Sorcerybound (World's First Wizard Book 2) by Aaron Schneider (best color ereader .TXT) 📗

him. The text on shades had been ambivalent about this, but here in the kingdom of his mind and spirit, he knew he could.

The shade squealed, and its shrill cry gave him pause.

“Wait! Not yet! Please!”

He didn’t tighten his grip further, but he didn’t loosen it either.

“Why?” he demanded.

The shade began to snivel and gibber, but he shook it again and its plaintive whining congealed into words once more.

“We are not the shade of she who was Imrah, only splinter, a fragment, sent to make an offer.”

Milo squeezed his fingers a little tighter as his eyes narrowed.

“What offer?”

“She offers to share all knowledge, all information with you if you make her whole.”

Here in the dreamscape, rational thought was more difficult as his emotions and subconscious swam freely, but the cold, rational, and ruthless part of him stirred like a shark scenting blood. Suspicions and fears woke as well, but the predator’s instinct was not so easily distracted.

“Make her whole?” he asked in a soft, deadly voice as he bent closer. “How would I do that?”

The fearful splinter-shade winced away, but his hand held it fast.

“She will explain!” it sobbed. “We don’t know, we were only sent with a message!”

“And with enough power to almost murder a man,” he growled, his fingers squeezing again. Tiny motes of spiritual debris floated away from the edges of his grip. Much tighter and the splinter-shade would come apart in a rush of psychic dust.

“Part of the message!” it squealed with further feeble thrashing. “To show, to demonstrate! Could have killed you, could have thrown your body from the wall or stopped its breathing! We didn’t, not the message!”

Milo felt a tremor in his grip as he remembered the utter separation from his body, a helplessness he’d never known. He wondered if the reason he had absolute dominance over the splinter-shade was that it had spent its strength controlling him for those moments. Wrath and defiance at the memory made his hold fast in an instant.

He decided it didn’t matter how it took control before. It wasn’t going to get a chance to scurry away to some dark corner inside him. He had it now, and it would end.

His fingers flexed, and the feeble imitation of a ghul twisted helplessly in his grip.

“You are unharmed, message delivered!” it babbled. “Please! Message delivered! Please!”

“Message delivered, and I may even take the shade up on its offer,” he whispered as his crushing grip sent up more of the fracturing shade. “Either way, I see no reason to let you cause more mischief.”

The splinter-shade made to scream, but he snuffed it out like a candle wick.

“I am going to repeat for the hundredth time that I do not like this,” Ambrose growled as he thumped down the stairs to the shade-warded dungeon. Milo supposed that the estimation of the number of times the big man had protested was fairly accurate, but as before, Milo pressed on.

When he had finally woken with a sizable lump on his skull and a few teeth that felt uncomfortably looser than they ought to, he’d quickly relayed his dream escapade after confirming that the farmer had not met an unfortunate end from illusory bullets. Once reassured of that fact and having finished his tale, his companions had been decidedly unhelpful by taking opposing opinions on the matter. Ambrose was determined that this proved that “messing with” Imrah’s shade was foolish, and they should make sure her remains were never found by another living soul.

Rihyani, on the other hand, seemed convinced that the best option would be to at least hear the shade out because “if it wanted you or any of us dead, we would be.”

In the end, much to the bodyguard’s irritation, Milo had decided that one final interview with the specter of his old teacher would be worthwhile.

So now all three of them had come to the dungeon, willing or otherwise. The ritual to call for Imrah’s shade was observed, only this time, the wraith's entrance was nothing like the horrid production he’d witnessed before. The horrifying, mewling thing with too many limbs and brightly gleaming eyes didn’t emerge, nor did Imrah’s form in some twisted parody of woman and ghul. The temperature dropped and a column of fog emerged, in whose center floated Imrah’s ghulish face.

“I see you got my message,” she said, a pure observation without irritation or humor.

“I did.” Milo nodded, his arms crossed over his chest. “I don’t suppose I should be surprised that your message involved almost killing someone.”

The ridged brows of the ghulish face twisted into what passed for a concerned scowl.

“Not one of those two, I hope?” it said.

“Does it matter?” Milo spat in disgust.

The ghul specter gave him a wry look.

“Are you going to keep pretending it wouldn’t?” it asked.

Milo shook his head but didn’t say anything. It wasn’t wrong. If Ambrose or Rihyani had been threatened, the remains of Imrah would have been reduced to cinders and the shade thoroughly dispersed by now.

“Whatever the case, are we done with games now?” Milo asked.

“It is not a matter of games, but of effort,” the floating face explained in what sounded like Imrah’s voice emerging from the bottom of a well. “Since my death, coherence is largely a matter of extreme effort, and until you were ready to listen, there was little reason to try.”

For one jarring second, Milo felt as though he were talking to Imrah, so different was the shade from its previous appearance and behavior.

“Your death,” he said, fresh suspicion narrowing his eyes and sharpening his words. “You want me to trust you, but you keep acting as though you are Imrah when we both know that is not true.”

A ghulish smile spread across the levitating visage, and Milo felt nauseous.

“Very good grasp of the ephemeral principles, but unfortunately incorrect. One of the secrets I’d learned among the Guardians was a heretical version of the necromists’ formulae. Very tricky, but it connected my spirit to my shade.”

“That’s not possible.”