The Archimage Wars: Seeress of Yaochi

By Philip Blood

The story of The Archimage Wars is an urban fantasy series. The story begins in current time, on Earth, but don't let the time or place fool you! Truth is stranger than fiction and the truth about Earth and what it really going on will confound and amuse you!
Join the lead character, Nick, as he continues his crazy adventure, now heading for the fabled fantasy world called Yaochi, as he takes you on a diabolical journey the next of the Ten Worlds. Nick must not only survive, but he must relearn to use the magic he has forgotten if he is to survive the Ascension Quest, and unravel plots so twisted and deep you would need a Bakemoono Seeress to look into the future! Fortunately, Nick will have one to help him navigate the dark plots against him.
On this journey, you will discover things that are hidden in all of Earth's history, wars, religions, famous people, movies, books, legends, and myths, and while doing so, uncover the truth about our universe! It is not what you think. This novel series will take you on a quest across many strange fantasy worlds, not the least odd of which is Earth. The worlds range from almost Tolkien fantasy settings to modern day technology, and everything in between!
If you liked Zelazny's Amber series, Butcher's Harry Dresden series, and Farmer's Riverworld series, you should like my The Archimage Wars series.
Nick will continue his tale in Diabolical Book 4, Seeress of Yaochi, in February of 2017, do you dare to join him and find out the truth?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Philip Blood
• Release date: Feb 1, 2017
• ISBN: 9781311180537

Philip Blood

Philip Blood is a published author currently living in the Los Angeles suburbs. He is an avid scuba diver, a voracious reader of sci-fi and fantasy, a tabletop gamer (from way back), and a computer game junkie with MMOs being the top of his list.Mr. Blood recently finished the third and final novel in his Zone series, this one called Brethren of the Ark and will soon publish book 9 in his urban fantasy series, The Archimage Wars: Warlok of Sheol. Book 1 through 8 are all available now with just one more to come to finish the series. Book 10 will be finished by the end of 2020. In addition, he works on creating Audio Plays for his novels, with five already available and more to come!He also recently went back to his very first fantasy epic series, Cathexis, and did a deep re-write, fixing may of the writing issues of a young author (he wrote it 30 years ago) while leaving the story intact. All four books have been re-written and are now available in ebooks or print versions.Finally, Mr. Blood has begun outlining a new, more traditional, fantasy epic, which he will start writing in 2021. The series is called, Kingdoms of Magic.

Book preview

The Archimage Wars:

Diabolical Book 4

Seeress of Yaochi

by

Philip Blood

Version 3.00

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PUBLISHED BY:

Philip Blood

The Archimage Wars: Seeress of Yaochi

Copyright © 2016 by Philip Blood

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in, or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any short quotes of other Authors, Movies, Writers or Composers works are within the bounds of the Fair Use Act.

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Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

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Dedication:

This book is dedicated you, the fans who take the time to read my novels. I do not write them for the money, I only care that someone reads them and is affected in some way. They laugh, or cry, are surprised, or they care for a hero, or dislike a villain. So, to all of you who read my stories, thank you! If you do enjoy my story in some way, return the favor and write me a short review on some book site. I promise I will read every one of them and your words of encouragement will spur me on to write more novels!

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Other novels by Philip Blood

SINGLE NOVELS

Dragon Slayer’s Incorporated

SERIES:

NexLord (3) zONE (3)

Dark Prophecies The End and the Beginning

Black Chains Pirate Code

Grim Realities Brethren of the Ark

The Archimage Wars (10) Cathexis (4)

Wizard of Abal Necromancer’s Dagger

Sorceress of Atlantis Conspirator’s Coin

Demon of Annwn Sorcerer’s Ring

Seeress of Yaochi Desecrator’s Sword

Necromancer of Irkalla

Huntress of Tartarus Kingdoms of magic (Forthcoming)

Divinity of Elysium Weapon of Destiny (Forthcoming 2021)

Magus of Nibiru Black Wizardry (Forthcoming 2021)

Warlock of Sheol Doomed Crusade (Forthcoming 2022)

Sibyl of Terra Witch’s Curse (Forthcoming 2022)

The story so far…

My name is Nicholas Albus and if you have come back yet again for more of my crazy story, good for you! You are a braver person than I! Now, regardless of why you need a recap, I am going to do my best to bring you up to speed. If, however, your memory is much better than mine, and you still recall everything that has already transpired, by all means, skip to Chapter One, since this part will just be going over what you already know!

Ok, so here goes... I woke up some time back on a stone slab in the ancient Egyptian ruins of Karnak, having forgotten every damn thing about my personal history. I did not even know my name, but I could speak many languages and know how the world works, at least Earth, but we will get to that.

A Hentan House hunter, named Stewart Hentan, tried to kill me as part of the Ascension Quest. That is what the Houses call their ways of trying to eliminate the other nine Houses, as they attempt to win this stupid king of the hill contest for some unknown... er... ascension.

I then traveled to England, where I had been reunited with my old girlfriend Fiona, an Albus Second Tier Sorceress, and the single most beautiful girl this side of Andromeda. Not that I remembered her, or anyone, I had known. From her, I learned that I am a wizard, which does not mean I can cast spells, though, I can, sort of. I can make a spell and add it to a sigil and then if I hit another wizard with that sigil, they cannot believe the spell away. Of course, I can just try to believe what I want to be true and make it my personal reality, this works fine if another mage is not messing me up by believing in their version of reality. When another wizard imagines their own version of things it becomes a matter of which one of us is stronger. Even that is not completely correct either. More accurately, I can affect reality further away from me than a lower Tier wizard or sorceress, but if another mage gets close enough, they can still have their way. I know, confusing, but it is what it is if I think it is and some other mage is not fighting me.

Soon we were off to a new World, called Abal. I went with Myrka, a bloodthirsty Tarvos sorceress and my new wizard buddy, Hydan. Once on Abal, I gathered in a Bakemono mage, named Toji, who swore to serve me for a Yaochi year for saving his life.

During our little adventure on Abal, I bumped off a mage who had returned from the dead, he also happened to be the insane son of the Archimage of Abal, Mordred. Then, I rescued a guy I thought was my dad, who turned out to be the Archimage of Abal, Mordred’s father. His name is Merlin. Yes, he is ‘the’ Merlin, of King Arthur legend.

Merlin did not blame me for doing in his son. That little shit had caused a civil war on Abal and he had imprisoned his dad in a crystal cocoon, though I eventually busted Merlin out.

I also met, who I thought was, my long-lost mother, the White Enchantress. With her help, I had managed to stop a thousand or so year civil war on Abal.

That is when I learned that my father is not Merlin, of House Sivaeral, but was some House Albus wizard called The White Knight. I figured that the White Knight was Lancelot of the same Earth Arthurian legends, with Guinevere being my mother, The White Enchantress. It made sense, though it was all a lie. However, I did not know that yet.

When I thought they were my parents, my previous Nautilus Glyph, of House Sivaeral, changed to what I thought was my actual House, becoming the Spider Glyph of House Albus.

I then returned to Earth and did a little research into my newly discovered House. While doing that, I met a Hidden Soul, which is a mage who does not know they are a mage and, because of that, they do not show a House Glyph on their left cheek, at least, not yet. His name was Casey Griffith.

Together with Casey, Fiona, Hydan, Toji, and Myrka, we had gone to yet another of the ten Worlds, this one called Atlantis, the home of House Albus. At that point, I thought these were my people.

Once on Atlantis, I battled with Morgana, a Dokkalfar necromancer who teamed up with a dark entity called The Unspeakable. I later discovered that The Unspeakable was the split-off, dark half, of Jenidan, the Archimage of House Albus. This dark half named herself ‘Draok’, also known as the, aforementioned, Unspeakable.

During one battle, Guinevere was killed and, later, Lancelot, the man I thought was my father, got kidnapped by Draok. If that was not bad enough, Draok inhabited Myrka’s body, using something called a ‘Heart of Stone’ to take control. To find and rescue both my father and get Draok out of Myrka, I had to go to another of the Ten Worlds, Annwn.

Annwn is the home of House Tarvos, a bunch of derkaz crazed, bloodthirsty, nut job mages… just like my pal, Myrka. I went there pretending to be a captured mage slave since they do not allow other mages on their World. On Annwn, while tracking down Draok to rescue my, supposed, father, I discovered that the Tarvos are dying off due to some inability to breed with another Tarvos mage who has embraced the derkaz. To keep breeding, they have been capturing and enslaving mages from other Houses and using them as breeding partners.

Not only that, but their planet is slowly spiraling in toward its sun, which has already made the surface so hot it has become uninhabitable. I had solved their breeding problem by finding some of their mundanes who were in hiding. Now the Tarvos mages can breed with them, instead of enslaving foreign mages. Next, I blackmailed the Archimage of Annwn into releasing all his mage slaves. Along the way, I met Melusine, an Argoth girl, who knew me from way back, before I lost all my memories. After I set her free from slavery on Annwn, she told me that she owed me her life, so she decided to tag along to repay her debt by protecting my sorry hide.

Then, the man I thought was my father, sacrificed himself to get the Unspeakable out of my bloodthirsty Tarvos friend, Myrka. Unfortunately, Myrka then also sacrificed herself to save me from her own derkaz crazed Archimage. Before she died, I, stupidly, promised Myrka I would save her people. Damn my mouth! That turned out to be extremely difficult. Nearly all of them, including their Archimage, Arawn, had embraced the derkaz, making them uncaring, bloodthirsty killers. And, at that point, I thought that no one had any idea how to get the derkaz out of a person once they took it into their bodies! At least I solved the Tarvos breeding issue and put a stop to their enslavement of other House mages for procreation.

After that, we returned to Earth to help Toji. His family had been disgraced and his Grandfather’s position as Warlord on Earth taken by another Bakemono wizard named Jiro. Toji had been coerced into helping that very mage, the man who disgraced Toji's family line. To reinstate his family’s honor, Toji made a deal with Jiro to challenge the Bakemono Executioner to a duel. Normally, this would be suicide for a Fourth level mage to challenge a Second, but I had obtained a rare and powerful Actuality weapon, called Excalibur, yes, that Excalibur, and Toji… er… borrowed it, without asking, so he could use it in his duel. If he managed to kill Hotaru, Toji planned to commit honorable seppuku, happily dying by his own hand, knowing his family’s honor would be reinstated. What an idiot.

I threw a monkey wrench into that plan when I challenged Hotaru to a duel before Toji could do the same thing. Hey, it sounded like a good plan at the time! This solved the immediate problem of Toji dying in the duel, but Hotaru is like a lawnmower on nitro when she uses a Katana, the very weapon we would use in our duel at the Winter Solstice, which was coming up swiftly!

I had also learned, from a message in a ring given to me by the now-deceased, Guinevere, that my father is not Lancelot, The White Knight! She told me that my father is really… wait for it… Arthur Pendragon.

Now I am on Earth, looking for my pop, we have a lot of catching up to do, you see, I am being hunted by the evilest being… well, ever. Darth Vader is a sock puppet compared to this guy. He is called, The Dragon, and he WAS one of the ten immortal Archimages who each created one of the ten intelligent mage species on the ten Worlds. He was also the only son of a bitch to break the Archimage Accords… twice and get tossed out. His world was then destroyed, and his House marked for extinction, with all other Nine Houses hunting him. There are damn few mages from House Dragon left now, but their Archimage, The Dragon, is still out there, causing havoc, pretending to be mages of other Houses (which only an Archimage can do), while committing all kinds of atrocities and other evil shenanigans.

Then, it turned out that my real father, Arthur Pendragon, is of House Dragon! Pendragon means: ‘From the dragon’s enclosed land’, or from House Dragon. This makes ME half Dragon, or half sentenced to death, and I am fairly sure half-dragon is enough for any mage to want my head stuck up on a pole.

I have wisely kept this family relationship a secret, even from my friends.

Fortunately, my Glyph shows a Spider, from my mother’s side of my blood, she was a Second of House Albus, while my father is a Second from House Dragon, making me a Bastard Second. But, so far, no one knows of my dark side connection.

Which brings us to this particular moment in time…

Chapter One

Is it nice in your snow storm

Freezing your brain?

-David Bowie

If there is one thing I hate, it is being woken up early, particularly by a wrinkly skinned little bastard with a bad case of body odor.

The gravelly voiced gremlin is barking words into my ear, too loudly, Master, awake! Several Meh-Teh are closing on your position, you need your wits about you if you are to survive!

I winced, not from the volume, but from the wet slime he coughed up into my ear, it smells like three-week-old skunky beer, has the slimy consistency of snot, and the ugly color of nasty coughed up phlegm.

Jesus H. Argoth! I exclaimed and flung my covers off so that I can get away from the awful stench that is Pox. That brought me off my shelf bed and onto my bare feet where I landed on hard ice! Goosebumps the size of small volcanos appeared all over my naked skin! I abruptly realized I had just left the heavenly warm bliss of nine inches of bear fur covers to arrive in the hell of standing naked in an ice cave!

I dove back under the covers like a flying fish plunging back into the ocean. It is DAMNED COLD out there! My numbed brain then remembered where I am, in the Himalayan Mountains, holed up in a cave to outwait a storm that is passing through. I had gotten caught in the blizzard, realized there MUST be a cave where I wanted it to be, and then imagined up the raised shelf and bear covers. I had shed my wet clothing with the idea of getting warmer under those thick furry bearskin covers.

I can do all that, you see, because I am a wizard; that is right, like Gandalf… well no, not like that gray-haired old coot. OK, I am old too, yet I only look about thirtyish. Anyway, I digress, I am a wizard, well, maybe half a wizard, or a tenth, OK, I might be a hundredth, it just depends on if I am angry enough to forget that I do not believe in magic, which screws up my control over reality every time. Even if I say I believe in magic, which I begrudgingly have come to accept, I still doubt my ability to use it. That always tosses a monkey wrench into the gears when I try to do something magical.

Right now, I have my frost-bitten wizard ass under the bearskin covers and I am shaking like a Chihuahua facing a Pit Bull. Then I remembered that I am wearing mountain gear clothing and, because I believed I am, it became true. I threw the covers off again and stood up dressed in layers of down feather stuffed nylon.

Pox is simpering in the corner. He is a dark skinned, little ugly gnome of a creature, his body assembled by magic out of the either. Unfortunately, his phantom body is as ugly as roadkill and just as smelly. He aimed his pickle sized nose my direction and squinted his black beady eyes as he croaked in his gravelly deep voice, I’m not sure how they found you, Master, but some Necromancer has sent undead Meh-Teh to attack you while you sleep!

How long do I have? I demanded of Pox; undead whatchamacallits are nothing new to me nowadays.

His wrinkly skinned face scrunched up, creating even deeper wrinkles, which I had not believed possible until that moment, as he replied, Only minutes… seconds maybe.

Any sign of the others? I asked.

Your companions? he replied.

I scowled and tried to throw an icicle at him, but he dodged. No, your dead grandmother!

He ignored the icicle and the sarcasm, since he is used to me and replied, The Necromancer has not resurrected my grandmother… at least, I don’t think they have, but they have raised other corpses and those monsters will be here soon! You must escape!

"Monsters… I thought you said, ‘Meh-Teh’.

I did, Master, Meh-Teh are monsters, by almost any definition.

What ARE Meh-Teh? I demanded of the short snotty sneak.

Pox shook his head, which moved his long nose back and forth like a baseball player’s bat when he is waiting for a pitch. No time, Master!

Fine, have you found Hydan and Melusine yet? I had lost them in the storm that hit us on the trail last night, not that I am worried about them, they are also mages, better ones than me, though of lower Tiers. They certainly know how to fend for themselves.

No, Master, now go!

Into that storm? Screw that! I’d rather fight monsters in this nice warm cave! I retorted.

Then I heard the bellow of the first beast. It was a haunting and bestial sound, loud enough to be heard over the howling wind of the storm outside the cave.

On second thought, those do sound pretty nasty, I noted sourly. I imagined a rock into a pair of goggles and then added another layer of coat over the one I am already wearing. After that, I strapped the goggles on over my eyes and pulled up my fur trimmed hood. Then I headed for the cave opening. I am sort of waddling, as I have on so many thick layers of winter protective clothing that I look a bit like Randy Parker, from The Christmas Story, when his mom sent him off to school all bundled up.

Damn you, Hydan! I muttered, Why the hell did you go and get lost? I said this like it is his fault, which it is not, but I am not about to cut the cheery bastard any slack. Hydan had probably imagined up a Saint Bernard, complete with a small barrel of brandy around its neck! No doubt, the Friare wizard drank the whole cask by himself and is fall on your face plastered by now. I guess I will have to fend for myself.

So, I stepped into the wind and snow and it nearly blew me over! I leaned my whole body into the wind. Everything around me is a world of streaking white lines, caused by the wind blowing the snow almost sideways. I cannot see the trail, or anything much, except snow.

That was, until this white-furred beasty, the size of a silverback gorilla, leaped in front of me! He pulled back a big furry arm ready to swipe his three-inch-long claws across my neck. This would likely separate my head from my body without much fuss.

Damn it! I yelled and did the only thing I could, I fell backward, which had the benefit of taking my head out of the reach of his swing and the detriment of landing me on my back in the snow. I got a look at the beast’s face as I fell, it is all rotted and frostbitten, with teeth poking through the tattered cheek on his left side. His beady little eyes are that milky white of the undead.

I landed on a slope and tumbled down a short snow drift, ending up face down. I lifted my head to see if the monster is about to land on me, but my hood is down over my eyes! I reached up to pull it back, but my arm cannot bend that much with all the layers of jackets I have on!

POX! I bellowed, expecting to be attacked at any moment by a big, undead, furry, white monster.

A gnarled black hand lifted my hood and I found myself staring into Pox's miss mashed mongrel’s mug.

You called, Master?

What IS that thing! I bellowed.

The Meh-Teh? I believe it is also called the Abominable Snowman.

I shouted back, That thing is a god damned YETI!

He nodded, And a Necrosoul.

Great! I have an Undead Abominable Snowman after me in a freaking blizzard! What next? A damned undead ice dragon from Game of Thrones?

I thought Yeti were mythical! I bellowed into the snow.

Pox replied, Some mage must have believed otherwise.

Screw you, Pox! I bellowed, for no apparent reason, I am just pissed at the whole situation and, well, Pox is right here to yell at.

Then I heard a snow and ice crunching sound, the monster must have leapt down to my position. I felt the Yeti’s claws dig into my back. Fortunately, I have on so many layers of down coat that his long claws did not actually penetrate my flesh, but he got a good hold of me and picked me up like a carcass on a meat hook! He flung me and I sailed out into the snowstorm.

Yaa! I yelled, but at least I am now flying AWAY from the undead Yeti. My dubiously good fortune soon ended when I landed and started tumbling down a very steep slope. That undead hairy bastard had chucked me off the trail and down a snow- and ice-covered ravine! I picked up some speed and then hit something hard, which kicked me into the air and increased my rate of tumble. My spinning body hit the slope again and continued plunging down the steep ravine toward… the devil only knows what! A drop-off, a big god-damned rock? In this snow, I will not know what I am about to hit until I come to an abrupt, and possibly deadly, stop.

POX! I bellowed as I tumbled.

Yes, Master? he replied from next to me. I managed to look that way and spotted the mangy moron riding a little red sled and I swear it said ‘Rosebud’ on it!

Can you stop me? I roared, losing sight of him momentarily as I continued tumbling.

No, Master, that is not in my capabilities.

Then give me your damned sled!

Oh, he exclaimed in surprise, I can do that! Pox then turned the steering bar of his sled to maneuver closer to my tumbling form.

Though supreme effort, I managed to quit tumbling and am now sliding along on my back, feet first. I looked left and saw Pox and his sled within arm's reach. I grabbed at the sled like a rabid fan fighting for a sweaty hanky tossed into the crowd by their favorite Vegas has-been.

My hand grasped a rail, and I pulled the sled toward me. Pox vanished in a cloud of black dots that were instantly swept away by the blizzard. I still have hold of the now empty sled, but I am having trouble flipping it over; I am like a beached whale in these coats! I have no time for subtlety, like removing a single coat, so I just imagined my clothing gone so I can move before I run into a cliff or rock. Abruptly, I started freezing my naked ass off, hurtling through a blizzard while sliding down an icy slope, which is acting like sandpaper on my skinny, frozen ass! I desperately threw myself onto the sled, flipping my body over to land on top.

Woohoo! I yelled, cheering for myself, as I continued to freeze my blue ass off in the viscously cold, blinding snow, while hurtling down a slope at break-everything speed.

Parts of me, which I do not want to mention, are starting to freeze to the frigid metal bars of the sled! I was just going to try to concentrate on believing in some clothes when my sled and I suddenly went airborne, launching off some god-forsaken cliff. My plan to make some clothes was instantly forgotten as I flew into the teeth of a blizzard, buck naked, on a little red sled. This will break your concentration every damn time, trust me on this.

In the moments I have before my presumed death, I realized that, with all this snow, there is probably, even likely, a large, soft, snowdrift ahead and I am going to land right in it!

Which is what happened since I believed it. That is how magic works, we can change reality around us, if we believe that is the way things really are. In this case, a snow drift is not too large a stretch, so I guess I bought it, or maybe it had it been there all along, who knows?

I hit the massive snow drift with a lot of speed so my sled and I entered it like a bullet into a box of white detergent. Almost instantly the lights went out as I was knocked into blissful and warm unconsciousness.

I awoke some indeterminate time later and I am staring up into Hydan’s face.

He spoke in surprise, Nicholas! You’re alive! The big oaf has a large grin plastered on his handsome face. I am still in the snow, but we are in an ice tunnel. I think that Hydan must have magically tunneled down to find me.

Hydan face got thrust aside as a concerned looking Melusine shouldered him out of her way as she asked, Are you all right, Nicholas?

I am freezing my naked ass off, which I am sure has turned to a nice shade of blue by now, just like the rest of me.

C-C-C-C-Cold! I stated, my teeth clacking together since I am shaking so badly.

Suddenly I am wearing long underwear, inside a mummy style down sleeping bag, with a heated blanket over me, and I am inside a cozy tent.

That better? she asked.

I did not dare try to speak, I am still freezing, but I am getting warmer quickly; I nodded my thanks.

She reached out and handed me a cup of hot cocoa.

You are an angel, I managed to say in a warbly voice, wrapping my cold fingers around the heated cup for warmth before taking a sip, it was pure heaven.

Hydan replied, Actually, on Elysium, all of the Argoths look like Earth depictions of angels.

He is referring to her House, the Argoths, and her World, Elysium. I can see her mage Glyph, an Ankh style symbol, on her left cheek, just below her eye. All mages have a Glyph, which only another mage can see, with each House having a different Glyph symbol. Mine is a stylized spider of House Albus while Hydan has the compass Glyph of House Friare.

My numbed brain is firing on about six neurons out of 100 billion, the rest are somewhere on vacation, too cold to function. I tried to recall how the hell I had gotten up in the Himalayan Mountains, where I had been kicked around like a frozen hockey puck by a necrosoul Yeti. It is a good question.

I took another sip of my hot cocoa and thought about it, but I am still just too damned out of it to get my thoughts flowing, so I asked, Hey, Hydan, as scary as this sounds, my brain isn’t even working as well as usual, so refresh my memory, why am I up here being chased by the Abominable Undead Snowman?

Hydan looked surprised, Well, you wanted to talk to the dead.

I WANTED to talk to an undead Yeti! I tried to yell, but I just do not have it in me so I kind of wheezed it out instead.

Hydan shook his head and then took a drink from a bottle of booze he had produced, before answering, No, not talk to the undead, talk to the dead.

There is a difference? I asked.

One is a soul in the afterlife, the other is one trapped in a dead body. In the latter case, they can’t really speak all that well, unless they are a necromage. And as for them, not only don’t any of us know how to make one, but I wouldn’t want to do it even if I could!

I really tried to make sense out of what he was saying, but my brain is like one of those frying eggs on drugs. Ah, could you go over it slowly for me? Why, exactly, do I want to talk to a dead guy?

But even as I asked the question, I started remembering the answer. I must get out of my duel with Hotaru and, to do that, I must convince her that I have really been trying to help the Bakemonos by uncovering a dishonorable plot perpetrated by one of their own Seconds, Jiro Bakemono. And, out of all possible bad choices, I suspect he is colluding with The Dragon to get Hotaru killed. He wants to move up to her position as Executioner for the Archimage of House Bakemono.

Melusine answered my question, though, You wanted to talk to some of the people who had been working with The Dragon, but you killed all of the ones we know of, meaning Mordred Sivaeral and Morgana Dokkalfar.

Damn, that was right. I had been wishing I could have tortured some information out those two BEFORE I had killed them. Then Melusine had pointed out that there might be a way to talk to the dead because she knew a mage who had been working on doing that very thing. Unfortunately, that was banned by his Archimage and he had been sentenced to exile on Earth. To keep from being hunted down by other Houses, he had become a hermit and now lives up in these very Himalayan Mountains.

I remember now, we’re up here to find an Argoth dude, I stated.

Melusine agreed, He is known as the Speaker for the Dead.

To which I replied, Is his name Ender Wiggin?

She looked at me in a puzzled way and said, No, I believe his name is Joredal Argoth, wizard of the Third Tier, who is this other person?

I let it go, nobody gets me.

Chapter Two

There's someone in my head but it's not me.

-Pink Floyd

After a few minutes and after Hydan healed any of my light wounds, I finally felt warm enough to imagine up some clothing and sit up. They wanted to know what happened and why I had been naked and ridden a sled into a snow drift, but I ignored their questions and said, Look, the short version is, someone sent some necrosoul Yeti creatures to do me in and you know what that means!

Melusine looks puzzled, but Hydan answered, The Dragon has somehow tracked you here!

Melusine shook her head, I doubt that anyone knows where we are and none of us have used a Spirit Bridge!

Then who sent some Hairy undead monsters out in a blizzard, who just happened to find me? I asked.

She had no answer for that.

Hydan left the tent and then came back a few minutes later. Well, they seem to have lost your trail, after you so cleverly leaped that ravine, on a sled, and hid inside a snowdrift! Well done!

Hydan is like that, always positive, even about something as crazy as this business.

So, what do you think we should do now? I inquired.

Hydan pulled out a flask and stated, Start drinking! Or, in my case, continue.

That’s your plan, start drinking? I asked in amusement.

The Friare wizard just shrugged, We have to wait out this storm, so why not drink?

Can’t you just believe the storm isn’t here anymore? I asked.

I could… I suppose, but that would take an enormous amount of power and I’d only be able to affect a limited part of this storm, so it isn’t really feasible, not even if I were an Archimage and I’m only a Third. No, when it comes to big things, like weather, sometimes you just have to wait. And if you must wait, why not drink something to warm your blood?

I’m pretty sure drinking to get warm is just an illusion, research shows that alcohol causes your blood vessels to dilate, moving warm blood closer to the surface of your skin, making you feel warmer temporarily, but this causes you to lose core body heat, so you actually get colder and that can lead to hypothermia and death, I noted.

So, alcohol makes me believe I’m warmer, he said with a slowly spreading smile.

Yes, but you’re missing the point…

Hydan interrupted me, Am I, Nicholas? I’m a wizard, so if I BELIEVE I’m warmer, no doubt, I will be!

He had me there and, since I am also a wizard, I reached out and took a swig from his bottle. It turned out to be filled with chang, a beer made from maize, or some other grains. It is a favorite drink of the Sherpas who inhabit this area. Hydan had recently tasted chang at a climber’s base camp which we had passed through a couple days ago.

I coughed; that beer is kind of bitter!

Hydan pounded me on the back with a mitten covered hand and stated, Don’t you just love chang!

A few hours later, the storm abated, and we emerged like a butterfly from our white cocoon, or maybe an Arctic Frog thawing out after being frozen for winter might be closer. There are still some puffy clouds up high, but, otherwise, the sun is out, and it is not completely freezing anymore.

I looked around but cannot see any signs of Abominable Undead Snowmen.

Any idea where this clown is hiding? I asked Melusine, referring to the Argoth we are seeking up here in these mountains.

She nodded, Yes, follow me; we need to get to that peak over there.

Can’t we Five-Point-Travel? I inquired hopefully.

Melusine nodded, Yes, now that I can see that peak, I can make a Star. Do you really want me to, though?

She is referring to all the Mage Hunters seeking me.

No, I answered sourly.

We walked for another six hours. I was just getting really fed up with the whole thing and about to say something mean and nasty, no doubt. Then I planned to