The Curse-breakers of Avondor || ONC 2022 || ✔

Chapter 16: Spirit Truths

Night had fallen when Terry decided to make her move.

Though Countess Limnaia acted just a little colder than before, she'd provided Terry with a room and a mattress of her own. I'll stay close to Lord Audren tonight, she'd said. He's an old acquaintance and his state should continue to be monitored.

That had sounded fair and allowing it likely couldn't hurt for now. Besides, if the countess busied herself fussing over Audren, she wouldn't interfere with Terry's business. The mage had simply nodded upon hearing her words, accepting a tankard of mead the countess had offered out of politeness, and she'd retreated to the room she'd been assigned.

She intended to neither drink nor sleep.

Seated on her mattress in the dark, rain pattering on the roof, Terry took out Credi's note. In spite of her apparent loss of faith in the necromancer, the countess must've seen some benefit in letting her hold on to it without further questions. And there were such benefits, though Terry understood which ones, while the countess herself was evidently clueless about magic beyond what Credi had told her about his own work.

What mattered about the note wasn't the writing it contained. What mattered was the connection to Credi.

The connection meant she could use the note to contact its writer in the spirit world. Something the countess hadn't been aware of, or she'd probably have demanded Terry do so in front of her right away. Fortunately, most people Terry encountered heard necromancy and only associated it with raising the dead or manipulating spirits in the realm of the living. They hardly, if ever, realised talking to ghosts in their own world was also an option. Which was fine. Terry didn't want any outsiders snooping around her craft, anyway.

She whispered a spell, summoning another object she'd need from the Cloud. Her late mother's wedding, made out of mountain gold that had cost her father a fortune decades ago, landed in the palm of her hand. While Credi's note would serve as her connection to his dwelling place in the spirit world, the ring would link her to the realm she called home. Without it, her soul would be unable to return to her body, doomed to aimlessly wander the shadowy spirit lands forever.

Terry slipped the ring around her finger, readied herself mentally. Then, she closed her eyes, concentrating, and whispered another spell.

Inherent risks aside, entering the spirit world was always surprisingly easy, she thought as the gentle feeling of her consciousness detaching itself from her body coursed through her. In essence, it all just boiled down to magic and the proper connections.

The real difficulty and danger didn't lie in the transportation of her soul to one realm or the other. It laid in the encounters with the spirits themselves.

After a few moments of total darkness, Terry's soul woke up in the spirit world.

She glanced at the ring around her translucent finger, just to make sure it was still there, and took a moment to adjust to being in a different realm. She detected no sounds or smells at all, and from experience, she knew she wouldn't feel anything she touched. Though food didn't exist in the spirit world, she was willing to bet she wouldn't taste anything if it did. Being in the spirit world felt like being wrapped up in a tight blanket, dulling and numbing all her senses perceived.

Only her vision stayed roughly the same, though she couldn't focus on anything in particular and everything she saw looked a little blurry. The perpetual shadows everywhere didn't help with that, either. But not too far into the distance, Terry could make out the shape of a tower regardless.

Credi's tower.

Terry started on her way towards it, straight through the foggy shadows making up the spirit world. She knew she gazed at a perfect mirror image of the tower the mage had called home in their shared realm of origin. She'd seen the real thing before while spending a semester in Santon, completing an apprenticeship in magical maintenance; she'd figured a second qualification on her still non-existent diploma could come in useful.