Nightlord: Shadows Page 14

  “So, have you lined up a slaughterhouse for us?” I asked.

  “Better. Once the day falls away, we shall see to your needs, and the needs of your guard.”

  “Oh? What have you got planned?”

  For answer, she nodded to the maid. Pilea fetched two other servants and started shutting the house up—closing shutters, pulling curtains, locking doors.

  “Ah. Should I just wait here, then?”

  “Certainly. I would be pleased to have the opportunity to observe, and your guard should become familiar with the process, as well.”

  “I suppose.” I turned to them. “Okay. When the sun hits the horizon, I start to die. That is, I change from a living, breathing man into the undead version. You’ve seen me in each form, but you haven’t seen the process. I don’t glow, or change shape, or any of that stuff, but you’ll definitely know it’s happening. It stinks, for one. I’ll change color, for another. Aside from that, I don’t know that there’s a good way to tell.”

  “Your eyes,” Seldar commented.

  “My eyes?”

  “At night, your eyes are black.”

  “Ah. Got it. My eyes change color.”

  “I do not think you ‘got it,’” he replied. “Your eyes are always black, but I mean that your eyes turn black.”

  “What, the whole eyeball?”

  “Entirely.”

  “Well, that’s new.” I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. Adjusting the color of my skin was just a matter of covering it with a spell that could tweak the intensity and wavelength of the light that bounced off. If my eyes were solid black, however, I would have to build an actual illusion of whites, irises, and pupil. Illusions of that quality are decidedly more difficult.

  What really bothered me, though, was that my daytime eyes were black, instead of blue. I’ve had blue eyes all my life and now they’re different. It’s weird, the things that bother me the most. You’d think a little thing like eye color wouldn’t be all that much compared to sharp fingernails and teeth. But there you go; it was the blue changed to black that bothered me.

  “It’s good that you notice these things,” I went on. “I haven’t looked in a mirror in the last few decades. If you see anything else change, let me know. I’m trying to wear spells that will let me blend in; I don’t like making people nervous just by my appearance.”

  They agreed to do so, and the sunset started. I stood up and faced everyone.

  I hated it. It had been a busy day, and those always make the transformation unpleasant. More unpleasant. I sweat more, it smells worse, and the full-body tingling, stinging, itching sensation feels more like needles than insects.

  Someday, I’m going to have some narcotics handy, just to see if they make any difference to a dying metabolism.

  Once the sunset finished its work, Tort ran her cleaning spell over me again. I adjusted my coloration spell, made sure my fangs were retracted, and looked at everyone.

  “Well? Anything besides the eyes?” I asked. They all looked at me intently, actually walking around me to inspect me from every angle.

  “Could you pull your hair back?” Torvil asked. There wasn’t a lot of hair to pull back, but I ran my fingers along the sides of my head.

  “Have you eaten a lot of elves?” he asked.

  “Not that I recall. Why?”

  “Your ears seem a little bit pointy. Not a lot, but some. They aren’t as round on top as I would’ve thought.” Everyone moved closer to look. I waited.

  “Yes,” Kammen said. “I think so.” Seldar and Tort nodded, wordlessly.

  “If it takes that much effort to decide,” I told them, “I don’t feel too bad about it. I’ll just leave my hair a little long. Will that do it?”

  “Easily,” Seldar said.

  “Good. Other than that, just the eyes?” They agreed. I set to work on a spell to disguise my eyes, but Tort saved me the trouble. I should have known. It was a good spell, too. Tight, compact, very efficient. I wondered who, in the history of the world, had needed an eye-disguising spell so badly that he developed one and refined it down to something like this. Someone with a damaged eye, perhaps? Maybe, but I didn’t ask.

  “Right. Thanks. Now, my dinner?”

  “This way,” she said, and sat down on her staff to fly. We followed her outside and through the streets. We came to an open area surrounded by houses. If it had been paved, I’d have called it a cul-de-sac, which it probably was, anyway. I can be as provincial as the next person.

  There were a fair number of people—fifty or so—waiting there. Someone already had a fire going with both a spit and a grill over it. Nearby, they had a sizable pig and a number of implements that indicated, at least to me, that the pig should be concerned.

  A hush settled on the crowd as we came around the corner. People stepped out of the way, making a clear lane straight to the pig. Some of them were looking at me with confused expressions. They probably expected me to be taller.

  I didn’t really want an audience for this, but if I don’t say so, people assume whatever they want. Besides, nobody here ever saw me do anything, uh, “vampirically”? I imagine there was quite a lot of interest in their legendary monster-king.

  Great. I just realized I’m a celebrity, too.

  We went up to the animal and my three knights drew steel. Together, they stabbed the pig. The pig squealed, shivered, and fell. As I watched, the life of the animal pulsed up the swords and into the wielders. Close inspection revealed the life energies pulsing into the life of each of them; it appeared to work perfectly. There was some wastage; they weren’t equipped to consume anything beyond the biological vitality. Whatever spirit a pig may have, it isn’t compatible with a human soul; that part just dissipated.

  As for Torvil, Kammen, and Seldar, they looked both surprised and excited. They must have felt as though they just had a refreshing nap and a snack.

  Good enough.

  “That’s it for you three; get back to Tort’s and get some rest. You may be stoked up right now, but you still need real rest. We’ll see how you’re feeling in the morning.” They took their leave and jogged away. Obviously, they were feeling really good at the moment.

  I went to one knee by the body of the pig; blood was already flowing from the wounds and rapidly oozing its way over to me. The crowd, unaware of the magical nature of the swords, finally saw something dramatic: I bit the pig and hastened the process, rapidly draining it of blood. There was an “Ahhhh,” noise as they watched, then murmurs.

  I finished bleeding it dry and stood up. A couple of men and a woman, all in aprons and carrying sharp implements, looked a question at me. I nodded and stepped back from the meat; they grabbed it and started butchering. I noticed more than a few looks at the teeth marks in the corpse’s throat.

  Tort rose on her unbristled broomstick until she was riding at about shoulder-height.

  “People of Karvalen,” she said, “gathered here tonight, witness the return of your King.”

  The crowd dutifully descended to their knees. I considered that for several seconds.

  I hadn’t mentioned to Tort that I might be going home because I wasn’t too sure about it, myself. I want to go home, but maybe I also want to stay here. I’m definitely ambivalent about it. So, given Tort’s information, I couldn’t blame her for Kinging me. That didn’t mean I liked it. Still, as long as I was here, being King offered me the opportunity to do some good. Assuming, of course, that my good intentions weren’t used as paving stones…

  “Get up, all of you,” I said, “and never let me see you on your knees again. You are citizens of the Kingdom of Karvalen, and, as such, you stand. You may go to one knee before your king, but never both. Never go to your knees for anyone or anything. Never. Legs can be bent, knees can be forced to the ground, but you are citizens of Karvalen and you do not kneel before men, monsters, or gods.

  “Now, stand!”

  They stood, and they cheered, and I wondered if they would have chee
red regardless. They seemed strangely happy, which confused me; I didn’t recognize any of them—eighty-seven years, after all—and surely none of them recognized me. Is it just that they have a king, now? Possibly. That would at least explain why I was suddenly so popular. It might be demoralizing to be part of a kingdom without having a king, I guess.

  It was also possible that royalists were the only people who bothered to show up, because everyone else didn’t care.

  Wow. I can be amazingly insecure.

  They started to queue up, to bow before me, offer their loyalty and fealty, and, on occasion, ask for something. Usually, it was a request for some sort of healing.

  In case you missed it, that’s what we call “irony.”

  One fellow had a scar from forehead to cheek, ruining one eyeball; I used a variation on the spell that was encouraging Tort to regrow a foot. The eye was actually simpler; it was sort of still there, just badly rearranged. A few days and it should be as good as his remaining eye—that was the template I used to guide his own healing process.

  Another man had terrible pains in his side. A look through him at the flow of life in his body gave me a good idea what cancer is. I stabbed that with tendrils, drained the life out of it, and told him to come to Tort’s and see me in the morning. The tumor might be dead, but it was still present. I wanted to see if his body could deal with it on its own, or if I was going to have to go in there after it.

  I’m not a surgeon, but I have some advantages a surgeon does not.

  As for the rest, there weren’t many wounds, though there were an awful lot of scars and misaligned broken bones. My flesh-welding spell allows rent flesh, even broken bone, to be welded back together, but that doesn’t mean the person doing it is necessarily any good at it. If you don’t understand which muscles go where, a serious wound in the leg can be healed without being helped, if you get my meaning. And as for bones… well, it’s hard to mistake which rib goes where, but how about the bones in a wrist?

  And teeth! Oh, my; the teeth! If there’s any sort of doctor I need to snatch away from my homeworld, it’s a dentist. Cavities, wisdom teeth, broken teeth, missing teeth… some were so badly decayed they had to come out; there was nothing I could do for them. But I can cause some cavities to regenerate, misaligned teeth to straighten, and even cause new teeth to grow. It just takes time, and they seem quite willing to take my word for it that the problem is being fixed. Maybe that’s because they can see the spells and feel them working. Pretty much everyone has at least that much magical ability.

  I was surprised, however, at the number of diseases and parasites. Sure, a head cold is a miserable experience and you want it to go away, but it might not be worth paying for it to be cured. But a tapeworm is pretty obvious; it’s painful, and it’s not going to go away on its own.

  It crossed my mind to wonder why these things weren’t already healed. Did wizards—real wizards—charge too much? Wasn’t there a temple to the fire-goddess? Or were diseases and parasites too difficult? And, of course, crippling injuries, like that eye. I know people didn’t save up their problems just on the hope that I would show up.

  Then again, some things just don’t heal on their own, even with a spell to direct the body’s energies toward that purpose. Other things can’t be welded together again, either. When a cart runs over someone’s foot, crushing the bones, you can’t just straighten it and tell it to get better; part of the foot has to come off. A cracked skull can be welded back together, but the bleeding into the brain is something they don’t know how to fix; the body just has to heal that on its own, if it can.

  Missing pieces were the most common injury. There were also several nasty scars, most of which I attributed to poor sculpting ability on the part of the flesh-welder. There’s a certain level of manual dexterity and skill that goes along with the spell.

  Would a sculptor be able to do cosmetic surgery with my spell? I wonder.

  On the plus side, I do have to admit I rather enjoy playing doctor. It’s a puzzle, every time. What’s wrong? What’s causing it? What’s the best way to stop it, or to fix it? How do I make that happen? Can I do it without hurting the person? Can I do it immediately, or will it take more than one treatment? Do I need a new spell just for this, or can an old one be stretched to fit?

  During my ministrations, I got to meet Flim, the owner of the giant crossbow. His wife and son carried him on a makeshift stretcher. Looking him over, it seemed obvious what was wrong with him. He had what started as a sucking chest wound; there was half a chain link embedded in his torso. I was impressed that he was still alive. Someone had sealed him up just fine, but the link was still there, buried near his heart, rusting, and probably the source of the infection that was giving him the desperate fever.

  I ignored the wife and son. They were babbling and begging and imploring, all that stuff. I could have tried to calm them down, but the wife, at the very least, was not going to stop crying no matter what I said. It would be quicker and easier to just fix the guy. While that might not stop her crying, at least it would give her happy tears, which is about all I could hope for.

  It is possible to use a flesh-welding spell as a flesh-cutting spell. You can treat flesh and bone like clay, after all; it’s a simple thing to spread it apart, and I have amazingly sharp fingernails. Lucky for Flim, it was nighttime. I can feel around inside someone with psychic tendrils, tracing and feeling my way along every line of tissue, muscle, nerve, and blood vessel, all without ever cutting into him. During the day, I’d have to use spells to see inside someone and yet more spells to manipulate things on the inside. I might also have to actually open a patient up to get at the problem. But at night, things are simple: tendrils are quicker, easier, and much more delicate.

  I started by feeling around with tendrils, locating the dead metal inside him. Once I had tendrils wrapped around it and ready to pull, I rolled him over; I wanted to pull the embedded shrapnel directly away from the major blood vessels. He was about to lose blood no matter how I did this, but nicking his heart—or aorta or whatever those big ones in the chest are called—would be a Very Bad Thing.

  With the link gently pulling away from all the big blood channels, I stuck a sharp finger into his torso, opening him up a bit. There was a little screaming from people around me, but I ignored this. A moment later, the rusty fragment popped out of the hole and into my hand. I tossed it to the son and started closing up my vict—excuse me, my patient. I carefully made sure all the rust and filth around the shrapnel’s resting site was washed away—I can slosh blood around with tendrils to rinse the area!—and then drew out the used, filthy blood. I tossed the gobbet into the fire; I didn’t want it crawling into me. After that, it was just a matter of merging bits of flesh to corresponding bits of flesh, making sure that the whole looked like it fit together properly.

  It occurred to me that, since magic often works on principles of correspondence and resonance, it should be a simple matter to tell flesh to weld together, layer by layer. Of course, it seems simple in principle, but it might take some work to make a spell that actually does it. I shelved the notion temporarily; it was too good an idea to let it go.

  Meanwhile, I had to stitch Flim up manually. I know there’s a pericardium inside a torso; I’ve seen doctor- and hospital-based medical shows. I still don’t know what a pericardium is, aside from something around the heart—cardium, cardio; there’s a relationship. But I can see the overall jigsaw puzzle of the flesh, and, especially at night, I can see when it’s not put together properly. It may take me a little while, but I can get it all back together eventually.

  My patient was still alive at the end of it, too. I really am a miracle worker. That, or he’s just a tough guy.

  Cleaning his bloodstream of foreign bacteria and whatnot was pretty straightforward by comparison, almost an afterthought; with my tendrils carefully set to ignore his life-energies, I filtered out the other living things. This left him with dead bacteria, rather than living
ones, in his system.

  I sent the family home with instructions to have him pay a call on me when he was recovered. I didn’t tell them so, but anybody who was willing to experiment with giant crossbows was someone with an attitude I wanted on my side.

  Of all my visitors for the evening, the one I found most touching was the couple that brought me their newborn. I had a really awful moment of apprehension when the father almost knelt, checked himself, and bowed instead, holding out the swaddled child.

  I took the kid. What was I supposed to do? I desperately hoped they weren’t offering it to me to eat. It was a good thing I was dead; I would have been sweating like a penguin in a sauna while my heart bludgeoned my ribs. There was an awkward pause while I looked at the little person and the little person looked at me. Neither of us knew what to think of the other.

  “My king,” the father said, “we come to you to ask your blessing on our son.”

  Relief. That’s the word I want. It seems like such an inadequate word, sometimes.

  “Very well.” I looked at the kid. The kid looked back, all eyes and chubby cheeks. I said the first thing that came to mind: “Be thou blessed with the strength to do what you must, and the wisdom to know what that is.”

  I felt my hands tingle, almost crackle, and something happened. I have no idea what, but power moved from me to the child. The child smiled and gurgle-laughed at me.

  And babies are supposed to recognize evil when they see it. Hmph.

  I handed the kid back to the father. The happy trio went on their way, moving toward the roasting pit for some of the barbecue. I rubbed my hands together briskly. My fingertips were still tingling. What was that? What did I do? And how? Did I have other fundamental changes to go along with my new teeth?

  There were another half-dozen or so cases of broken people, but before I could finish, in came a contingent of armored men. About a dozen of them marched into the cul-de-sac and made their way through the crowd. I recognized them from the incident at Tort’s house and wondered where the others were. These didn’t seem hurt; maybe the rest were still recovering. Apparently, someone had seen to the broken bones on this group. They had daggers on their belts, but no swords. They came straight up to me, none of them looking particularly pleased. I held up a hand to forestall them.