourished between the cracks. It spoke as it moved, and every word was a nail driven into his mind. He understood the words, but the pain bled him of the memory.

Behind the banshee a broad-leafed creature hung from the ceiling. Its incredibly long leaves were wrapped tightly around a derelict ship, strangling the masts and flowing over the hull to the ground. His flashlight—which had rolled out of his hand when the banshee knocked him out—aimed right at it, causing two big eyes in the tangle to glow. They watched him the way a cat watched a mouse before deciding whether to play with it.

He wondered about that ship. The corner of the room had collapsed from floor to ceiling, letting a massive amount of water pool in its place. Above, plants had made their home where stone had been. Past the edge of where the wall should be was natural stone, though. How did an entire galley get into the room?

The banshee said something and he winced again. For a second he almost thought he’d remember the word. Geoff wanted to pull his MGS out from underneath him where it was digging into his ribs, but he was afraid to do anything that might draw its attention. As it was, it acted like he wasn’t even there.

It stumbled towards the plant creature, and its eyes clamped shut. He wondered if the thing hated ghosts too. At least the screaming ones. While it was farther away, he moved as slowly as he could to lift himself up. So slowly he wasn’t even sure he was moving. He just had to move enough to get the MGS out.

At the rate he was going it would take all day. Geoff was fine with that if it meant he wouldn’t have to hear the damn thing scream. He’d thought the sound was peeling his skin off. Might even replace Warbinger in his dreams.

The banshee cried, a piercing sound that made even the hanging boat monster shudder. It hurt his bones. Then, the ghost turned and walked mindlessly towards the wall. He didn’t want to know what kind of suffering turned someone into one of these things.

Suddenly he remembered what Lamet had said about Warbinger’s name. If you heard it said it would drive you mad… What would be the worst sound you can imagine? Combine it with the nine next worst sounds, and this is the creature's name. A tenth of Warbinger’s name could probably make one of these.

The plant creature opened one eye. All he could see was the light reflected in it; he couldn’t tell where it was looking. He thought it was looking at him, though. He stopped trying to move his left arm, bent awkwardly under him and holding the MGS. If it was watching him, then they had eye contact. He turned his other palm upwards, hoping it would understand and they could work together somehow.

The plant moved subtly, snaking a long leaf through the air and between the cracks in the ceiling. Geoff could see it tugging. There was a shower of dust and pebbles. The banshee’s head hung limply, rolling back and forth as it swung around.

“Why?” it spoke. Geoff flinched again. “My baby…”

It let out a staggering groan and turned again, Towards Geoff. The other creature tugged at the ceiling again and it finally collapsed. Stones crashed to the ground with a rain of dust and the banshee lurched around, seeking the noise.

Geoff swung out the MGS and hit the new Flame Drive. The cell ignited with a hiss and he pumped to charge the barrel. The banshee’s head rolled backwards over its shoulder to glower at him upside down.

This is my first time, go easy on me, he thought. He pulled the trigger. The MGS released a searing ray that struck the ghost in the face and burst into a pulse of fire that tore its body apart and left only a disfigured mess of sagging ghostly flesh above unmoving legs. The remains of the banshee evaporated like steam.

He released his breath. Stiffness left his body immediately in the sudden quiet. He took another deep breath to make sure he was really alive, and then pushed himself to his feet. There was still the matter of the plant thing. As he stepped closer he scooped up his flashlight and aimed it down so it wasn’t right in the thing’s eyes. Had it really intended to help him?

“Yes,” the creature said. Its voice was deep and soothing. “And yes, I read your thoughts. Ah,” it chuckled, “but now that you know, I no longer can. It was only your desire to communicate that let me in, in the first place.”

Geoff looked around the room quickly, keeping the thing in his peripherals, to check his surroundings before getting distracted by a conversation with this thing. When he was confident there was nothing else lurking around, he said, “What the heck are you? I mean, thanks for the help.”

It made a mirthful sound. “Cooperation has benefitted us both. The apparitions of this place have not been roused for some time, and I was not pleased to see one where I sleep. That said, I would know you as well. My name is Isamdureet. I am a kelp dragon.”

“Oh shit.” Geoff blinked. “A ‘True Dragon’?”

The giant kelp shook. “The puren call us that. They look up to us, but we do not look down on them. I think they envy our more… classical forms, though theirs are compact and versatile. There is no real reason one should covet the other. Now, will you introduce yourself?”

“Oh yeah. My name is Geoff. I’m a human from Earth. It’s like a… an advanced ape.”

“Hmm,” Isamdureet rumbled. “I know apes, but I do not know Earth.”

Geoff shrugged. “It’s another world. Warbinger brought it close to Oval, or something. I don’t know, you’d have to ask the Lightweaver.”

The Dragon recognized Warbinger’s name, but was still eager to hear what Geoff had to say as he briefed him on recent events.

“Have you come to this tomb to seek power for the coming battles, then? I fear this is not a good place for it.” He sighed. “My secret passage into the tomb from beneath the sea has made this one of the safest places I could nest. At least while the Tomb slept. Now… none should wish to be here.”

“No,” he shook his head. “I came with friends to stop someone else from waking the place up and we got separated.”

Isamdureet extended his head. The kelp of his body unravelled from around the wrecked ship as he slinked down to the ground. “Yes,” he said as his serpentine body pulled forward on powerful legs, only the four sharp claws showing from within the wraps of seaweed. He encircled Geoff, his head hanging above him. “I see who you mean.”

Geoff spun around. He was sheltered in a tent of massive kelp, but he could see out between the Dragon’s legs. The pungent scent of sea life assaulted his nose, but his concern was the figure standing at the corridor Geoff had taken into the room.

A blue puren with the same thoughtful eyes as Lamet stood with a floating disc. Geoff’s chest tightened as he saw Rick lying unconscious on top of it breathing shallow breaths.

The man only glanced at them before he turned to walk away, towards the twisted tunnel leaving the room that was half filled with rubble.

“Are you Lamet’s brother, Dorshemet? What are you doing with Rick?” He squeezed the grip of his MGS.

The man ignored him. Geoff raised his gun. His finger hovered over the Flame Drive switch.

The blue puren stopped and turned to face them. He cocked his head as if considering something. “Dragon, perhaps you can save me some time. I seek a tablet that depicts a Rite, or perhaps a spell. Something of that sort. Do you know its location?”

Isamdureet raised a claw in what Geoff assumed was his palm-down. “I have the sense not to disturb the powers of this place.”

“For some reason I don’t believe you,” Dorshemet said. “You live here, do you not? You must have a sense of where it must be.”

“There is only one path forward from here.” Isamdureet retorted.

He laughed. “If the humans and the useless little Lightweaver are here, then my sister is as well. I need to find that tablet before she gets in my way.”

“I could not care less,” the Dragon blew a salty mist from his nostrils that Geoff was thankful he was well behind. “Follow the path on your own if you insist on defiling this accursed place.”

Dorshemet sighed. “Do not waste my time, Dragon, I could torture the location from you if I wished.”

“Does your feeble mind struggle to comprehend a straight path unless a line is drawn for you in the sand?” The Dragon growled. “The one wasting your time is you.”

The puren growled back and the disc moved ahead. Geoff put his hand on the Dragon’s coil to vault over, but it wrapped him in seaweed and pulled him back.

“Pathetic creatures,” Dorshemet walked away with a confidence that drove Geoff mad.

“Give me Rick, you asshole!” he shouted. He struggled for his MGS but his arms were pinned to his sides. “Let me go, Isamdureet! Stop him!” The man was obscured by the kelp forest Geoff was caught in. He struggled against his binds.

“That man is not weak, Geoff. If we fought him now, victory could be costly. Your friend may even be injured in the battle.”

He understood Isamdureet’s words. They made sense to him, but he couldn’t just leave Rick like that. “I don’t know what to do,” he said, giving a final half-hearted push against the kelp. “I’ll never even hit that prick if he has that Barrier spell. But I can’t…”

The Dragon sighed, his enormous breath soaking the room in humidity. “You should find this sister he fears and wait to confront him with her aid. I will even grant you mine, if it means you will avoid any undue rashness.”

Geoff tried to calm himself. If Dorshemet was going to kill Rick… wouldn’t he have done it by now? What the hell did he want with him, then? He might be able to wait until he found Lamet. “I hate this,” he said.

Isamdureet rumbled thoughtfully and uncoiled himself from around Geoff, but kept him gripped in kelp. “You are familiar with the Rites, I see, by our ability to converse. I will grant you a rare Rite if you wish. Consider it thanks for putting that spirit to rest.”

“Is that what I did?’ He supposed something dead couldn’t be killed again.

The Dragon laughed. “It is better off wherever it is now. We pray it is Haantisha, but only the gods know where these apparitions go.” He lowered his head to meet Geoff’s eyes. The mass of kelp shook as he spoke. “There is a mantra amongst dragons: ‘always carry a riteseed’. Have you heard it?”

Geoff sighed, and the Dragon loosened its grip enough that he could pull a riteseed out of his pouch. “Lamet the Riteweaver insisted before we left.”

“Good,” he rumbled. The kelp released him completely now. “I do not see purens often, but it is good to hear they still hold the old traditions. A well-fed riteseed can sustain even us larger dragons with nutrition for a week. So the tradition began, in more challenging times.”

Geoff was getting impatient to follow after Dorshemet. Or look for Lamet. Whatever he had to do. Talk of Rites was making him nervous. “Are you going to make me eat this thing?”

“Fear not, this Rite is rare but it is not a drawn-out process. No worse than the Rite of Vitality, if you know it.” The Dragon lifted his forelimb and reached into his curtain of kelp.

He wondered how Lamet would react, hearing he had a Rite that she didn’t. Assuming she didn’t. It would be the same as Sparlyset with that Rite of Dragons thing, he guessed.

Isamdureet pulled out a blue scale. It was tinier than Geoff would have thought, for how big the Dragon was, only the size of a fingernail. He handed it to him.

“Some Rites, like Vitality, are simple,” he began. “Sharing is tremendously powerful, but nearly impossible to perform, and others like the Rite of Divination that tells me you can be trusted, are not complicated, but take too much time for most to commit. They all come with a challenge to obtain their powers. Cup your hands.”

Geoff held his hands together, with the scale and the riteseed cradled in the centre.

Isamdureet held out his arm and a thick drop of silver blood fell over the seed. Geoff winced as the Dragon scratched his palm with a long claw and their blood mixed together. As the seed sprung to life, its little roots slurping the blood from his hand, it unravelled to absorb the Dragon’s scale.

“This is the Rite of Summoning. The challenge is convincing another, one who can be summoned, to permit you to summon them. This grants you not only the Rite, but their spell as well. The seed, their blood, their body.” His raised claw took on a blue glow and he held it over Geoff’s hands. He hummed a low tune until the glow disappeared.

Geoff met the Dragon’s large, blue eyes. He was going to be able to summon this Dragon? He wasn’t even sure what that meant.

“Take the seed and our minds will be joined. When you need me, I will be brought to you. I am sure you can imagine the potential for… abuse of this power. Do not make me regret my decision.”

He sighed. “Thanks Isamdureet,” he said, and swallowed with a bit of effort due more to the engorged riteseed than the horrible taste. When it reached his stomach, his head spun. He could see the Dragon. His head spun. He could see from the Dragon. His vision seeped from Isamdureet’s eyes and he felt him looking through his own. Their heads spun, and he stumbled to his knees.

“I hate these,” he coughed.

“As is tradition,” the Dragon replied. “But do not be distracted by the taste. Focus on my presence until you are one with it.”

Geoff looked through Isamdureet’s eyes. He saw himself kneeled on the ground, coughing from the rancid taste in his mouth. The Dragon’s will pressed against his thoughts, demanding entry. He allowed it in. Their minds mingled until Geoff felt lost. The sting the Dragon made in his own flesh burned on his forearm. There was nothing left of himself. There was nothing at all; no Dragon’s memories, no man's memories. Just a twisted union of two presences.

“Geoff,” Geoff said. Or was it Isamdureet? Someone said his name. They loomed over him, soaking him in the salty stench of the sea. He was on hands and knees, staring at broken stone and stiff weeds, but he could see the Dragon looking down on him in his mind’s eye.

He pushed himself to his feet and took a deep breath. “You said there’s a spell involved? Lamet hasn’t taught me how to cast spells yet.”

“Hmm.” Kelp dragged across the ground as the Dragon raised his head. “I assumed, having performed Rites, that you could use magic. It will be your greatest challenge yet, but only you can reach that point. Instruction is all I can provide. Envision your virtues and your colour, and see them pour from your heart to your hands like breath leaving your lungs.”

Geoff walked around the Dragon’s tall snaking body towards the damage corridor. He was eager to be after Dorshemet. “Lamet mentioned the colour,” he said, “but not virtues. And I don’t know what my colour is.”

“Any quality you possess that others admire can be a virtue.” Isamdureet’s head followed Geoff as he walked. “I would consider bravery and perseverance for you. Your colour is orange; I can see it as plainly in you as I can in the colourful dragons.”

“But if I try to practise I’ll tire myself out?” he asked. He trusted what Lamet told him, but maybe this Dragon knew a trick or something.

“Do not waste effort practising,” he grumbled. “Cast the spell when you need me. I know you can.”

Geoff sighed. Isamdureet turned and lumbered away, releasing him from the conversation. It was the first good look he got of the Dragon’s full scale. He towered at triple Geoff’s height, and twice as long as the ship he was curling himself around. The kelp obscured his real form though, like a shaggy coat of fur.

He turned and stepped into the corridor. He was no stranger to busted hallways. It was everything past it he was worried about.