Azure bonds - Kate Novak [119]
Alias felt shambling footsteps through the boggy ground and looked past Akabar's body at his companions. One's neck was ripped open, and his face was pale and ghostly without its lifeblood. The other had no face at all, only a slab of pummeled, bloody meat. Both had tendrils rigged around their bodies, moving them like puppets.
Alias felt her stomach heave and twist, but it was overridden by a chill, clammy terror. Her body trembled and she began to hyperventilate.
"There, there," Moander said, using Akabar's hand to smooth her hair. "I just brought them as an example of what I could have done to your friend. I'll send them away now."
Moander gave no verbal command and made no physical gesture, but the shambling corpses retreated around the side of the hill of garbage. Alias stared at the passing plains. After a few moments, she grew calmer. "Who are you really?" she asked.
"As I said before, I am Moander. Though that is a lot like calling a newborn prince the king."
Alias swung her head and stared at the stranger in Akabar's body. He imitated the mage almost perfectly, his pose, his gestures, the tone and cadence of his voice. But the smile was wrong. It was an exaggerated, forced smile-as if someone had pinned the corners of his mouth.
"Are you… I mean, is he…"
"Dead? Not really. He's gone, for all intents and purposes, but his soul and mind are still around, locked away in some corner. Rather like a man poisoned by a Jit snake, who lies in fever dreams, not waking, for weeks. You still have Jit snakes around here?" He paused, tilting his head as if listening to an unheard speaker. "No, I guess you don't anymore."
He rested his milky gray eyes on Alias and sat quietly, as if waiting for her to ask him another question.
Alias only stared at the passing scenery, so Moander continued. "In this case, if I were to let the mage go, he would awaken. But he cannot break my control, and I will control him until he is no longer useful. And this one is so incredibly useful. I needed his mouth and mind to talk to you. Of course, I could have linked up with you, but you are far too valuable to risk that. Besides, he is so very amusing."
Moander giggled. "I can't begin to tell you all I'm finding in his mind. It's like being in a great mansion, with new surprises behind every door. Here are memories of his wives, and here is you calling him a greengrocer, and here is a good piece of history of the South. Gods below, so much has happened. I've been out of touch for too long!"
"Out of touch?" Alias taunted. "I thought gods were omniscient."
"Well, normally that would be true. Gods stretch through a number of different planes, with different levels of power in each. This part of me-" Akabar's hand motioned to the pile of garbage which towered over them- "you might call the Minion or Abomination of Moander. More than a thousand years ago, back when Myth Drannor was a major power, the cursed elves banned my spirit from this world by imprisoning this part of me in my own temple."
A weakness crept over Alias's spirit. This vast garbage heap was her enemy, and not only did it hold her prisoner, but it waved her friend before her eyes like a puppet.
"Soon, when this part of me arrives at the new temple my worshipers have prepared, and I gather even more worshipers to my fold, I will grow strong enough in this world to command the powers that gods are endowed with. Had I been in full control of my powers when my spirit was finally able to return to the Abomination, I would have left a pit where Yulash stood and ascended into the heavens to mete out punishment to those who banished me."
"But in the meantime, you're pretty weak. Relatively, I mean."
Moander cocked Akabar's head like a hanged man. "Relatively. But I have plenty of stored life-fluid in this form. More than enough to reach my worshipers, pop the heads off a few sacrifices, and make demands on the populace. I'm conserving my strength by traveling this slowly so that I can have enough energy to indulge a whim."
Alias stared at the approaching forest, wondering