8. Ghosts of a Million Different Creatures
Astra sets a cascade in motion...
The Lost City continues the journey of Astra, respected Head Librarian of the Tiered Library in the renown monastery Qordashi deep in the Balashilar mountains, after an attack on her home destroyed everything she knew and took the lives of people she loved. Her childhood companion, Traz, has returned after 25 years for mysterious reason, and along with the Am’Ayat warrior Xavai they are on the run from the attackers: snow dragons and the dreaded tribe of Yosoi warriors.
Previously: Astra decided to challenge a powerful spell...
When she was young, Astra was often put in the care of the prim and orderly sibling-nun Zochur, who (on days when Astra and Traz were not up to mischief) let Astra help cook. There was a process to how dishes were prepared, whether Zochur was making a meal for two or twenty. The steps had to be taken in a specific order, and done in a certain way.
Astra later learned indirectly from a few Hearth Keepers and all the reading she did in her library that magical spells, especially complex ones, were similar. Every step of creation rested on the action taken before it, and while both cooking and magic were flexible enough to allow for individual flair, the end result was reliant on all the different elements involved being spun together in the correct way. One could not fill a dumpling before the dough was made and rolled out and cut; one could not harness the power of soul dust without capturing it first.
Dragging Xavai behind her, she walked a couple of steps over to the wall and shoved aside the layers of hangings. Taking a deep breath, she put her hand flat on the bare stone. Unlike touching the shawl, it did not burn, but the connection to the powerful spell and the soul dust it harvested hit into like wooden bat to the stomach. She lurched backwards and fell into Xavai’s hold, breaking the connection.
“Grav Astra! What are you doing?” He said, clutching at her hand and wrapping his other arm around her waist. His breath was warm against her ear.
“Freeing the dead, as you recommended,” she snarled, the words sharp as she pushed herself out of his hold. She took another deep breath, this time letting it out slowly as she put her hand in place. She felt his hand flex in hers, obviously uncomfortable being tied to a necromancer in the act of talking to the dead, but to his credit, he did not let go. This time, ready for the power of the connection, she braced herself.
It was as if she woke up trapped in the rock itself—cold and hard and inescapable, pulling apart soul dust around her like a thresher pounding wheat. If the ghosts of the dead could scream in pain and horror they would, but instead Astra felt their agony as a bitter chill, creeping through her mind, creeping frost on a glass window pane. The spell of the rocks in the dam yanked the soul dust out of the collected water and channeled it down through veins in the rocks, specifically chosen and laid to “run” down to the room they were in, which acted as a cauldron of souls.
Trapped and destroyed, the broken parts of ghosts of a million different creatures swarmed around them, spinning and spinning until the dismembered soul dust was run through the shawl and its collective energy captured in order to hold the protection spell together. Astra could not breathe in the rock, could not feel her own body while her magic reached out to find some weakness in the dam’s spell that she could pull to unravel it.
Instead, her own cursed, ink-black soul dust fed into the veins of the rocks, pushing out of the cauldron room and towards the collected water above them. She felt strangely energized and with a cry she pushed forward, her power flowing into the rock and destroying the veins and the magic with them, the darkness of a necromancer’s soul acting as a direct counter to the soul dust-stealing spell.
Everything her soul dust touch withered, releasing ghosts and propelling the magic of the spell she was fighting away from her. She wasn’t trapped in the rock anymore, she was as a queen over her realm, a palace built from the void and answerable to no direction, no wind, no life: she commanded and everything around her obeyed. Her soul dust reached the base of the dam and she felt the water boil at her touch, flinging the ancient spell that had been trapped in the stone for untold eons into the water to dissolve and float away like so much steam.
Then she was pulled backwards, the sounds of mortal humans returning to her.
“Astra! Wake up! Wake up! Olah’ah, I beg, hear my pleas! Save her!” Xavai’s voice was low but panicked. He held her to his chest, swinging her back and forth like a doll.
“Let me go.” She mumbled, trying to remember how legs worked and only realizing after the fact that she had spoken to him in Deshilli.
“Astra! Praise Olah’ah!” He grabbed her face with both hands, staring into her eyes, his panic clear in his own.
For a moment, she felt trapped in his gaze, overpowered by her emotions, which tumbled and spilled through her mind and body like temple dogs at play. Then instinct kicked in and she stomped on his foot. He gasped and lurched backwards unsteadily. After a moment, he looked at his hands, then back at her.
“I’m not touching you. Can you still see what is here?” He waved a hand in front of her face as if she were blind. She batted it away.
“Yes.” She looked around, and little had changed…except for the shawl, which now appeared old and faded, the silver work of the embroidered edges standing out more than it had before. It still reeked of magic, she could tell that much, but without all the soul dust from the surrounding forest, there was nothing to power the protection spell it contained.
“Precious Lord, the walls, they are weeping water!”
Astra looked around at the fear in his voice and saw he was right. The hangings, which now looked ancient and limp, were getting wet, and water was seeping through the rugs at their feet.
“Six hells, we need to go!”
“I just said that!” He grabbed her arm and yanked her over to the ladder.
She grabbed the shawl as she passed, thinking that she might as well after all of that, and threw it around her shoulders as Xavai started to climb up the ladder ahead of her. She put one hand on the ladder and then was slammed to the side, her face raked with what felt like claws. She screamed at the shock of it and then saw the cause: the straw figure had come alive. Its attack consisted of broad swipes by the bundles of straw that passed for arms, the sharp ends of the straw scratching her. She kept screaming as she kicked at it and protected her face, then the attack suddenly ended.
She looked up and saw Xavai hacking at the thing with his sword. Parts of it kept moving, though, so Astra pulled a wall hanging down and threw it over the pieces, figuring it would confuse the magic behind the creature enough that they could get away.
Xavai pushed her toward the ladder again, and she needed no encouragement to scurry up it. Back up in the room at the top of the dam, she could see and hear the cracks of the rock widening in groans and shrieks as the water started pouring in. Lurching out onto the edge of the dam, she saw it was already starting to crumble away, so she sprinted without thought across the section that was still standing, feeling rock cracking as she ran over it.
Hauling up the steps to the higher level, she turned to make sure Xavai was behind her. He was, but too far away, and the dam was going to pieces under him. Astra whipped the shawl off her shoulders and flung one end at him, and a mere moment before the step he was on disappeared he grabbed the material. He jumped as she tugged and he gained just enough distance to outrace the collapse, slamming into her and pressing her up against the wall. The roar of the dam’s disintegration was ferocious and terrible, making the ground under their feet rumble. Xavai pulled back and shook his head. Astra knew what he meant: they were not safe in the pyramid, and needed to get out as quickly as possible.
Beneath and around them, the stones of the building shuddered. Xavai grabbed Astra’s hand and ran for the closest hallway.
Astra prayed that the dowser would be able to find a way out for them.
NEXT: The Collapse
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