Blade of the Avatar/Blade of Midras/Chapter 7

Chamber of Souls

Chapter 7: Chamber of Souls

Excerpt

Evard’s steps were familiar to him. They brought him past the Sentinels that lined the long hallway of the Maw, every step taking him farther beneath the Epitaph. They carried him into the Cavern of Night where the Old City’s layers were exposed around a funnel of stone piercing deep beneath the mountain. Obsidian Falls could be heard more than seen in the darkness, its waters roaring on his left as they tumbled down the northern wall. His eyes quickly adjusted to the darkness, the only illumination coming from the lamps lining the Long Stair on the opposite side of the enormous cavity. It formed a great, descending arc back and forth along the eastern curve of the natural shaft plunging into the darkness beneath him. He could see movement down that staircase: another line of slaves being forced down the steps toward the laboratories of the Obsidian reshapers. Their flesh and bone would be twisted into forms and purposes more suited to the objectives of the Obsidian Cause: the will of the Central Circle and the vision of the Obsidian Eye.

If, Evard reflected, it worked.

And, as caveats go, it was a very big if. The truth was that Obsidian magic, despite its roots in the ancient Fall and generations of study, remained an imprecise and largely unpredictable craft. Its power unquestionably emanated from the shards that plunged violently from the sky at the time of the Fall, rending the Earth and transforming its features. Yet despite the presence of this power in the world for centuries, and the many decades in which the Obsidians had been studying and practicing to understand and harness its seemingly limitless capabilities, the power itself remained a mystery and its effects volatile and mercurial. Even when the Obsidian craft-sorcerers managed to stumble upon a magical configuration that gave reasonably consistent results—such as the shaping of elves—and even when those forms proved to be stable as living creatures, they had proven to be difficult to maintain under any kind of discipline. Most forms simply failed, ending either in misshapen creatures at best, or agonized monstrosities lashing out at their shapers in the throes of their suffering.

Despite all that, the Central Circle had been adamant in the continued research into shaping the living into a powerful army of creatures under their command. Evard wondered if it was because refugees and captives were easy to conquer but difficult to control. Transforming them into monstrous creatures that fought for you rather than against you, perhaps, seemed like solving two problems in a single stroke.

Trivia

• This chapter is additional chapter added exclusively to The Sword of Midras.