Shroud of Eternity

CHAPTER 59

Like a sculpture made of flesh-colored candle wax, the white-haired wizard lay stretched out on the rune-bordered table in the fleshmancer’s studio.

Nathan Rahl looked well preserved and regal, full of the potential to be a great wizard, if he could be restored to the power he’d once possessed. Andre admired him, happy for the chance to perform such an experiment, like a sculptor working with the finest, rarest piece of marble.

Sometimes, though, in even the most perfect chunk of stone, hidden flaws could cause a statue to break. He wondered if Nathan had any such internal flaw that would prove to be his undoing.

“We shall see what you’re made of, hmmm?” He stroked his fingertip down the long scar on the center of the wizard’s chest, where Andre had split flesh and bone, pried his breastbone apart, and scooped out his still-beating, but ungifted, heart to replace it with Ivan’s. “Only time will tell.”

When he stepped back, Nathan didn’t even stir. His body was cold, his breathing slow and shallow. The eyelids looked like delicate parchment covering ageless eyes of piercing azure blue.

Nathan Rahl claimed to be a thousand years old, which made him an impressive anomaly among his own people, though the wizards of Ildakar had lived much longer than that, thanks to their shroud of eternity.

Andre himself had lived for nearly two millennia. He had been five centuries old, with his gift at its peak, when General Utros marched in with his astonishing army. Hundreds of thousands of men had depleted all the crops and orchards on their march over the mountains, razed any villages on the way just to keep the army going for another few days. Demanding surrender, they had arrived at Ildakar expecting to strip that city bare of its wealth. Utros had promised to feed his army with the spoils of Ildakar.

But Ildakar had defeated them.

Leaving Nathan in his healing coma, Andre walked through the wings of his mansion, thinking of how he and his fellow wizards had faced the great army of Emperor Kurgan. As a fleshmancer, Andre had been so strong then, so cocky, so ambitious. Faced with that threat, he had created some of his best work.

He entered the large separate wing, using his gift to increase the illumination. With a sigh of pride, he looked up at the three armored titans, his Ixax warriors, whom he had created to be the greatest defenders of Ildakar, invincible soldiers who could ravage thousands of the enemy single-handedly—if the war ever came to direct combat. Once unleashed, these gigantic fighting machines would attack like starving hounds in a henhouse, mowing down enemies as fast as they could move.

Andre stood with his hands clasped behind his back, admiring their mammoth armored forms, the brass-studded armbands and wristbands, the huge gauntlets covering fists the size of boulders. The three Ixax warriors stood straight, massive arms at their sides, boots together, thick metal helmets covering their heads and faces, leaving only a slit for their eyes.

“Ah, I always marvel at you!” Andre said. “I’m so glad I created you, but I’m also disappointed that the wizards’ duma stopped me from making more than three.” He sniffed. “We could have used an entire Ixax army, hmmm?”

He walked from the first titan to the second, gazing at the rippled muscles under the thick contoured armor. “Ready and waiting, and oh so devoted.” Smiling, he walked with a light step to the third gigantic soldier.

“I built you each from the raw material of a lowly soldier, a conscript who was doomed to die on the battlefield. Now look at you.” He raised his hands. “Look at what you’ve become!”

Andre clucked his tongue. “Ah, if only my magic could have given you increased patience. It must seem a very long time to wait, hmmm?” He snickered. “In case you haven’t been able to keep track, you’ve been standing there motionless for more than one thousand five hundred years. Every day, frozen in place … awake and watching.”

The nearest Ixax warrior was so tall that his thigh was at the fleshmancer’s chest level, and Andre ran his fingers along the stippled surface of the pounded greave. “You have to be ready to fight, ready to be unleashed in an instant. No time to wake you if we need your might. I’m sorry it has proven troublesome for you. What grandiose thoughts you must have had while you stood here,” he said, but his voice took on a taunting lilt. “Oh, the great ideas you must have thought of, hmmm? Too bad you had no way to record them. An artistic man might have composed beautiful poetry, an epic thousands and thousands of lines long. I’m sure that’s how you devoted your thoughts over the years. What else did you have to think of?”

He raised his eyebrows.

None of the three Ixax warriors twitched. They were like enormous statues. But he knew that living, conscious beings were trapped inside that armor. “How frustrating it must have been for you.” The taunting tone became richer, more prominent. “All that time, unable to move a muscle. Don’t you wish you could just … stretch your legs?”

He stepped in front of the middle Ixax, tapping the armor with his fingertip. “Can you feel that? What if you need to scratch your nose? Do you have an itch, hmmm?”

He strolled in front of them, reveling in his success at creating these giant warriors. Though the three flesh sculptures were long finished, the Ixax warriors were like clay in his hands. He could still break them if he wished, and he was bored.

He said, “Just imagine you have an itch.…” He snickered.

Through the slits in their massive helmets, the yellow eyes of the three motionless Ixax glared at him.