The Corpsebound Spellmasters

Ghost-white in the conjured light, beautiful Spellmaster Elisha smiled and tickled the piano keys.

Sparks and puffs of smoke fill the room in place of disappearing students. Only four took the time to run past the gray-haired man as he ambled to the head of the class.

“Ah, my love!” Elisha leaned forward for a kiss. “Have you the dispensation?”

At the touch of her lips, Voltaire's lungs convulsed. To keep her close, he hugged her before nodding her answer. “Headmaster LaFey assured me he 'supports our plan.'"

Elisha nodded. "As an alumnus, Gian poses the same threat to the School's reputation that he poses to the people of Viseki town.”

She gave the headmaster too much credit. Voltaire narrowed his eyes. "More to the point, Cain LaFey 'supports' letting us wade into danger for him.”

Outside the window, a bird flew east from the direction of the headmaster's tower.

Had Spellmaster Cain warned the corpsebound Gian already? The headmaster would do anything to break Elisha's tenure–whether in the academy, or in life. Voltaire nodded at the bird. "Gian will be expecting us."

She glanced out the window and smiled, tapping out a stirring march of battle and victory. "Would you have it any other way?"

"Absolutely." Like a pawn, Voltaire could hope to advance or hold his ground on LeFay's chessboard--nothing more. "I wouldn't go there with a hundred of us."

She tapped out a few falling intervals. "Neither would I. It's nearly impossible to coordinate with two spellmasters."

"The law of two," from the ancient Amerik myth, was not restricted to evil spellmasters; there she had Voltaire. He rarely bothered to argue with Elisha, even when she had no piano within reach–because she always has the right idea. Yet this time, her brilliance inexorably led to doom. "Gian has vicious power–"

"Vicious, meaning mindless and undisciplined?" She nodded. "Not to mention his tenuous hold on life support."

Though corpsebound, with the staggering advantages that brought, Gian had much to do before he could fully secure his otherworldly 'life' force. If he let Elisha close enough to strike while his bonds are slim, he would have no chance. But if Spellmaster Gian behaved like a rational man, Voltaire could very well lose Elisha–a fate worse than death. "Is there nothing I can say that will keep us out of this?"

She stroked his hair out of his eyes, somehow managing to smile up at the shorter man. "And ruin your sleep for the next decade?"

He relaxed visibly, in spite of himself.

She gripped his arm reassuringly. "Besides, no rational mind would ever aim to be corpsebound."

One should never underestimate the rational brilliance of a madman. He could cite a hundred monographs on strategy that said as much. Villains exist, and they surprise you–showing up above, below, and inside of you. Voltaire sighed; Elisha would ever outmaneuver him. He would not have loved her so much if she could not.

***

The autumn air stank of corruption, of the rot of the leaves. It arrived on the wind, from the decay of the collection in the dumpster. Voltaire polished his fingernails and harrumphed, rejecting the obvious conclusion. Other, more talented, magi got insight like that, but Voltaire preferred to rely on more rigorous sources. Omens brought him only the confirmation of half-truths and half-forgotten biases.

No, the scent of creeping doom told him only this: he had already accepted defeat.

Headmaster Cain LaFey stopped short on the sidewalk. He looked Voltaire up and down and smirked. "What vole has been chewing your herb garden?"

The caustic energies burned in his throat as he sidestepped onto the grass. "Blisters!" Voltaire said.

Red welts flickered over Cain LeFay's face and hands.

Wiping the curse away more easily than a nasty word, Cain LeFay continued on with a tip of his hat.

The momentary satisfaction turned to a taste of ash as Voltaire trained his mind on the road ahead. As he envisioned inscribing Elisha's grave marker, a chill ran up his spine. With a failed-apprentice's release of magical energy, as he muttered an oath: "I would never let her go, not for all the world," he burned a hole in the grass beneath him.

The spellmaster's oath echoed to the farthest reaches of the cosmos, and the cosmic mind affirmed the dedication.

Books fell on the sidewalk. "Spellmaster Voltaire? Even you spelleak?" Acolyte Yadille had her hand on her mouth.

Abashed at his childish work, but unwilling to sacrifice his standards as a professor, Voltaire swallowed his pride. "Did I not say, even the best must hold to the drills?"

Acolyte Yadille nodded.

Voltaire picked up her books. "The passions get the better of any of us."

"It's about Spellmaster Elisha." With a worried expression, Yadille conjured a bag for her books. "She's okay, I hope?"

"Mind your business, young lady." He straightened her collar and winked. "Just a worrisome task ahead of us."

The young girl frowned and sighed. "Does it never end?"

"Responsibility? Never." He noted that hit Yadille hard. "Though, many people abdicate."

She puffed up, set her jaw. "I would never want to be a dropout."

"One day, you will. " Each of us faces a day like this one, he reasoned, and straightened his own muffler. "After that day, you will know the measure of Yadille."

She looked into the distance, at some far-off image none could divine.

Voltaire noted with pride that Yadille seemed to foresee the day her courage faded–and to understand the decision that would come.

She blinked and shivered. "You've given me much to think upon."

One day, Yadille would do her family proud. And, at least Voltaire had done his work as a professor. He gave her a long look, nodded, and waved her away.

* * *

The rhythm of wooden wheels on the cobblestones kept time for his incantations. He checked the wards for stealth and refreshed the fading runes. Voltaire held up his due diligence. Yet the greatest defense would be the walls of their great college, far from the diabolical mess that duty drove them toward. The time to drop out drew nigh; if only the brilliant young woman could see the looming disaster. "Elisha, do you not worry that we might be in the wrong?"

"Not since I set out on the road." Elisha's wide blue eyes looked deep into Voltaire. "Tell me that you don't."

The danger quickened his heart. "Of course I do," he lied.

She raised her eyebrow.

"We have no right to be deciding the fates of other practitioners."

This alarmed her, and she snapped her fingers. "Voltaire: the truth."

He could have–and, heaven knew, should have–resisted the spell. Yet, Voltaire had promised never to do so, and had not the will to deny her. He sighed. "By overstepping as we do, we stand in the wrong, surely."

"But?"

"Just as surely, on balance, the world is made better."

"Quite right, my black-hat hero." She stared a moment, and nodded. A touch to the brim of his dark blue hat. "Speaking of overstep…"

The apology for the truth spell, as obligatory as the taking of attendance at the beginning of class. He nodded, and made the banishing gesture. She hit all the right notes; Voltaire almost forgot Gian's shadow looming over the world–almost. "Think of it as null."

* * *

As the mule pulled them toward Viseki, the cart swayed to and fro. Voltaire couldn't shake how the sickly yellow wood of the rickety cart brought to mind the mouse traps made in the early years. The pale lines of the wood grain represented well Elisha's fate. Enclosed loops ran round to useless infinity. He wanted to run, to turn the cart around, or even abandon the path that had him shaking like a half-frozen mouse in the tangled wood.

Elisha cringed and stiffened.

He followed her gaze to the storm clouds above, scratched about in his pockets for the scrying glasses.

Her fingers desperately tapped out a tune on an unseen keyboard, playing the harmonics of a spell.

From the alarm on her face, Voltaire saw no time to interpolate the tune or guess the spell's nature. He put on the glasses to see a giant, batlike monster spitting venom in their direction before Elisha's wave of clouds blew in to swallow it whole, venom and all.

"Does he have that kind of power already?" Voltaire asked, laying his hand on her shoulder. "Perhaps we should turn back."

"Not even." She smiled wryly. "Attracted, not summoned."

Voltaire raised his eyebrow at that. The demon or dragon he had seen could well have been investigating Gian's activity. So she had a point, however convenient. Frowning, he polished and put away his glasses.

She continued, "The question, did it seek to befriend or destroy the Corpsebound? I've no idea."

Voltaire harrumphed into his lap. "Good a theory as any, if you're bent on this mission."

She smiled and patted Voltaire on the shoulder. "And a terrible one, if you're thorgabent."

Glassmakers, some people liked to call humans: thorga–afraid their toys will break. Voltaire smirked at the dig. "Come by the huma bent honestly."

"But do we?" Elisha tilted her head in that way that made Voltaire feel like a prized tome in an ancient language. "You and I, we are so much more than these fragile human frames."

"Yet we depend upon them as much as any."

"But have we any right? Any loyalty to this flesh?"

Elisha's words evoked the image of her gravestone, the black, polished granite tower of honor and imprisonment a mage's burial demanded. He vowed, if any dared erect that monument, to shatter it, thus to open wide the door that would bring her back to him. "You will not be kept from me."

Her laugh, rich and melodious, rang over him. "Seriously then. What are you worried about?"

That my oaths fade to lies? "Nothing worth putting to words."

She tried to smile but her left face frowned, evidently unwilling to accept Voltaire's logic as his personal truth. "Either path leads through a dark and dangerous wood."

He nodded. "I have no wish to sleep upon that bed of thorns."

"This is the shortest path through the darkness."

"Perhaps," Voltaire angrily matched her foolish smile, "we should seek out the surest."

Her face flared with the same peevish ire that boiled just below Voltaire's breastbone. "What fun that would be."

Every inch of Voltaire told him that this trip would be anything but fun. As he drove further into Gian's grip, the twisted vines about them, like the sinews of a ravenous serpent, flexed in the wind.

***

As the rattling wagon rolled over the top of the last hill, the image of Gian, like a ghost over Elisha's funeral, cast its shadow on all the realms.

"You're seriously out of tune." Elisha brushed his shoulder. "You're usually so euphonious."

Only around you, he thought. The idea of losing her had thrown him into dissonance. He looked away from her.

She tugged at his sleeve. "I've never heard such disharmony from a living mage."

"I told you!" He took a deep breath and met her eyes. "I told you, that we should not be here."

"We shall be fine. Just be sure you channel that into Gian and not into yourself."

Her favorite lecture was 'Harmony and Health: The Deadly Power of Dissonance in Combat and Medicine.' "Refresh me on the principles?"

She laughed at his joke as they rolled to the bridge. "Best not to study too hard before a test, isn't it, Spellmaster?"

The green skinned, upturned nose of the gate guard thrust out of the shadow. "Halt, Thorga."

Voltaire pulled the mule to a stop. "Hail, urgan guard. I come in peace."

"How come thorga in peace when fail daughter Yadille?" The guard kicked the rickety guard-shack door in half.

Yadille was human, thoroughly; not a trace of Circe's blessing. Of that, they always made sure: an urgan acolyte required special curricula–and patient, watchful tuition. Had she come to be adopted by the urgan woman? Or had Gian's dark magic already warped the townsfolk?

"Madam," Elisha whispered. "Please understand that Yadille is a brilliant student and it is the…"

The guard raised her mace slowly over her shoulder, leaving Elisha plenty of time to raise a magic shield, and for Voltaire to ready the right words.

The urgan ear found politeness by degrees confusing and offensive. "Clean out your ears of glass, urgan filth," Voltaire grunted.

The half-urgan woman relaxed measurably.

Voltaire doubled down by mocking the urgan speech patterns: "Yadille got better grade than deserve. My dog could do better, even if she can't. Ha think she had work hard do so bad."

"Ha." The urgan smiled at that, and tapped Elisha's auric shield with her mace-wielding fist.

Voltaire took care to mask his relieved sigh as an annoyed grunt.

"Watch yourself, glassworkers." She pulled the gate lever and allowed them to enter.

Everywhere in this town, the light failed to reach. The eyes of the people, frightened and twisted, peered from the shadows at the strange humans in the wagon.

"Granted, I have asked that we abandon this mission." Voltaire grabbed the back of his neck. "Forgive me that, for we cannot allow this to go any further. Gian's magic? This town...."

Elisha nodded; nothing else to be said.

* * *

The corpsebound spellmaster, Gian, stood up behind his desk. He threw his quill and sneered, skin cracking and falling as he did. The flakes rolled cleanly off Gian's suit and swept themselves in a dustbin. "You come prepared, Spellmistress."

Voltaire crackled the scroll he carried. In a fit he hissed, "Spellmaster."

Elisha nodded, not acknowledging the twin insults. "I have the formula written half on my skin, half on Voltaire. Careful with the fire magic."

"The 'formula?'" Gian laughed. "Do go on."

"Ah but, 'That would be telling.'" She took her turn to sneer, and shook her head. "Even a hint of what it does would be worth a spellmaster's ransom."

Gian shrugged in mock sadness. "Oh, and I went to all this trouble, fireproofing my manor for you."

"If you don't mind losing out on the greatest secret of all time…."

"Even as an obvious lie, it's an excellent strategy." Gian flexed his hands, generating a sickly, purple-black glob of energy. He tossed a ball of power at both of them, and pointed proudly to a suit of men's clothes. "It is a game I can play, as well."

The mourner's suit, too small and shabby for Gian, hinted to Voltaire of Elisha's funeral.

Elisha's chin dropped as she looked at Voltaire. Gian's opening volley slid off both their shields.

Had Gian offered to carry Elisha's coffin, Gian could have done little crueler. Preparing to cast a wave of destruction, Voltaire dropped his shield and focused everything he had on Gian.

"Voltaire, don't riff on his melody!"

"Now, spellmistress!" Gian purred, having already landed the attack; a thin thread of purple death closed about Voltaire's throat. "Destroy the sacred tome. And with it, your feeble hope for the pathetic little man as well."

"Yes! Do it! Forget…" Voltaire struggled to restore his shield through Gian's tendril. "Life support."

"I dragged…" Elisha gasped as she ducked a ball of purple goo that splatted on the wall, "...you here. Not leaving without you."

"Touching." Gian pranced about the room. With a flourish he beckoned the blob to come toward Elisha. "As touching as it was predictable."

Voltaire rasped, "Don't you dare." He dropped his shield and directed his destructive magic on the charmed tome that kept his enemy alive.

Elisha yelled, "No, Voltaire! Always, always defend." She threw her own shield to protect the tome.

With Voltaire's defenses down, with tendrils of power about his throat, the blood rushed to his face. All the world darkened to purple. Bands of fear about his lungs only loosened once he accepted the slide toward death.

"The old fool will live to see you die; of that, I assure you." Gian shrugged off the tendrils of Voltaire's curse and gentled his own attack. As the tendril faded, the light returned to Voltaire's eyes. "Perhaps even long enough for you to heal him. You have only to vanquish me without destroying the book."

The book that kept Gian alive could do the same for Voltaire. But by the time she killed him directly, she might be mortally wounded. "No, Elisha. That's only so he can slow you down." Voltaire dropped his defenses and sent them toward Elisha.

"I can do it." Elisha ducked the latest volley. "Destroy his silver cord and bring you back."

With a flick of the wrist, Gian deflected Voltaire's orb of pain onto Elisha, driving her to her knees.

By then, Elisha's harmonic shook Gian. Coming from every direction, her magic enveloped Gian, shield and all.

Leaving no time for Gian to switch to a full-circle ward, Voltaire lobbed orb after orb of acid and pain.

Snarling, Gian dropped his shield and sent all the power he could muster into Elisha's harmonic, blistering her hands and reddening her face.

Unopposed, Voltaire's orbs pelted Gian again and again. Meanwhile, the very floor buzzed against the corpsebound. Elisha's spell rose up to wash over the undead body. It sizzled, then shattered, then melted. As the final, violet drops of Gian's remains evaporated, the book released the corpsebound soul to the mazes beyond.

Gian's vanquished soul sent a final strike that rose from the ground and threw Elisha toward Voltaire.

Voltaire lurched forward to grab her lifeless form. "No, no, no." His arms shook as he dragged her to the healing table.

He reached the tome and, in his frustration, failed to find the answer. "Oh, bleeding…" He siphoned his life force into her.

Even as she came to life, he felt his face turning red and his vision, purple. He wandered away and took a seat at Gian's desk.

Barely able to keep her head up, Elisha glared. "Voltaire, how could you?" She stumbled to the book, flipped through it. Her fingers danced over unseen keys on the imaginary piano.

He gritted his teeth. "Had to. Couldn't take you with me."

She smiled and took his hand.

The pain twisted his smile into a grimace. "But we made it."

"Yes, we made it. Now get on the table; I'll make sure you pull through." She looked down on the book and slammed it closed. It looked like she mouthed the word, sacrifice?

"Yes, we made the sacrifice and won the day." Voltaire climbed on the table and laid back, scratching at the place where Gian's tendril had torn at his throat.

Her hands shook as she hummed the spell that would preserve Voltaire's life. At the end she became dizzy and rushed for the desk chair.

"Elisha! You alright?"

Voltaire sat up, and a fierce ache arose in his body until he slumped back on the table.

"Yes, my black-hat hero." Elisha grabbed the desk to help her stand. "Just rest."

"I really think I should…"

But Elisha played the great harmonic lullaby.

Though her warm, sleepy blanket of enchantment only weighed half what it should, in the morass of their pain and exhaustion, Voltaire's personal power barely lifted a third. Any other day, Voltaire could resist a working like that. There, at the end of battle, he tried to fight and yet, in that state, soon found no memory of why or wherefore.

* * *

When next he woke, the dust on his arms lay thick as a sheet. He shook it off, brushed his lapel, even his face. He grunted and applied the cream Elisha had laid upon the table to the cracks at the edge of his lips and eyes, all the while glaring in disappointment at the lifeless flesh of his undead hands.

The sizzling violet dust where Gian had been slain had paled but fizzed with hateful magic. At Gian's desk, beside a note, a faint green pile of dust sat at Gian's desk.

"Dearest Voltaire, my love,

"It has been a privilege and an adventure. I apologize for not hearing your words, never knowing that you already had come under Gian's attack.

It is only an apparatus, this fleshy coil that I have sacrificed to preserve you: a tiny portion of my being.

For so long as your spirit haunts the earth, if you listen, I shall ever be at your side. Bound not by the power of this book but only by the force of love.

Your eternal attendant,

Elisha."

Music caressed Voltaire from the great room, a few doors down, where a piano sang greetings to Voltaire's bound spirit as it gave voice to the magnificent ghost of his beloved Elisha.




Can their spirits find peace?
Part II "Haunted Requiem"