Willeonis Treborrin imagined himself as a worker, as he often did coming here. He tried to imagine Lord Xenoreth giving orders to him to pluck insects from stems, or instructing him about which was a weed and which was wanted. Lord Xenoreth almost never raised his voice; he rarely had to do so. The world that typically surrounded him seemed quiet, peaceful, and exceedingly well regulated.
But Willeonis had not come to admire a farm. He turned now to face the manor house proper, a huge, grand old house, really a castle, handed down from generation to generation in Lord Xenoreth's family. In his age, Lord Xenoreth only inhabited a corner of the entire estate, like a fox living in a small hole in a large hill. Some of the old minarets and towers crumbled. The portcullis had not been lowered in so long, Willeonis wondered if it could be anymore. Lord Xenoreth did not bother, either, with much in the way of decorations, or at least not on the outside of his estate, but the halls were lined with tapestries, the corners guarded by statues and busts of the great emperors of the Xomirian Empire or the beautiful women believed to have lived in ancient days.
Often, the Eight met here, in this place, and enjoyed the rich comforts of a lifestyle inherited for generations. Laughter and song and all manner of discussion echoed through the halls and even now made their ways to Willeonis' ears as he entered the Great Hall.
He was not greeted, and this bothered him. Surely, one of the old, first aavimancer's spies had told him the head of the Eight was arriving. But still, no one stood at the top of the stairs or with him on the cold stone floors. The tiny bits of dust swirling through the sunlight were Willeonis' only host just now. Willeonis held up his hand and closed his eyes. Closing his eyes in this world was opening them in another now. All at once, and everywhere around him, the souls of the living glowed, and there was Lord Xenoreth. Willeonis, while not in this world, would say the souls were a greenish swirling, vaguely imitating the bodies they inhabited...or blue...or.... He would describe them as swirls in any event. Damn his kunjel eyes, made for seeing in light and long distances, and not all that good for colors, or so he was told. Colors did not really...exist...in the other world. Or at least, words were inadequate for just about anything there. When looking at a soul, one did not notice such things.
Willeonis forced himself awake again. A dangerous thing, to peer through that layer.
"In his study," he said to himself, and listened to the words echo through the hallways and archways. He climbed the stairs.
* * *
Lord Xenoreth did not even seem to notice when Willeonis opened the doorway to let himself into the study. He sat at a huge corilathia table, surrounded by all manner of scrolls and books.
"It is no secret why you have come, Willeonis. Therefore, it is no secret that you have come. Forgive my rudeness in not receiving you, but I am close to something now, and do not really wish to be disturbed, not even by the head of the counsel. My words are, at present, engaged."
"If you were expecting me, then you might have not been engaged at this moment. Perhaps you make a wall for yourself just now," Willeonis said. "Childish for one so mature in years as you've been privileged to become."
Lord Xenoreth looked up from his papers. One of the qualities of the man which had existed long before Willeonis ever gave him the Trait was his stare. He looked through people long before he developed aavemancy abilities, and now he attempted to see through Willeonis Treborrin, the giftbearer, the First, the Head of the Aethren Counsel and possessor of all perspectives of the Trait.
"Perhaps, then, you should have read the sign and heeded it, as I intended for you to do. I do not wish your visit just now. I will entertain you in what way I can, but strongly wish for you to leave. You are interrupting."
"And I'll leave when I am done with my visit. I've...heard...things."
"And so have I. Will you have wine?"
"Yes, thank you."
Willeonis looked about the room for a place to be seated, and seeing not much in that way -- the chair Lord Xenoreth currently occupied was the only in the room -- he waved his hand, twisting his fingers into an almost unnatural knot. When his hand came down, it landed on a chair that was not previously before him, Willeonis' favorite chair. It was aburon, and carved and molded to fit his back and spine perfectly. This one was designed to sit him up in an attentive way.
Before he was completely settled in his seat, the door behind him opened and one of the servants, carrying a tray with goblet and bottle. Willeonis held out his hand and in it was already a goblet to be filled.
"Won't you have some with me?" Willeonis asked his host, who was scribbling something frantically now across a page.
"Be sure and deliver my thanks to Istvirin's guild for the ink bottles. I have been working now out of the same bottle for nearly six weeks straight and have not run out. I've filled pages with useful work," said the master.
"A fascinating invention, is it not? Self growing ink. Truth be told, it was more something the chiurgans created from mold, but Istvirin bottled it for you, I'm sure. Her, or her guild, as you say. More and more, we find ways to use this gift of ours, don't we?"
"This is not the conversation you came to have with me."
"No, not at all." Willeonis took a sip from his goblet. A sweet wine. He was no real connoisseur, but he liked it. Lord Xenoreth knew he would.
"Speak," said Lord Xenoreth, rather rudely. "Or don't speak."
"How is the rebellion in Morrigar?"
"Soon enough, Morrigar will be yet another former Xomirian province, just like Drod and Cheyn. Terrilia seems to be backing the Morrigaris, but for what purpose is anyone's guess."
"Good, good," Willeonis said, taking another sip.
Lord Xenoreth put his quill down and again stared at Willeonis, who looked at the books and scrolls on the shelves around him.
"The Grand Emperor does not agree with your assessment of the situation. Nor do I."
"I know. But it is better to allow people to be ruled by whomever they will."
"Kunjels," muttered the master of the house.
"Half, actually," said Willeonis. "In any event, that has nothing to do with being right or wrong about this business does it?"
"And if my homeland falls to barbarians, that is for the best?" asked Lord Xenoreth. Willeonis could see the matter had been weighing upon him heavily. "Is it right to overthrow an entire regime merely because a few are dissatisfied with some of that regime's laws? Is it not in the best interest of the most people to allow those who rule well rule most? The Xomirian Empire should not have come to this: squabbling embeciles advising an inbred and detached Emperor about such matters. If you would but listen to my case, Willeonis, I could stop these rebels."
"And now we touch the heart of the matter. I have heard what you would do, and it is wrong."
"How do you come to my house and tell me I am wrong? What gives you the authority to do so?"
"I taught you your magic. It was given to me from the Highest, who has spoken to me. Need I remind you? Truly?"
"Just what use is magic, if Aethren cannot rule?"
"It is to make ink. To grow bigger grapes. To feed the hungry. The very things you find the most use for magic in the first place, right?"
"You teach me to bind spirits, but tell me binding spirits is wrong."
"Binding spirits to their good is not wrong. Binding spirits to someone else's good is. And your experimentations into summoning souls back from death...I did not teach you this magic. I taught you to contact the aaviri, to seek and find their aid. I've taught you to use magic to prevent tragic crimes, to make justice, to guide the ignorant to truth. It is not for us to judge souls, however, and it is not for us to control a person's soul, or to use the dead to do our bidding."
"You draw a fine line, Willeonis. I think it difficult to see one side of it different than the other. Aavemancers have used magic to force children to learn, to make gentle the violent, and to extract truth from liars. We've forced people to listen, we've created fear and bred cowards, and we've cured many manifestations of insanity and corruption in individuals. And yet, here, at the Emperor's throne, we draw the line. We cannot cure the ills of a half-thousand year empire coming to an end."
"It is a difficult matter. We cannot rule. We cannot. If we control the emperor, we rule over him, and if we rule over him, we rule his empire. We cannot."
"To teach a man to rule his empire is a crime? Even if the emperor has asked for help?"
"If you win his empire for him, you are the true ruler, but it is not about the emperor I have come. It is about this business of the dead."
"The dead? I will have you say it to me what you find incorrect about my experiments in this matter. I will not come forth about it, if that is what you intend."
"You have drawn souls from the After. You have drawn them and bound them and are now using them to serve you, is that true?"
"To answer that question, you have only to look to your left."
Willeonis saw the servant who stood next to him now for the first time. His face was like ancient, pale leather, barely stretched over the bone underneath. The eyes were cloudy and the dry lips of the mouth parted a tiniest amount. The hair atop his head was like stray strings unraveling from a piece of cloth. The figure did not look back at Willeonis.
Willeonis dropped his goblet from his hand, spilling the wine across the floor. He rose to his feet and stepped backwards from the figure. The...servant...did not react in any way to Willeonis' disgust.
"What have you done?" Willeonis gasped. "What is this?"
Lord Xenoreth's face barely contained a smirk as Willeonis looked at him.
"What have you done?" Willeonis shouted at him. What little rage Willeonis had in his blood stirred. He thought to burn the entire room to cinder; in his mind, the spell readied itself.
In his distraction, he did not notice Lord Xenoreth speaking in whispers into the air. The sound of his voice rose and grew, and before Willeonis realized what was happening, a sense of deep peace and calm settled over him like a warm shawl. The horror was still beneath, but Willeonis could not bring it up to his surface and express it. Nor could he bring up the proper emotions to destroy this creature at which he stared.
Willeonis sighed a deep sigh and attempted to stir himself back to the proper feelings, to shrug off the binding Lord Xenoreth had put on him. Curse his infernal old brain. How had he allowed him to do it. Unfortunately, a binding was a difficult thing to remove or counteract once done. When a man's soul agreed to something....
Finally, he could shrug away the spell. He turned towards Xenoreth.
"How could you do this? What did you do? What is this abomination?"
"How indeed?" Xenoreth said. "Do you not think it odd? Obviously you do, but why should you? I can speak to spirits, to the immortal parts, and now you say I should be mute to some and deaf to others? Please, Willeonis, listen to reason before you pronounce the nature of my doings...."
"It's not me judging you. It is the Everything that judges you. You mustn't do this thing you have done."
"How could I do it, if it were not given to me to do? Are you not the one who gave all of the Eight their magic? Are you not the one who blessed us with this ability. I could have done nothing without your guidance could I?" Though he did not raise his voice, Lord Xenoreth was obviously furious. He stood still and his knuckles sought the table under the papers.
Willeonis studied the older man carefully. His face was clean shaved and clean. It was almost delicate looking, like something carved of marble, angular, perfect. Not one hair seemed to be in a place it should not have been. His lips were thin across like two knife wounds.
"Now, consider this, Willeonis the First," he said, calming down slightly and gesturing at the thing once again. "You heard correctly about my plans, but perhaps a bit late, actually. I have one hundred of these, all of them completely at my behest. With a thought, I can summon any one of them from the field. This man you see here? It is not his soul I've bound here in his body. The body is merely a container for the soul I summoned to it, and you ask me about the soul I summoned to it? I should not bind such souls, you say. It is an irony, a great irony, and I wish you had been here to see it take place. This body is a murdered man's vacated corpse, and whose soul do you suppose I've captured from the After and put inside of it?"
Willeonis did not suppose. He did not open his mouth. He knew what Xenoreth was thinking already. He had heard that, too.
"The murderer. It is the very murderer of this man, and several others, I've summoned up from the After and placed here in this corpse. Murderers, thieves, former slave owners, bastards, monsters. I've summoned up souls from some dark place where they went and put them to work. You call this an abomination, but is it really? Consider my reasoning for a moment. It has not been revealed what justice lies beyond the grave. From wherever monstrous souls go, I have pulled these back into empty shells and have raised them up to serve me."
"I did not teach you this power, Xenoreth. I did not teach you to channel the dead like this."
"No. I learned. Great power exists in the name, someone's name. Having that name, you have a part of them, a tiny claw hold on their immortality, and knowing enough of them, one can learn to call them, call the soul. But more than this, consider the benefits of what I have done. Consider the society we would have if we raise the dead in this way. Look at my syrvant there.
"He will never steal from me, pilfer my food stores, or incorrectly tally my coins. He will never need food, nor rest, nor water. He will never engage in wild celebrations with the other servants and turn up drunk and stupid. He will not forget his training, nor rethink what I have told him. He will not seek better employment elsewhere. He'll never get tired, or seek shade under a tree and stop working. He will never complain about his plight, or engage in rebellious activity. He is the perfect servant. Imagine the world with such servants. Imagine, the souls of the damned, people who have done wrong in this world and seek to escape their consequences in the After, brought back to serve the very people they wronged. A slave society where the slaves deserve to be slaves, and no consequence comes of keeping them slaves. How did you imagine a man at my age and in my state kept a manor for so long without help or heir? Did you think I go and daily tell the servants when to rise, when to eat, when to go to work? Bah!"
He waved his hand as though dismissing Willeonis' displeasure as an malodorous fart. Willeonis, having completely shaken away the spell he had been under now, feeling his old terrible feelings once more, turned on the syrvant standing there, tray in hand. He might as well have been a piece of furniture. Not one part of him moved in the slightest, not even the arm holding up the tray. He showed no sign of discomfort whatsoever.
"And what becomes of them when you die, Xenoreth? Your soul goes to the After and theirs are stuck here, in this corporeal prison?"
"Perhaps. That much is not clear to me yet. But you are much aware of my mindset, and this little itch will be scratched. In the meantime, you know me well enough to know I'll have plans for the use of my faithful one hundred."
Willeonis looked at the soul within the corpse. It was a ball of swirling, glowing light in the syrvant's chest, tendrils of essence trailing into the limbs and into the head, tracing out the corpse's body, adhering to it like a hand in a glove or water in a pitcher. Its agony could not be known. Willeonis did not dare try to read it; he had no desire to see what hell was for himself.
"You must destroy these, Xenoreth," Willeonis said.
"Destroy them? You cannot think...."
"I'm telling you to destroy them, before it is too late. I do not think we were meant to dabble in this way."
"Surely you have read the philosophy of Morrex? The peasant with money will buy bread; the king with money will buy the peasant? I am not using these creatures to destroy anything or harm anyone."
"I have heard your thoughts along these lines as well. You would form an army of these things, wouldn't you? An unstoppable army? Is this how you planned to aid the Emperor in Larnale?"
"Why do you come here to have an argument you have already had? Why bother confronting me at all? Surely, with your sight and hearing, you have heard more? Perhaps you know more of me than I know of myself?"
"I don't know everything, Xenoreth. But I do know the Highest's will on this. He has told me. Souls must be freed, allowed to go where they must go. To be held here is a violation of the agreement. You must not do these things. Destroy them, destroy them all."
Willeonis walked over to the corpse. He traced a pattern on the top of its forehead and suddenly a beam of light pierced the body from the place where Willeonis touched it, all the way to the floor. The bright light filled the room for a split second, so bright both men turned away. When they turned back, only a few charred remains on the floor were left.
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