Naked Empire

For now, he slipped those spirits out of tortured, dying bodies while those spirits existed in the netherworld between the worldly form they knew was lost to them, but still alive, and the world of the dead already calling them in from beyond. Life could no longer hold them, but death could not yet have them. In that time of spiritual transition, they were his, and he could use those spirits for things only he could imagine.

And he had not yet really even begun to imagine.

Such ability as he possessed was not something that could be taught by another-there was no other but he. He was still learning the extent of his powers, the things he could do with the spirit of another. He had only scratched the surface.

Emperor Jagang had sought to create something akin to himself, a dream walker, a brother, of sorts. One who could enter another's mind. He had gotten far more than he could have ever have imagined. Nicholas didn't simply slide into another's thoughts, as Jagang did; he could slide into their very soul, and draw their spirit back into himself.

The Sisters hadn't counted on that aberration of their tinkering with his ability.

Rushing to the window, his mouth pulled open as wide as it would go in a yawn that wasn't a yawn. The room swam behind him. It was only partly there, now. Now, he was beginning to see other places. Glorious places. See them with new vision, with spirits no longer bound to their paltry bodies.

He rushed to the third person, no longer aware even if they were man or woman. Their soul was all that mattered-their spirit.

He drove them onto a stake with urgent effort, slid into them and drew their spirit into his, shuddering with the power of it entering him.

He rushed to the window again, opening wide his mouth again, twisting his head side to side again with the thrill of it, the slick, silken, sliding ecstasy of it… the loss of physical orientation, the exaltation of being above his corporeal existence, the former bounds of his mere worldly form-carried aloft not simply with his own efforts, but by the spirits of others that he had freed from their bodies.

What a glorious thing it was.

It was almost like the joy he imagined death would be.

He seized the fourth weeping person and with delirious expectation ran with them across the room, to the stakes, to the fourth stake, and drove them screaming onto it.

As he lurched back from them, he thrust himself into their wildly racing, confused, swirling thoughts, and took what was there for the taking.

He took their spirit into himself.

When he controlled a person's spirit, he controlled their very existence. He became life and death for them. He was their savior, their destroyer.

He was in many ways like those spirits he took, trapped in a worldly form, hating to live, to endure the pain and agony that was life, yet fearing to die even while longing for the promise of its sweet embrace.

With four spirits swirling through him, Nicholas staggered to the fifth person, cowering in the corner.

"Please!" the man wailed, trying to ward what he would not commit to warding. "Please, don't!"

The thought occurred to Nicholas that the stakes were really a hindrance; using them required him to carry people around like woolly sheep to have their souls sheared. Yes, he was still learning what he could do and how to control what he did, but to have to use the stakes was limiting. When he thought about it, it was actually insulting that a wizard of his ability would have to use so crude a device.

What he really wanted to do was to slide into another's spirit and take it without any warning-without needing to bring people to the stakes.

When he was fully able to do that-to simply walk up to another, say "Good day," and slide like the thrust of a dagger into the heart of their spirit, there to draw it into his-then he would be invincible. When he was able to do that, then no one could challenge him. No one would be able to deny him anything.

As the man shrank down before him, Nicholas, before he fully realized what it was he was doing, driven by an angry need, by hatred, thrust out his hand as he thrust his own mind into this man, into the spaces between thought.

The man stiffened, just as those on the stakes stiffened, when Nicholas had impaled them with his ability.

He drew back his closed fist toward his middle as he drew in this man's spirit. He gasped with the heat of it, with the silky slick feel of it sliding into him.

They stared at each other, each in shock, each considering what this meant for them.

The man slumped back against the wall, sliding down, in soundless, silent, terrible empty agony.

Nicholas realized that he had just done what he had never done before.

He had just taken a soul by his will alone.

He had just freed himself to take what he wanted, when he wanted, where he wanted.

CHAPTER 28

Nicholas, his vision a blur, staggered to the window.

All five were his, now.