(Continued from Ch 39, An Intellectual Giant)

The Chronicles of Rapina
Chapter 40, The Old Grind


The last part of the winter was one of intense learning and study for Rapina. The topic was chemistry and alchemy and the magical principles involved with substances. It was no secret that Thane was grooming her to be his laboratory assistant. Rapina found the medical and herbal knowledge she had gleaned while working with the pirate leech served her well as a foundation, but much was added atop that. Her cleaning duties in the upper abode were largely taken over by Kent who was thus learning the art of commanding skeletons to do jobs they were never designed for. After she planted everything, Rames began caring for the gardens with some help from Kent who would pluck off any bugs and eat them. Evidently, the animal life force of the insects was easy for Kent to distinguish from the background of plant life force.

By early spring, Rapina had helped to make the first healing potion Thane's laboratory had ever produced. It contained many ingredients, but the most important ones were troll's blood and an infusion of life force that Thane had drawn from the troll shaman. For the sake of economy, Thane had discarded the second troll and now kept only the shaman. Without legs, hands or forearms and lacking his rattle or any other spell components, the shaman did not seem to be able to cast spells. Either that or he did not see the point since he was in no condition to escape.

The stumps of the troll's legs and arms were capped in bronze. His leg caps and his body were bolted and strapped in a standing position to a small, wheeled cart with a chamber pot set in the appropriate location to catch offal. Rapina felt sorry for the troll. She supervised his cleaning and hygiene and drew blood from him for the laboratory. During the times she washed him she tried to talk to him and to teach and learn words. Her vocabulary in trollish was still quite dismal, but she had a start.

Ironically, Thane had decided that her talents were more useful in the laboratory than they were in the construction of the new abode. Thus she did not see it until the middle of spring. At that time, two main areas had been completed. She thought she would be in for a torturous climb up innumerable staircases into the heart of the mountain from its base in the hot desert, but that did not turn out to be at all correct.

"Ah here we are," the necromancer rasped as the mists cleared. "Welcome to the abode. Guards, set down those supplies. Rapina can fetch them later."

The plate armored reaving skeletons that served as the personal guards of Thane set down various crates of supplies.

The first thing that struck her was the scale of the place. They had arrived in a corridor that had been carved out of the inside of the mountain and was no doubt consecrated as a graveyard. The ceiling was a tall barrel vault supported by pillars that marched down either side of the corridor. Beyond the pillars to her right Rapina could see a nearly identical corridor, but one could not actually walk on its floor because that corridor was a long pool of water. Beyond the water corridor farther to the right was a huge vaulted warehouse-like space. An identical warehouse space could be seen to the left of the stone corridor Rapina had appeared in. The warehouse had many crates of laboratory supplies and fixtures for the abode. No doubt, they had cost a fortune.

An old longship was tied up against some cork buttresses at the near end of the water corridor. Rapina had seen the skeletal mariners on it before. Thane had worked hard on every one of them. They were basically reaving skeletons, but they incorporated a double-animation technique to make them a little stronger and faster than Thane's first few reaving skeletons. They also had some magic placed on them as part of the necromancer's ghost ship enchantments. Rapina ran over and jumped aboard the ship. "I never did see this after you finished it."

"It has been a very busy vessel since I finished the magic on it. Ironically, I could not use the ship sunk in my cove. This one is from the old river battle where Jack lost his fleet. You joined him sometime after that setback when he was rebuilding. The undead crew died on that ship. In order for the ghost ship enchantments to work, men had to die as the ship sank. Naval battles are actually very good for such a craft. The violent deaths occurring as the ship sinks make an excellent foundation for the necessary enchantments. The fact that it was a pirate ship made my job even easier."

Rapina climbed over a number of huge crates full of stone tailings. "Oh my goodness!" Rapina stared down at the ship's deck; there was a hole right through the hull. Ghostly translucent planks that glowed an eerie blue color seemed to hold the water from flooding through the hole into the boat.

"Ghost ships sink as daylight hits them or as ordered by their pilot. They are always wrecks. This one is one of the most structurally sound of the lot, but it still sinks rather readily in the light of day. At dusk, however it rises and the ghost wind fills the shredded sails even when the night is dead calm. It is a work of art, and quite useful. I have used it to transport barrels of fresh water into and a great deal of stone tailings out of this new abode."

"In the beginning we used processions of Skeletal horses and wagons and we still do use those, but not for the tailings produced by mining new rooms. All tailings are dumped into the sea so that our abode cannot be detected from some unsightly pile of tailings at the base of the mountain. Through the doors at the end of the land corridor is the skeletal carriage house. This entry complex is by far the largest and most impressive in the abode. I wanted it done first in case we needed to move away from Graveston isle on short notice. It is also the transport center and is thus the heart of our construction efforts. It represents thousands of castings of the graveyard mists spell to remove the mined out stone tailings, and was truly a labor to complete. Now come this way, we shall go through the carriage house and up the corridor from there."

"The laboratories are not particularly secure because of the fumes they produce. I did not wish to poison you, my dear, so the labs have chimneys and windows to the outdoors. The corridor continued to a large stone gate, but Thane turned left before they reached it and unlocked a bronze door. The door led to a short corridor that ended in a guardroom. In the room were six skeletal guards. "Skeleton guards, protect and obey Rapina," Thane pointed to his apprentice. Rapina, these will be your guards. Thane unlocked a door at the other end of the guardroom and walked in. "In here are our first two laboratories and their storage rooms. These, as you see, have windows to the outdoors," Thane said.

Rapina looked out the windows. They were actually miniature corridors about two feet wide, four feet tall, and twenty feet deep. Rapina jumped up into one and traveled to its end. The window was barred with a grid of bronze bars, and about two feet farther out a grid of iron ones. At the very end of the window corridor was a rope net with cloth strips in it that were the color of the stone to camouflage the window, but she could still see into a barren valley of stone. The wind coming in from outside was light and not nearly as oppressively hot as she had remembered it from the desert. "Wow, where are we?"

"We are near the top of the mountain's peak. The top of the mountain does not come to a perfect point. It is a blunt point that actually has a depression in the center of it, a valley, a natural if irregular amphitheater. The laboratory windows are set in the side of the bowl of the natural amphitheater and look out into it. The bowl will be a good outdoor area for growing plants and doing archery practice and the like."

"There is also a spar of rock that goes up from the edge of the bowl as it were. We are currently at work up there tunneling the stair cases that will lead to a water tank and above that, at the pinnacle, an observatory. We have not yet put in the living quarters, but I felt that you could live in one of the laboratory storage rooms while you set things up here. There are ovens and such already installed as you see in this lab. In the next one I want you to set up the apparatus for making healing potions, one after another. I know it will be a sacrifice, but I need you to prepare potion after potion for me. I realize your reading will suffer, and that we will be slowing our instruction in magic, but I am running very short on cash. Red Jack's bottomless chest of gems is all but gone."

"Have you had any luck on the moaning skeletons?" Rapina asked.

"Thane chuckled mischievously. "Since I had so much luck doing the other animations, I did not ask for instruction on these. Instead I read the procedures from a book and got a bit of advice, then dove in. I botched the enchantments twice but just three days ago I successfully animated a priest of the vindicator. He moans incessantly; it is magnificent! Now that I know what I am doing, I plan to continue with as many as I have good subjects for. The moaners are quite annoying, but if this priest is any indication, they retain intelligence much like the death skeletons, skeletal assassins, and to a lesser extent, the reaving skeletons. This moaner has intelligence of the more bookish variety. He moans all the while but he is actually quite a good scribe. I have him making copies of some of my books; you will now be spared that drudgery."

"Woohoo!" Rapina jumped up and down. "Could I use them as lab assistants?"

Thane chuckled, "you might be able to if you were a full priest of Mortaebius, but I am afraid that even if you were to become used to the moaners, you would periodically fall to your knees in fits of fear. The magical effect is really quite powerful."

"Darn!" Rapina said.

"I can make you some double animated skeletons if you can find a way to utilize them in the lab. Here is a set of keys, My dear. You should keep this complex locked. After a short stint cleaning the abode, Kent is now up here helping Elizabetta manage the skeletal miners who are excavating our rooms. Kent is perhaps my most trustworthy ghoul, but it is still not good policy to invest complete trust in such a creature. If you go to check on the work, you should always take armed skeletons with you. Edgar and the other ghouls have been set loose at the foot of the mountain. They will be making some tunnels in a sandy valley between the base of the mountain and a couple of the foothills. I have removed most of the undead from Gravestone isle. As you see some of the flaming skeletons are integral to your laboratory ovens."

"Yes, this lab is rather hot," Rapina said.

"It is late afternoon. The lab will not get much hotter. The oven chimneys and the windows in here keep it bearable. Now, I have much to do. I believe you will find the laboratory furnishings you need in those crates, and food and cooking supplies in those. I am here nearly every other afternoon just after I get up, to move accumulated tailings out of the abode. If Rames has garnered any meat, I will bring it. Should you need any double-animated skeletons to help you, come find me. I have made quite a few for use as miners and there are fresh ones standing by for when Elizabetta needs them. She is working on rather narrow corridors at this time, so is not using many of them. I can always replace any you need from bodies given us by Red Jack. Try not to break the glassware, it is expensive. Your first job will be to fetch the troll and the supplies I brought from the other labs when I brought you. After that, I want you to set up these laboratories and then start constructing the healing potion setup. I will check on your progress tomorrow."

Rapina nodded.

---

Setting up the laboratories had been easy enough, but once she was up and running with the potions, Rapina got hardly any time for herself. She missed her lounging and reading. She missed the magical conversations, and most of all she missed Rames. Celibacy was rearing its ugly head and she felt like a slave, albeit an educated laboratory slave, but a slave nevertheless. After two weeks she could make healing potions in her sleep, but the work was constant, and she was climbing the walls. She saw Rames once a week on Sunday but that was not nearly often enough and it was driving her to distraction.

"Gods I need a man!" Rapina screamed, but there was no one there to hear her. She had tried to use the skeletons to make her work easier but the movements were complex, the skeletal fingers slippery, and the glassware expensive. During the second week, Rapina had just set a beaker to simmer over an alcohol lamp. She knew she would have twenty whole minutes before the next flurry of activity was necessary in the potion-making process. She tried to read but she felt so distracted. Rapina slammed her book closed and set it aside.

She paced around the room, unbidden she flashed back to her dance before the pirates. "Oh please," She said as she felt between her legs. "Thane, I am going to go crazy!" Rapina stamped and fumed but it did not help at all. She stalked over to the troll, "I used to feel sorry for you, but now I realize you are not the only one who is a fixture in this lab!" Rapina sat down on the floor at the foot of the cart the troll was mounted on. "I just want to go back home, I want to see Rames, and Red Jack, and Zit, and Dealrath, and..." Rapina looked up at the troll and shut her eyes. Suddenly she got to her knees, reached around the troll and snatched off the loincloth she kept on him. There was nothing where his genitals ought to have been but a patch of cauterized skin.

Rapina snarled and dug in a drawer. She found a knife and sterilized it in the flame of the alcohol lamp and then she quenched it until it was cool. She ran to the troll and cut the patch of cauterized skin away from its groin. The troll shaman yelled and made his cart vibrate as he struggled to try to get away from the knife. He could not knock himself over and the brake was on so he could not even get the cart to creep forward or back appreciably. Thane had made sure that the cart was constructed to render the troll unable to move, even if that movement was just falling over.

"Sorry, but it's not like I could get you drunk before the operation." Rapina saw the blood dripping from the wound and then the troll's natural regeneration began to kick in. She set a bowl under the wound to catch stray blood then got some extra food she had from times when Thane had brought meat. She fed the troll for a few minutes then went back to her lab work. Periodically she glanced over at the shaman.

Two hours later she prepared for another cycle of potion making. She set some reagents on the stove and instructing a skeleton to strike an empty burner plate with an iron ladle when any one of the reagents began to boil. She needed time.

Rapina came back to the troll and knelt down. There, hanging between his legs were two large, new mottled green balls in a fleshy sack. The troll's shaft hung down even farther than Pike's. Rapina tugged at the shaman's lust, and watched as the shaft began to rise. If Zit had been there to look into her eyes, he would have been sure she was a vampire.

---

Thane walked through the guardroom and wandered into the first laboratory. He had not been to see Rapina in three days. He was wearing his death mask as he always did when around the troll. These days he wore it most of the time save when he was sitting down to eat. Today he knew that he must work most of the day to get rid of the tailings that had accumulated in the warehouse room beside the water corridor in his absence. He brought news and some fish Rames had caught on the isle. "Oh my," Thane said as he heard some peculiar snarling noises from the next lab. He rushed to open the door and raised an eyebrow.

The troll cart had been upset and the troll shaman was lying on its back atop a large crate. Rapina was on top of the shaman naked and moving heatedly. He was not sure who was snarling louder, the troll or the woman. In any case, they did not seem to notice him at all. The troll let out an earsplitting howl and Rapina's back arched gracefully as she moaned like a severely dehydrated woman who had just been given a gallon of water. She snuggled onto the troll shaman's chest and breathed hard before noticing Thane and blushing profusely.

"I am not sure that is advisable," Thane said.

"What do you think I am, a priest of the vindicator?" Rapina snapped with such ferocity that Thane took a step backwards.

Thane sounded a little sheepish but behind his mask he wore a satisfied grin. "Oh, please forgive me. It appears that I have provided for all your needs here save one," Thane said. "I thought that troll had been emasculated."

Rapina smiled cunningly. "Trolls regenerate."

"Ah, and you were trained as a leech. I am curious, do you find his sexual energy different than a man's?" Thane asked.

"It's not that different. He is really very potent and he recovers rapidly. I didn't know how to ask him if he wanted to, you know in trollish, but I knew how to ask him if he wanted to feed me, and he said yes."

Thane chuckled, "I really should have made some provision for your needs, but in all the excitement it slipped my mind," Thane said.

Rapina cleared her throat, "Please don't tell Rames, or Daelrath or anyone that I have been, you know, with a legless troll shaman.

Thane chuckled, "My lips are sealed. Tell me, does he like you any better now?"

Rapina giggled, "Well, yes, Uhler is teaching me more words in trollish, and I am teaching him our language too," Rapina said.

"The next thing you know you'll be wanting me to give him his legs back, but he is far too large and deadly to allow such liberties. As you know if you pull that cord that hangs from the top of his head, a lightning glyph will be activated within his skull and he will be killed, but I still do not trust him. He is a spell-caster after all and he must be quite intelligent. I do hope you will not let him bite a chunk out of your neck. I am very glad he is more than a head taller than you are or we would be in trouble. Isn't he rather large?"

Rapina grinned and shrugged, "He's no thicker than Pike, just longer is all."

"Ordinarily I would say he was a dirty brute, but since you are the one who washes him, perhaps he is a clean brute," Thane observed.

Rapina giggled, "He's clean, the only trouble is, the more I get to know him the sorrier I am for him."

"In view of his size and power, his incarceration must be severe. I realize we are not nice to him, but I am not always a nice man. Currently we face poverty. You, he, and I are the wage earners for this abode. Since I often come here at the beginning of the day approximately every other day, I will bring Rames for you. He has complained that he does not see you enough, and I now see the folly of not heeding his words. As for the troll, I am only allowing this to continue because it may facilitate your learning what he knows. I have as yet discovered no other way to get it out of him but to learn his language and get him to tell it. Trolls do not write, so there are no books on troll magic. You might wish to write one."

"I have started a troll dictionary," Rapina said.

"Excellent. I have some fish for you and some news," Thane said.

Rapina ordered her skeletons to lift the shaman and set him upright, then set out a wash tub in preparation for bathing. "Oh good. I could really use a little more food for Uhler too; he has been exerting himself. What's the news?"

"According to one of my colleagues who is far more advanced than I at the art of skrying, the orcs have indeed hired the giants, a record number of them. They seem to refuse to separate or work for other tribes, so this one orc tribe has a large cadre of giants. They have been an absolute terror in Northern Avengene. These orcs have become fort specialists. The giants come to battle with huge sacks brimming with throwing boulders. They first attack the siege engines, and afterwards they blitz the gate or a weak wall. The orcs storm the forts once the walls are breeched. Avengene's system of forts was his bulwark against the orcs. He is being taken apart as they pillage the forts and then raze them to the ground. This group of orcs and giants is gaining experience and confidence, not to mention wealth and caches of arms. When the orcs leave the scene of battle at a fort near a graveyard known to us, Rames moves in and consecrates a graveyard on the site, then we remove the dead. I have even gotten myself a few new priests of the vindicator."

"The mortancer who is the circle's best skryer was so impressed with my work, he offered to sell me the wards from his abode cheaply when he next changes them, which he does periodically. He also loaned me copies of several fine books on skrying. Ah, that reminds me, we are really not the only wage earners for the abode. I will soon have two more; the skeletons of reverend Vindictine and governess Rhona are currently drying after soaking for the requisite number of days in the appropriate resins. If all goes well, in one week's time I will have two more moaning skeletons, and therefore two more scribes.

Rapina began washing, "Oh, that's good. Do you have plans to move the necromantic laboratories out here soon?" Rapina asked.

Behind his mask Thane licked his lips. "Rapina is a most delicious and uninhibited young woman. It is such a pity she has a way of warping a man's reasoning ability," the necromancer thought. "Yes, but I wanted to get the water tank in the tower so that we could do plumbing. Soon Elizabetta will start on the septic system, and once that is done, we will get started on the necro-labs. I am already storing the bodies and much of the raw materials here because I am anxious to move. I am a necromancer now; I have little interest in that dreary post as Guardian Thane of The Order of Death's Peace, and much to do for The Order of the Shroud."

---

By the beginning of Summer, Elizabetta was steadily completing the necromancy labs. Rapina could hear the noises of picks and chisels twenty-four hours a day. Rames had already started on the plumbing for the new abode. Thankfully, a long corridor separated Rapina's labs from the neromantic labs. One day it would be turned into additional mundane labs. The corridor was hung with oil cloths and the door on Rapina's side remained firmly closed and sealed to keep airborne dust out. Elizabetta was having the tailings removed through the windows of the new labs so that Rapina did not have to deal with a constant procession of skeletal workers and dust. She looked up from her reading and smiled. With both Rames and Uler keeping her from climbing the walls, she was much happier, and her mind boasted much greater clarity. She was now able to work on her latest coup nearly twenty hours a day. ---

"Goodness this is obscene, Rapina! It seems the number of skeletons in your two laboratory rooms is greater than the number on Elizabetta's construction crew. Thane carefully wended his way to the 'finish' table. How can this be? You have six base potions for me to infuse and it has only been three days. You are producing two finished base potions per day. The normal rate for an alchemist working eight hours a day is one per three days. You must be working around the clock and then some."

Rapina grinned, "You wanted income. I have sixty-seven skeletons packed in here if you count the ones in the storage rooms. They have rubber tubing on their digits so the glass does not slip out of their hands. It sometimes takes a team of six to accomplish an involved task, but I have been working on this for nearly a month. I got very tired of not being able to read and lounge. The skeletons do absolutely all of the work. I just check their fingers once a day and stop things if something goes haywire, which it used to do quite regularly, but I have gotten most of the bugs worked out now. By the way, I need a couch for in here."

Thane laughed but the pleasure in his voice was evident, "My dear you missed your calling as a clock-maker. This has to be the most sophisticated use of bone-heads I have ever seen. It is rather crowded, however. Elizabetta will soon add more non-necromantic laboratories, and a lounge, kitchen and alchemist's quarters for you. Let us work together to design a lab specifically for your setup here. I never would have imagined it would be possible to automate this process to such a degree. My only problem is I do not know where I will find two infusions of life force every day. The shaman is good for one, but I think two might be too much for him over the long haul, and I do not want to compromise the potency of his blood."

"I just make the base; the infusion is your problem. You could drain it from me, but only if you want to keep a hoard of men around." Rapina grinned.

Thane chuckled, "I think what I will do is drain one a day from Uler, and simply set one aside each day, thus accumulating five for the weekend. I can get two from Uler on the weekend, and I will still need three more. If you have the reserves, you can help."

"I could normally give you maybe one, but I won't have great reserves unless I can visit friends on the weekends," Rapina said.

"Then I will see to it you are able to visit. I pick up bodies from Red Jack periodically anyway. I will simply try to have them saved until Friday or Saturday night. In addition, it will not hurt for you to visit Daelrath periodically. I know you enjoy teaching Bruhnhilda moves with the rapier, and the knights there enjoy dallying with you."

Rapina grinned; she was quite pleased with herself. She still needed to keep an eye on the skeletons, but she would be able to make love and learn trollish all week, and then visit her friends on the weekends. With her potent new trollish lover, she would be able to read nearly all night, every night, and she would finally attain the command of magical theory she had always craved.
-------

This ends, The Old Grind, chapter 40 of The Chronicles of Rapina.
The story continues in chapter 41, The Sorcerer's Apprentice.

Copyright 2001 by Rapina