Lich for Hire

Chapter 365: Leyla's Blessing

The Oakfather, Sylvanas, the Father of Forests, the Father of the Verdant Wild, the God of Untamed Nature—he had many names, but the names weren't the point. The point was that Sylvanas was a deity of considerable divine power.

Everything connected to nature fell within his domain, and most druids, with their reverence for the natural world, counted themselves among his faithful.

Sylvanas had many allies, among others the goddess of the harvest, Shauntia, and even the Lord of Dawn. It was a testament to his standing among the divine. Yet for all his influence, he had never established his own pantheon, and taking on a subordinate deity appeared to be something he had not done before.

"Lady of Mists, what exactly is going on?" Ambrose asked.

Leyla looked up at Sylvanas's statue, a contemplative note in her expression. "A transaction, more or less. The druids used my remains to create the Dreamveil Barrier. Now that I am restored to life, the barrier would ordinarily dissolve, and the Emerald Dreamwood would lose its protection.

"The Oakfather proposed an arrangement. In exchange for granting me a portion of his divine power, I will become one of his subordinate deities, and he shall extend protection to me against Cymric. In return, I will leave my physical remains where they are, so the Dreamveil Barrier continues to hold."

Ambrose was quiet for a moment. "Surrendering your body and ascending as a soul alone will weaken you significantly. Your divine power will grow far more slowly."

Deities were not equal. In general, a wider domain and greater number of devotees translated directly into divine strength. When those factors were comparable, the difference came down to the deities' own nature.

Take Tiamat as an example. Though she was a goddess of only modest divine rank, her true form was a five-headed dragon. That racial advantage alone made her a match for almost any opponent in direct combat, including the God of Alchemy.

By surrendering her body, Leyla was throwing away that kind of inherent advantage entirely. Without Sylvanas sharing his divine power with her, she wouldn't have been able to sustain her divine existence at all.

"It doesn't matter," Leyla said. "I was never a particularly powerful deity to begin with. With Sylvanas's protection, Cymric no longer frightens me."

Cymric had betrayed Leyla long ago, stealing her divine domain, nearly killing her, and impersonating her ever since to deceive her former faithful. Only a handful of scholars who specialized in divine history even knew the real Lady of Mists was dead.

The moment Leyla re-emerged as a deity, the Prince of Lies would come for her again. That was no small problem.

Sylvanas's protection... Ambrose wasn't sure how to weigh the tradeoff, but this was Leyla's decision to make. And he was certain she hadn't been standing in front of Sylvanas's statue waiting for him just to share the news.

"I wouldn't presume to question a deity's judgment," he said carefully. "If you believe this arrangement is worth it, I'll support you however I can."

In spirit, at least.

Going up against the Prince of Lies was not on the table.

"I knew you would." Leyla's smile was bright. "But you've probably already guessed there's more. There are three things."

"Please, go ahead."

"No, not orders." Leyla stepped closer and rested a hand gently against the side of his skull. "The first is that you've made rather a lot of divine enemies. The Oakfather has made me aware that Tiamat, Shara, Levitra, and others—a number of the darker deities—are coordinating against you."

"I'm already aware of that," Ambrose said, untroubled. "I have an arrangement with the elven gods. They've agreed to absorb that enmity on my behalf."

"The elven gods... Of course. Only you could manage such a feat." She paused. "But what I'm referring to isn't the deities acting directly, but rather through their faithful."

"Ah." Mortal cultists coming after him was a different matter, though not one that especially alarmed him. He was no longer the half-baked legend he had once been. With the mithril armor, though he couldn't quite replicate Gareth's feat of carving through all of Lyon single-handedly, cutting loose against a horde of cultists was well within reach.

He kept that thought to himself and said to Leyla, with suitable modesty, "That does sound troublesome. I'd struggle to hold off thousands of cultists on my own."

"I know," she said, "which brings me to the second thing, my blessing."

Leyla pressed her palm to his skull. Divine power flowed into his soul. In an instant, a flood of knowledge poured through him. Concepts that had been just out of reach became clear. Connections he hadn't seen before became obvious.

The sensation lasted only a moment, but what it left behind was immense.

This was knowledge that only deities possessed: an innate understanding of the laws underlying reality, the kind of thing no mortal could perceive unaided, and that no amount of gold could purchase.

Leyla withdrew her hand. "I've shown you as much as the rules permit. With your mind, I expect you'll take the next step on your own before long."

"Thank you," Ambrose said, and meant it more than he usually meant anything.

It was the most valuable gift he had ever received. Along with the knowledge, Leyla's blessing had amplified his illusory magic. Leyla's True Illusion, which had previously worked by deceiving the senses to conjure false perceptions, could now also force its targets into sleep, dragging them bodily into a dream state.

It was a wide-area ability. Ambrose could now pull an entire crowd into a shared dream simultaneously. And in the presence of a lich, falling asleep was not meaningfully different from dying.

The first matter was a warning that enemies were gathering. The second was a blessing that had just made him considerably more dangerous.

What was the third?

He looked at Leyla, openly curious. "And the third?"

Leyla's smile faded slightly. "The third thing doesn't involve you, not directly. When I became a subordinate deity under the Oakfather, I took on a portion of his domain. My domain now is the natural cycles of the shadow realm, the dark mirror of nature. That makes the shadow druids my faithful by right." She paused. "You've heard of the shadow druids?"

Ambrose had.

If ordinary druids were like environmental advocates who staged protests against the use of alchemy to reshape nature, then shadow druids were the extremist faction, assassinating anyone they deemed a violator of the natural order, by any means necessary, without restraint or mercy.

Some time back, Gary Watts, the former Chairman of the Alchemists' Guild, had handed his own great-granddaughter over to the shadow druids to be raised—and psychologically broken—as part of a ritual meant to sever his last ties to his humanity, so he could be used as a sacrifice.

The shadow druids' payment for that service had been the eventual destruction of Alkhemia itself: the city reduced to rubble, the surrounding villages slaughtered, the alchemical infrastructure dismantled, and the land returned to wilderness.

They were so extreme that even other druid clans wanted little to do with them.

"Are you asking me to eliminate the shadow druids entirely?" Ambrose asked.

Leyla shook her head. "The Oakfather would not permit the destruction of an entire druid clan. What he asks is that I guide these children back to the right path. Extremism is not part of nature. Their behavior has disrupted the balance and the cycle just as surely as anything the people of Alkhemia have done. They are no different.

"I also know you have your own affairs to attend to. I'm not asking you to handle this for me. I only want to ask you to advise my chosen one with that cunning intellect of yours. Help him understand what needs to be done."

As she spoke, she beckoned to Brandir, who had been standing to one side throughout.

The druid came forward respectfully and looked at Ambrose. "Master Megaman," he said. "Please, tell me how to bring the shadow druids back into the fold."

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