Chapter 10-297: Of Warlocks and the Dead

Asking them was actually not that hard to do. Moving your spirit outside your body is possible as a Three, let alone a neo-Fourteen. I already had the conduit to the Haze, so there merely remained to establish a medium of communication that would not allow the Shroud to drag me in.

Speak with Dead usually requires a corpse and mystic fires and all that. Happily, I had that just sitting myself down in a chair.

That was because the spirit which used to inhabit this body was in the Shroud, meaning I had a direct link there anytime I just Cast the spell directly on myself.

I had not done so before, as I wasn’t sure of the implications, and I didn’t want to get in a wrestling match with a dead young woman over her body. It wouldn’t even take her back now, as I’d changed it too much, and its Matrix was fully fused to my soul.

She wasn’t strong enough to try, anyway.

I definitely wasn’t going to just throw a random call out into the Shroud, as most of the souls trapped therein were likely going to be alien, totally hostile, mad, deranged, or just plain mean. All they wanted to do was get out of the thing, after all. They literally and probably had no other desire left.

The clearing I was in was already cold from the winter, but negative energy has a chill all its own as it manifests. Necromancy was not one of the brighter disciplines to learn, but Speaking with the Dead was not considered violating any strictures. Now, torturing the dead was, but if they chose to speak freely, that was fine, or if compelled to speak by a contest of wills, that was also considered totally fair.

The magic swirled, acting on latent harmony, and the echo of her spirit swirled into being in front of me. Sure, I had to Cast the spell at V to do this, but that was a given.

The shadows of her face looked like mine, but not. I probably had succubi influence going on, but there was no doubt I held myself very different than she did, without the pain and trauma reflected on her. Her belly was still cut open, and my faint scar there burned with cold pain at her presence as she fixed hollow eyes on me.

<You have called me out of the Shroud,>she said in French, which I had learned via Polyglot long ago. Idle intellectual accomplishments, because I could. <You have taken my body and the life I could have lived... what do you want of me?>

I was perfectly aware not to expect any kind of sympathy from a trapped and tortured soul. It would take very little for her to start blaming me for her entire situation, despite me having nothing to do with it.

“I would like to inform you that I have saved your son, and he is strong in magic, just like you. When he comes of age, his Bloodlines will be balanced, as yours should have been, and he will come into his power.”

She stirred slightly, but caring for the living gets worked out of the dead rather quickly. They tend to be concerned about themselves... but still, deeds left unfinished are regrets carried, and despite her pain, I had just softened one of them.

<What do you want?> she asked coolly, touching the ectoplasmic wound in her belly, flaring my own in sympathy.

Was she trying to shake me? I smiled despite myself, and focused past it. “I require an intermediary to the souls of the Shroud, and deemed you as the most suitable. If the rest of them don’t like it, tough crap. You’re talking for them, Elrii Morningdark.”

Her face stirred, spectral eyes lighting up as that simple acknowledgement of her name gave her power and status.

“Are the souls in the Shroud capable of conferring Warlock Pacts?” I asked her directly. One Question.

Her head jerked, as if listening to other voices I could not hear, her eyes darting this way and that before settling back on me.

<The elders here say that it is possible, but they have never done such a thing before. There are Warlocks among them who know the process, and are eager to try.>

“Lay out for me the benefits and Masteries inherent in being a Shroudbound Warlock.”

She went into that listening mode again, expressions fluttering across her face as her situation distracted her from the torment of being trapped in the Shroud. The focus and awareness of the other dead was giving her power and recognition, no small thing for being a prisoner in the Shroud.

Least I could do for her, after all, which sent my thoughts careening down some other roads.

She began to speak quickly and precisely. Those behind her knew what they were dealing with, and jerking me around would have been a bad idea. I was doing this for their benefit, and if they wanted me to be a patsy, I would simply drop the idea and it would never see the light of day again.

There would always be people who wanted the power of a Warlock. The problem existed in that I was the one who would be looking over the Pact.

<They are unsure of what powers they can grant. They would be tapping into the power of the Shroud itself, which is dangerous. It is meant to trap souls, not aid them.> she finally told me.

“And if they instead tap into the Faith trapped under the Shield, including their own...” I advised, careful to steer away from a Question which would count against the spell. We could chat as long as we liked if I didn’t ask more Questions.

Her spectral eyes widened slightly, and she was silent and listening again.

<There would be many restrictions, but it is possible.> she finally relayed.

“Perhaps they would like some advice on how to set such a thing up, particularly to attract more Warlocks.”

There was only a short pause. <They are listening.>

I smiled slightly, and began to speak.

----------

<That can all be done.> Her spectral form was clearer, sharper now, focused by the attention of unseen multitudes. As I had made her the contact between the two of us, we could administer the Contract easily.

I inclined my head. “Master Fred, would you be willing to be the first Shrouded Warlock?”

Riding the starlight, Master Fred was next to me in one step, and they went down in one knee. “It would be our honor under Heaven to aid the souls in the Shroud to be free,” their manifold voice promised together, Amazon blonde hair swirling behind them.

That statement established the primacy of Master Fred’s Heaven Pact. Regardless of the will of the souls of the Shroud, they could not make him violate the Will of Heaven.

As Heaven also wanted the Shrouded to be free, that wasn’t an issue, although the souls and spirits of those Damned there probably did nothing but resent Heaven for not being able to free them.

Elrii Morningdark, now the Speaker for the Shroud, swirling with dark power that occluded her features, extended her hand to them. <You have souls trapped within you, who know well the fate that awaits them. Come you to us in fear, little Warlock?> she half-sneered, prompting me to raise my eyebrow.

Well, well, didn’t someone get an attitude fast?

“If you think that the torments of the Shroud equal that of Hell, you are a fool,” Master Fred replied with a grimly calm reverb that greatly impressed Elrii, judging by the way she drew back. “The Shroud is merely a pleasant purgatory, an interval of mild irritation, for those souls that are going Down. It is torment for the rest of you, who did not earn such a fate for yourselves.”

They paused significantly, looking up to stare into the now ghostly-burning eyes of the Speaker of the Shroud. “We are going Down. What is your fear, to us?”

Elrii made a ghostly sigh of acknowledgement. <We accept your service, Heaven and Hellbound.> She reached out and laid a spectral hand on Master Fred’s shoulder, and swirls of ghostly fire and dark mists gathered around, plunging into them and drawing a quiet exhalation that was all the indication of the soul-cutting pain of establishing this new kind of Pact.

Pale spectral flames rose up from the Branding of a new Pact and fluttered over their fingers before quietly dying away. “I shall serve until you are free,” they promised gravely, rising to their feet, bowing again, and then stepping back behind me.

I would have liked to get this Pact myself, but they weren’t going to let me, so I just shrugged. Not that building up a Pact wouldn’t have taken a LOT of my Masteries...

“Before you go,” I said calmly, also rising to my feet. I extended my hand towards her, and she paused a moment before reaching out in return, and met my hand with an energy-draining, soul-chilling touch that could not harm me.

I vented five Channeling uses into her, because I could, changing negative to positive and infusing them into her.

Light swam through her spectral form, giving her color, form, and chasing away the massive negative energy bias around her from the Shroud. She gasped as she looked at herself, no longer a hollow ghost, some of her positive memories and emotions once more possible.

“Go in peace,” I told her, as I released the ghostly hand.

She paused, and then her hand flitted out, crossed my brow, and in a swirl of ectoplasm, she was gone.

I slowly lifted my hand up to my forehead, and touched that place as my face hardened.

“A problem?” Master Fred asked in multi-tone softness, coming up to lay a hand gently on my shoulder. I reached over to clasp it there.

“She made a connection to her memories, expending the energy of the spell to open up the ones stored inside my physical brain. Every Speak with Dead I Cast, I should be able to expand the link backwards for one day per Caster level...”

“You have the last forty-some days of her life?” Master Fred asked gently, lifting their head to look at the sky. “Those who betrayed her, killed her?”

“Yes.” I clenched my fist. “Some of them are still alive, including the father.”

“Well, then.” They squeezed my shoulder reassuringly. “There are a great many people who will look very happily for such people.” A kind reminder that I still had a lot of Cultivator butchering to do. “Also, your accent has changed.”

I smiled softly despite myself. “Physical memory is included,” I agreed. “We’ll probably have to use a Wish to adjust things...”

“Yes,” they agreed, a simple thing that would simply alter my recordings to include the accent, and the recall of anyone who had seen them to match the current paradigm. It wouldn’t affect the likes of Sama or Briggs, but I could shoot them a message as to why it was happening, and they simply wouldn’t care. “What are we doing next?”

“I am going to be Casting Speak with Dead a rather large number of times.” Working backwards a year of memories per day shouldn’t be difficult, and I had the thoughtstreams to go through them with a fine-tooth comb. Three weeks tops to get done... faster if I did it traveling between fights. “I believe Azaia will be coming to see me later this morning. I will speak to her, administer Blessings thereafter, and then we will return to India and work the final purges of the Cultivators.

“We will pass word of the new Pact among the Marked and the Blessed, and see who wants to take the plunge. But first, we will offer it to them.”

Master Fred glanced the way I was looking, and simply nodded, following me as I headed towards Penitent Hall.