The Lich Without a Soul Vessel

Evan was still turning over what he'd glimpsed in the transit — that brief, incomplete sense of how space worked. His practical knowledge of spatial magic was nearly nonexistent. The short-range teleportation he occasionally used was a technique he'd inherited from Nicholas, not something he understood from the inside. What he'd felt passing through the gate was entirely different, and the impression of it hadn't quite faded.

"We're here. They should be on the twelfth floor." Ortlando glanced at Evan and Shuang, assuming from their expressions that the tower's scale had left them momentarily speechless. He didn't notice that Evan's distraction had a different source. He flicked his hand and they were on the twelfth floor without further travel.

The others were already there and waiting.

The floor surprised Evan. He'd half-expected a laboratory — given the fresh blood on Roland's robe — but the space was almost entirely empty. No furniture, no tables, just smooth floor and the transparent tower walls offering a view outward in every direction. A few structural columns broke the open space.

"Good," Roland said, with no particular affect. "We can begin."

He started chanting before anyone had settled into position. The floor lit up — a complex magical array spreading outward from the center, a vast six-pointed star forming the foundation with layers of interlocking runic patterns igniting in sequence, the whole design radiating something close to beauty. At the exact center, a large luminous cross blazed into existence.

"Prince Elloran." Roland's voice remained flat throughout. "I apologize for the inconvenience. Please remove your clothing and stand beneath the cross."

Elloran hesitated briefly. He looked toward Bishop Mason.

Mason nodded.

Elloran removed his clothes and walked into the array, taking his position under the cross. Roland made a single gesture. The cross flared and extended bands of light that caught Elloran's wrists and ankles and held them fast. Roland turned to Mason. "Remove the Eternal Blessing."

The Eternal Blessing was a long-duration divine technique — not literally eternal, but persistent enough to have been keeping Elloran functional. Removing it now was part of the plan.

The moment Mason withdrew it, grey mist began to pour from Elloran's body. His muscles swelled and shifted beneath his skin. The veins across his arms and neck rose like roots. His fingers lengthened, the nails sharpening into points. His teeth extended into something that wasn't quite human. A sound tore out of him — not a scream, something deeper — and the cross blazed harder in response, pressing the transformation down.

Roland looked at Evan. Ortlando gave a slight nod.

Evan understood. Shuang left his shoulder and rose into the air, her eyes brightening, and began circling the array at speed. Points of light scattered from her as she moved, and gradually, something became visible — a thread, faint and uncertain, shimmering in and out of sight as she orbited. The mental connection, made briefly tangible by her particular ability. It was still shifting, unstable.

"Wang," she called out, her voice strained. "I can't hold it. I can't keep the line still."

Evan's brow furrowed. "You can do it." Then, under his breath, he began.

The true name.

It was not a sound anyone could easily follow. In the time it would have taken to speak a few ordinary words, the phonemes shifted through dozens of variations — compressed, layered, the full information-structure of Small Ling's identity packed into the fastest sequence Evan's current understanding allowed. To the others it sounded like noise. To the space between them, it was something specific.

The air shifted. A white shape appeared — not gradually, but all at once — winged, horned, its silver light immediately locking onto the floating thread. The thread twisted as if trying to escape. Under the combined influence of Shuang and Small Ling working together, it gradually stilled.

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Everyone except Ortlando stared. They knew Evan was a death mage. A death mage summoning a unicorn was not a combination that fit any framework they had. Several of them quietly began revising their assumptions about what kind of mage he actually was.

"Stop staring," Ortlando said sharply. "Move."

Roland and Mason moved. Mason's white light came down clean and precise, severing the thread. Ortlando's fire-red light followed immediately, engulfing the cut ends before they could reconnect, burning them to nothing.

Roland's array accelerated. Runes poured off the floor in streams, wrapping around Elloran's body until he was encased in a shimmering silver cocoon, the transformation held in suspension inside.

In the Black Forest, Small Ling paused mid-drink at a mountain spring, lifted its head, and looked westward for a moment. The true name summons didn't transport the unicorn itself — only a projection. Small Ling felt the pull as a faint sensation, nothing more. Unless the projection were seriously harmed, the effect on the true body would be negligible.

Evan dismissed the summoning. Small Ling's projection vanished with a long, clear cry. Shuang dropped back onto Evan's shoulder with the boneless slump of something that had pushed well past comfortable.

"Don't look so pathetic," Evan said.

"I worked very hard," she said, righting herself with visible effort. "A little encouragement wouldn't hurt."

"I know you did. Your contribution was considerable." He kept his voice level. "Rest for now. The real challenge hasn't started yet."

Shuang made a sound of displeasure and lifted off his shoulder.

"Why don't you go explore the other floors," Ortlando said, opening a small spatial door with a casual gesture. Shuang drifted through it and was gone. The adults looked at each other.

The room changed.

Space itself seemed to shift — not a tremor, but a roiling quality, as though something enormous were pressing in from the other side. Everyone's expression tightened. They'd prepared for the possibility that the Oomani might actually come. Knowing that didn't make the moment easier.

The connection had been severed. The Oomani had noticed. High-ranking infernal beings couldn't manifest their true bodies in the mortal world — but a projection was another matter.

Ortlando moved before the projection fully stabilized. The space around them contracted and reshaped — Evan felt it close around him like a film, drawing him into a temporary pocket dimension attached to Ortlando's own power. He registered the spatial structure instinctively, the impression from the gate transit still fresh enough to make it legible. A temporary space, dependent on its creator. Ortlando, apparently, had depth in spatial magic as well as fire.

Then the pressure arrived.

Cold. Methodical. Evil in the way that deep water is dark — not violently, but completely. It cut through what Evan had been turning over in his mind and left nothing in its place.

The Oomani stood in the middle of the compressed space: narrow-faced, two horns, eyes like still ice with something moving behind them, scaled forearms, four-fingered hands with long pointed nails, inverted hooves at its feet, hovering without apparent effort. A drift of faint black smoke trailed behind it. It looked around — surprised, in its own controlled way. It hadn't expected its projection to be intercepted and pulled into a pocket dimension.

"Who are you?" It was calm. Not the calm of disinterest — the calm of something that had evaluated the situation and hadn't found a reason to be alarmed yet.

Evan studied it. Not what the stories usually suggested. Controlled, observant. He raised his assessment of it accordingly.

"Who we are doesn't matter," Ortlando said. "I'd suggest you let this go. It was one projection — it isn't worth the cost of pursuing it further."

"You've taken a part of me. You want me to simply leave." Still calm. Its gaze moved between them, taking inventory. "A Legend-rank mage and an Arcanist. Do you think you can stop me?"

"Whether we can remains to be seen," Ortlando said, without any notable change in tone.

"I don't enjoy direct conflict," the Oomani said. "Make an agreement with me and I'll drop the matter entirely."

Evan's attention sharpened. The voice was pleasant. Not neutral-pleasant — actively pleasant, with a quality that made the words feel reasonable before the content could be examined. He knew what that meant. He noted it and held it at a distance.

"I'm listening," Ortlando said.

"Not you." The Oomani turned to Evan. "Him. I want a contract. Three years of service, in exchange for power he can barely imagine."

It had recognized what Evan was. A lich and a fire-school Legend, and it had decided the lich was the softer target. Two purposes in one offer: test whether Evan could resist, and plant a wedge between him and Ortlando in the process.

"No," Evan said. Immediate, without negotiation.

"You haven't heard the terms yet. I'm not asking for your soul — that's a lesser devil's game. All I need is three years of your time, spent gathering believers on my behalf. In return, I'll give you techniques comparable to divine arts." The voice remained smooth and reasonable. "Don't you want to consider it?"