My emotions remained dead however, andI felt no pity as the majestic creature’s inner fire dwindled anddied under my hands. It was dead now, an empty lump of flesh,though I still retained a thin, dark connection with it. Even as Iwatched I could sense it beginning to draw life from other thingsaround it. Plants, small insects, and things even tinier—everythingin contact with the bear’s corpse was dying, while a small darkcore within the beast began to grow. It was becoming a monster, anundead beast similar to those that Harold and I fought yearsbefore, when we encountered Thillmarius within an undergroundcave.
Even numb as I was, I hadno desire to follow in his evil footsteps. With a small effort ofwill I severed the link between myself and the dead bear. Thedarkness within it faltered and began to fade. Within moments itwas nothing more than a corpse. Clearly any creatures that might becreated by my feeding were connected to the spell-weaving that maintained me. Severthat link, and they withered away. I wondered about the othershiggreth that were linked to me.
I hadn’t created them personally, butthe links were still there. If they created others, were thoselinked to them, or to me? If I managed to destroy myself, would itend the entire miserable chain of cursed undead? Would humanity besafe then? I had too many questions, and even my best guesses werefull of uncertainty.
Do I care? Do I want todie? I wondered, but even those questionswere devoid of feeling. I pondered those thoughts as I continuedtraveling, but without my emotions I simply couldn’t decide.Eventually I gave up and shifted my attention to exploring myability to drain the energy from living things.
The bear had given me an incredibleamount of strength, possibly more than I normally would havepossessed if I had been alive again. The main drawback, as far as Icould tell, was that it was limited. Once I used the power I hadtaken, it was gone. Unlike my natural aythar, it didn’t renewitself with time. That wasn’t too much of a limitation however, solong as I didn’t mind killing things, and given my present state ofmind, that didn’t seem like a real problem.
I knew that soon enough Iwould be reaching Albamarl, and while I still couldn’t find anyreal reason or purpose behind traveling there, I knew that if I wasrecognized, or if someone discovered my nature, I would be forcedto fight those whom I had once loved and protected—or let themdestroy me. None of those thoughts really worried me, though I waswell aware that they should. Rather than leave things to chance Idecided to experiment with my new power.
I killed numerous small animals, putting them to sleep first sothat I could touch them. I tried simply willing myselfnot to draw the aytharfrom them, but that failed completely. My life-drain seemed to bean entirely involuntary thing, requiring only physical contact.After a while I stopped using animals; plants were much simpler tofind and didn’t require any spells to keep them from escaping. Thesmall plants I used didn’t have a lot of aythar to offer, buttraveling through a forest there was an almost endlesssupply.
Eventually I learned thetrick to not killing them. By creating a personal shield aroundmyself, I could keep myself from inadvertently absorbing aythar. Itwas very similar to the shields I had used for years before myunfortunate transformation. As long as I kept it close against myskin, it was virtually undetectable to a non-mage, even if theytouched me, and it made sure that no true physical contactoccurred. I also discovered that I could alter its permeabilitywith a certain amount of effort, which allowed me to drain energymore slowly. It might make it possible tofeed without always killing the victim, Inoted.
Technically I could do that now bylimiting the duration of contact, but in practice it was hard toforce myself to stop once I had actually touched something with mybare skin.
I thought about that and many other things as I walked on throughthe bright days and empty nights.
Chapter 3
Albamarl was much as Iremembered it, and yet it still seemed different. The multitude ofbuildings faced in rose granite did nothing to warm me. The cityfelt just as dead as I was, much like everything else I hadencountered. I seem doomed to a cold emptyexistence, I told myself silently,and I can’t even summon enough feeling to bedepressed about it.
As I wandered the city avenues in thelate afternoon sun I thought of Thillmarius. He had seemed full ofrage when we had fought. Where had his anger come from? Surelyafter years trapped in the body of a small boy he couldn’t havestill retained that much emotion? That was disregardingconsideration of the thousands of years he had spent in some sortof bodiless limbo, yet he had been angry.
“I’m the last lore-wardenof the She’Har and my people created the gods. No matter what yourbestial kind achieves, you’ll never be more than animals in oureyes!” Thillmarius had told me near theend. The bitter hatred in his voice couldn’t have been faked. Hehad told me something else as well, which had turned out to be anuncanny prediction of my fate, “Everyonegets a happy ending but you.”
“At least I survived,” Iresponded aloud to the memory. It didn’t feel like a victory,though. It felt like—nothing.
“You look lonely,” said anunfamiliar woman’s voice. “Why would a handsome young man likeyerself be without a lady friend?”
The words should havestartled me, but they didn’t, I just hadn’t expected anyone tospeak to me. I had wandered into one of Albamarl’s seedierdistricts, near the river docks. A glance at the woman and heroverdone rouge told me quickly enough why she had called out to me.She was a prostitute.
“I’m married,” I answeredtonelessly, although the thought made me wonder.Was I? If I had trulydied Penny would be considered a widow now,
