The Gem Lords

The Conference - Part 5

     Jasper and Garnet arrived in the valley a couple of days later, and were immediately thrown into the magic proof cells where Seskip subjected them to an intensive interrogation.n

     The two gem raks were not intimidated by him, though, and steadfastly maintained the silence they'd kept throughout their confinement in Belthar. Mind reading spells were useless, as they were on all undead creatures, and even threatening them with enchantment failed to impress them. When the Head Proctor tried to cast the spell on them it had absolutely no effect.

     "I'm guessing it's because their souls are still linked to their gem stones, which they left back in the Realms," he told an assembly of senior wizards later that day. "The link seems to be having a kind of stabilising effect on them. It also means we can't threaten to kill them, because that would only send their souls back to their gems, from which they'd be able to take new bodies in the Realms. I suppose we could threaten to keep them imprisoned indefinitely. We could place them in Eversleep and seal them up in a cavern somewhere. They'll sleep for ever, never growing old, never dying, never to be free again. A prospect like that might loosen their tongues."

     "But if they still refused to talk, we would have no choice but to carry out the threat or else lose all our credibility with them," pointed out Saturn. "They would know they could push us around. We should only threaten them with things we're actually prepared to do."

     "I am actually prepared to seal them up forever," said Seskip, however, glaring at the other wizard with his unsettlingly unblinking eyes. "Don't forget that they are raks. They may be almost powerless, but they are raks nonetheless. They lived through the days of the immortal wizards and may actually know the secret of immortality. They must be silenced before someone succumbs to temptation."

     Before I succumb to temptation, the Head Proctor thought, feeling Saturn's eyes upon him. They both remembered what had happened during their visit to the University of the past, and if Saturn were to come to him suggesting a conspiracy between them to obtain the secret of immortality, he truly didn't know how he would react. He felt himself poised on the brink of disaster, driven by the terrible fear of approaching old age. The knowledge that an escape existed gnawed at his mind like a starving rat. He saw Saturn looking at him with an expression of knowing amusement and felt the old hatred welling up again. Let him do anything wrong, he thought. Any little thing, and I'll have him in the cells before he can lift a finger!

     The Director, however, was totally oblivious to the interplay between them. "What about Lapis Lazuli?" he mused. "We have her soul gem. There's no escape for her. We could allow her to enter a human host, under controlled conditions of course..."

     "The problem would be persuading her to give up the host body at the end of the interview," pointed out Kalda Mot. "I think we would have a hard time finding a volunteer."

     "There are always junior wizards looking for ways to find favour in our eyes," pointed out Pondar Walton. "All we'd have to do is promise to take him on as an assistant for a year."

     "Her," corrected Seskip. "It would probably have to be a woman."

     "You mean you're seriously considering this?" cried Kalda in astonishment. "She's already tried to murder one woman! She's clearly quite mad!"

     "What about a clone?" suggested Pondar Walton. "We could clone a body for her."

     There was a moment of silence as the assembled wizards considered the idea. "It might work," agreed Natan Crowley at last. "Even if she proves as uncommunicative as the other two, we'd have lost nothing except a trivial expenditure of effort and spell components."