The Final Redemption by Michael Manning (novels in english .TXT) 📗

through thewilderness I had collected a considerable store of aythar fromvarious plants and animals, the human aythar I had gotten fromMyrtle, despite its special qualities, was a drop in the bucketbeside that. Is there a limit to how muchI can collect or retain?

That was when I had myfinal epiphany. Not really, you’re justlike the gods, an immortal parasite feeding and growing fat on theaythar of living beings. That was probablywhy Moira and my ancestral namesake hadn’t used living people fortheir experiments. It was likely also the reason the She’Har hadn’tused this particular spell-weave on themselves. Well, until Thillmarius used it on himself indesperation, I amendedmentally.

I made a conscious effort of will tostop feeling sorry for myself. Things needed doing and being inCastle Cameron wasn’t really the worst place. For one thing I knewthe place intimately, and I could easily replace my ruined clotheshere. Now that I knew Penny was in Albamarl, it was an easy guessthat my children and probably Rose and Dorian were there with her.I just had to avoid the Prathions while I moved about. It wouldalso be easy to send my letter here, since as far as I knew LadyThornbear still lived nearby in Lancaster.

The Prathions would be the biggestproblem. While I could probably create an illusion to disguise myappearance from normal folk, their wizardly senses wouldimmediately detect such a ruse. If I possessed their skill withillusion, or invisibility in particular, I could circumventthem—but I didn’t.

Walter, and his two adult children,Elaine and George, all possessed the family gifts. Only his wife,Rebecca was a non-mage. Officially they lived in Arundel, a baronythat owed fealty to me, but in practice all three of them spentsignificant amounts of time in Castle Cameron. Well, they had backwhen I was alive. It was anyone’s guess now. With my death theymight have had fewer reasons to stay close at hand.

Either way, I needed to find somemethod of fooling them soon. If I intended to spend much time inAlbamarl or other civilized areas I was bound to run into them. Ifmy recent appearances had created too much alarm, they might soonbe tasked with tracking me down. While I had never feared facingany of them in terms of relative power, my ability to hide wasnowhere near sufficient to evade them. A direct confrontation wouldonly lead to their deaths, or if I surrendered, my failure toaccomplish my goals.

“C’mon, think Mordecai!” I chidedmyself, “You’re supposed to be the most brilliant enchanter sincethe days of yore. Find a solution.” Thankfully my horrifyingtransformation hadn’t impaired my sense of humility.

It was an accurate assessment of myoptions however. Since I no longer seemed to be able to interactwith the voices of the earth and wind, my wizardly ability was allthat was left to me, and as time had shown, enchanting was my bestskill. It wasn’t particularly useful in hiding me from otherwizards, though. A solid enchantment might block magesight, or evenhide an empty area from it, but I had never succeeded in using itto create true invisibility, not the sort the Prathions seemed tocreate anyway.

I don’t need invisibility.I simply need to keep them from seeing the void.

Any well-constructed enchantment couldblock magesight. I could enchant my clothes… once I had obtainednew ones, of course. I immediately discarded that notion, enchantedclothing would be suspicious. It might help to hide my nature, butit wouldn’t cover my entire body, and it certainly wouldn’t hide myidentity. I was the only highly proficient enchanter in the world.Walter and his children were only occasional dabblers. Anything asunusual as enchanted clothing would be immediatelyobvious.

Unless…

“If a lie cannot followrules one or two, it should be so preposterous or unbelievable thatno one will doubt it.” That was the thirdrule of lying, and I could still hear Marc’s voice in my mind as hehad reminded me of it years ago.

“He would have loved this,” I toldmyself, feeling again the twinge of pain that came whenever Iremembered my lost friend. I needed to reach myworkshop.

Rising I made a quick inventory of mypossessions. My clothing was practically non-existent now. I stillhad my boots, though they had seen better days. The belt, that haduntil a half an hour ago held my magical pouches, was now ruined.The flames had burned away the half of it that wrapped around myback. Fortunately, the part in the front, where my pouches were,had been shielded by my body when I had curled up on theground.

I collected my pouches and the burntremains of my clothing. It wouldn’t do to leave evidence here of myarrival. Naked now, except for my boots, I moved to the door thatled outside and used my magic to create an illusion, disguisingmyself as one of my guardsmen. I just had to hope I didn’t run intothe very man I was impersonating—or any of thePrathions.

My next obstacle wasgetting out unobserved. It would be highly suspicious if I tried toexit the supposedly empty building, no matter what disguise I wasusing. The best option would be not to be seen exiting. To thatend, I used a simple bit of magic to create a loud noise outsidethe building, making it emanate from around the corner. The sound Ichose was that of a man being struck and then slamming into a wall,something I had heard many times before. Which says volumes about the quality of my lifeexperiences, I noted.

As expected, the guard outside heardthe noise and quickly ran to investigate. I monitored his movementswith my magesight, and as soon as he went around the corner Iopened the door to step out, closing it behind me. I waited hispost, knowing he’d be back within seconds, once he saw there wasnothing where the sound came from.

I recognized the man immediately as hereturned; it was Jerod, one of our more experienced guards. He hadbeen on the list of candidates for elevation to the Knights ofStone. If I hadn’t died unexpectedly, he would have probably beenknighted by now. As it was, it was unlikely there would ever be anymore. “What the hell are you doing off your post soldier!” Ishouted at him as soon as he