Nightlord: Shadows Read Online Free PDF Page A

without setting his soul on fire.
    Don’t ask me how I know that. I didn’t know I knew it until I remembered it. I suspected that swallowing a city of ghosts might have something to do with it. I do retain a miniscule bit of everyone I consume, after all. Multiply that by hundreds of thousands…
    The trio was still staring at me. They probably didn’t know what to make of me. That was fair; I didn’t know what to make of me, or of my situation, and I was living it.
    “I don’t suppose any of you three are wizards?” I asked. They all nodded, then Kammen and Torvil looked at Seldar. “Good! Can you see the spell I’m wearing?”
    “Yes,” Seldar admitted. The other two also nodded.
    “Do you have any idea how to take it down?”
    “Um.” They looked at me intently, with that semi-unfocused look that wizards get when we’re examining the stuff of our trade. “It’s old,” Seldar said.
    “Yeah,” Torvil agreed. “It was well-made, too.”
    “I believe it to be an Ascension Sphere,” Seldar offered.
    See? Close enough.
    “I’ve never seen one, but it could be,” Torvil agreed.
    “But it’s old . They don’t last more’n a day,” Kammen replied
    Seldar’s eyes focused on me. “How is it that you are still alive?”
    “Technically…” I started to say, then changed my mind. “Why wouldn’t I be?” I asked, instead.
    “This power has been building for a long time. It should have set your soul on fire and turned your flesh to ashes before the first week.”
    Again with that “soul on fire” metaphor. Maybe it wasn’t a metaphor. I’d have to think about that when I wasn’t in the middle of it. I don’t really want to know how horrible my situation is if I can get out of it without finding out. It would only promote panic and worry, and they’re on my list of things to give up for Lent.
    “I’ll take your word for it,” I replied. “How do we turn it off?”
    They glanced at each other again.
    “Well…” Kammen started. “I think… I dunno for sure; I’m no magician. But I think… don’t the initiate sorta soak up all the power?”
    “Hmm,” Torvil and Seldar replied.
    “I think so,” Torvil added. “I don’t remember.”
    “Nor I,” Seldar said. “My talents lie in the healing magics, not the higher. I’m not slated to become a magician.”
    “Let me get this straight,” I said. “If this is the thing we think it is, if I just gather up all the power inside it and tuck it away in some other spell, the main spell should just quit?”
    “If it is the spell we think it is,” Seldar agreed. I took another look at the spell structure. Maybe. It certainly looked like an amplifying feedback loop was involved. If the interior power level dropped below a critical threshold, it would probably stop working.
    The trouble was, there was a lot of power tied up in the thing. I didn’t want to mess with it right then. Given a choice, not ever. Then again, if the choice is between being immensely powerful within arm’s length or back to normal at any distance, I’ll go with the second.
    “Look, I’m just trying to get a message to my horse. My plan is to call my horse, ride down to breakfast, and then decide where to go from there. I’d really like to get all that done before the sun sets and I start to get really hungry. Can I get you three to help with that?”
    Torvil nodded at the cart.
    “How about you just eat the goat?”
    I looked at the goat. It looked back. It had no idea what we were discussing. At least, it didn’t chomp through the rope and run like hell.
    “I thought that was for your sacrifice?”
    “Does it matter how we give it to you?” Torvil asked.
    “Oh.” I refrained from asking why they were sacrificing a goat to me, more than half afraid of the answer. “Well, I’m feeling really hungry. One goat isn’t going to do it once the sun goes down.”
    “Oh,” he replied, in a very small voice. The three shared a communal glance. “We should