Soultraps. Those were what held the souls of Faalken and Jegojah.
Tarrin moved the projection closer to the desk, which was bare aside from those two strange jewels and the stands that supported them. They were ugly things, no matter how pretty they appeared, for the foul stench of their purpose stained them in his magically-augmented sight. He looked at them, into them, starting to work out the powerful magic that had created them. It was very strong, and it entwined the souls it trapped in such a way that the disruption of the magic would also disrupt the soul, destroying it. Looking at them, he realized that the Soultraps could not be destroyed.
He leaned in and looked closely at the two devices, studying them with eyes that looked directly into the magic that constituted them rather than into the gems they appeared to be. Using force against those prisons was out of the question without destroying the souls inside, so instead of breaking the bars, perhaps he'd have better luck trying to open the door.
There was a connection to them, and that connection allowed passage of energy both into and out of the Soultraps. That was the controlling energy used by the souls to control the bodies they animated. All he had to do, he saw, was attack that portal into the Soultrap, attack it and render it incapable of stopping the soul within from leaving using that portal. Destroying the Soultrap was impossible, but this was just as good. He wouldn't be disrupting the magic of the Soultrap, only interdicting it in one very narrow place, causing it to lose what it contained without breaking down the spell. The Soultrap would still be functional, it would just contain no soul. The souls, when freed, would be carried down the magical connection between body and soul, and the souls would enter the bodies they were currently animating.
He could do it. The necessary mixture of flows to counteract the Wizard magic sprang to mind, and they seemed to be proper.
Reaching out, Tarrin put his spectral paws directly inside the Soultrap holding Jegojah's soul. Jegojah first. If it worked without danger, he would free Faalken. Once he felt the magic in his fingers, he began weaving together the very complicated spell together to alter that Wizard magic without destroying it, changing a few features of the magic in ways that did what he wanted them to do, rather than what they had been designed to do. He wove it loosely, for it was a full six-flow weave, very large and complicated, just inside the boundary before High Sorcery would be required. He wove it loosely, then after making sure that all the flows were woven in the proper order, he snapped the weave down and activated it by charging it with magical energy.
Then he stepped back and watched intently.
The Soultrap seemed to shudder from within, and the light that emanated from inside it flared incandescently for a moment, then the light faded back to normal.
"That's it," Tarrin said in his spectral form. "Come on, Jegojah, I opened the door for you. Find it. Find it and get out of there!" The light became bright again, and the Soultrap actually began to vibrate on its stand. The light within suddenly flashed brilliantly, so brightly that if Tarrin had actually been there, the light would have blinded him, and then it faded out completely.
Tarrin clearly felt Jegojah's soul squeeze through the opening he had presented it, free itself of that hated prison and be carried along by the latent magic of the Soultrap, carried back to the body still being held in Tarrin's paw.
"Yes!" Tarrin said triumphantly. It worked! Now for Faalken, he had to get Faalken out of that damned prison!
Very quickly, Tarrin turned his attention to the other Soultrap. He wove the same spell, much more quickly now that he had done it once before, and after a quick check of it for proper weaving, he released it and let it do its work. Faalken's Soultrap did the same thing, flared in sudden incandescence, but unlike the first, this one went straight from bright flare to darkness. Faalken's soul had fled the Soultrap the absolute instant an opening had been made for it, and it too was carried into the Weave, carried to the body to which it was connected.
It was done. Tarrin reached through his own body and assensed the corpse of Jegojah. It was still animated, but he clearly felt Jegojah's soul inside that mortal shell. All ties between Jegojah and the Soultrap vanished when the soul was freed, even the magical connection between Soultrap and soul were severed as the soul was carried into the animated body. The Soultraps were now empty.
In a fit of anger, Tarrin smashed the two Soultraps with weaves of Fire and Earth, fiery lances that struck the gemlike lattices of them and disrupted them. In little tinkling puffs, both Soultraps shattered, leaving nothing but fine gem dust atop those polished golden stands.
Snorting, Tarrin nodded firmly to himself. That was all he needed to do. He was starting to tire, and he had to get back before Jegojah took advantage of Tarrin's comatose state and cut off his head.
When he opened his real eyes, he was absolutely awed at what he now held in his paw. It was Jegojah, but it was whole Jegojah, looking exactly as it did the first time he saw it, complete with armor. But this armor was silvery and shimmering, a brilliant blaze of relfected light from the setting sun. Tarrin let go of the limp body and took a step back, then instantly turned and looked up, where he had hung Faalken's body in midair. The body was still there, but the armor was still blackened, the body still unchanged.
Tarrin brought it down and laid it on the ground. It wasn't moving. He knelt by the body and raised the visor, and found a face that he remembered, a face not eaten with maggots. The restoration of the soul had brought with it a restoration of the body as well, and he now looked exactly as he had on the day he died. But there was no soul in that body, he could tell. Where Jegojah's soul had somehow managed to remain affixed to the body, Faalken's had not. He reached out with his senses and felt it, felt the presence of Death Herself disappearing into the nether, and along with Her was the soul of Faalken Strongsword, Knight of Karas and beloved friend. Taking him home, where he was supposed to go from the beginning, delivering him to the Hammer Hall of Karas, the spiritual realm of the God of Sulasia, the God of Law.
Tarrin looked down at the peaceful face of Faalken, and he began to weep. He had had no idea what was going to happen, but some part of him was hoping that Faalken's spirit would have remained a while, remained long enough for them to talk, for Tarrin to apologize for getting him killed, stayed long enough to absolve Tarrin for his part in Faalken's death. But he had not. And what was worse, Tarrin looked down at that cheeky face and desperately missed his friend, feeling him die all over again.
A restored Jegojah knelt beside Tarrin, his undead, taut face sober, the light filling its eye sockets now white instead of red. "Freed us, ye did, Were-cat," he said quietly. "No amount of thanks can Jegojah give, aside from this. This man was a valiant warrior, and it is right to grieve his death. But he moves on to a better place, a place of rest, where he can finally gain the rewards he so richly deserves. Know that he never blamed you for his own death. That death was his choice, and there were no regrets. Dishonor not that memory. Remember him always as he was, a great man deserving of your eternal respect."
For no earthly reason he could explain, that did make Tarrin feel a great deal better. And the Doomwalker was right. Faalken had died protecting Dolanna. It was a choice, a conscious choice, and it was something that he had accepted without remorse or regret. Faalken was a hero, a hero in every sense of the word, a man of bravery and intelligence, a man of warmth and compassion, a man who Tarrin had called friend. He was a man who deserved every honor that could be bestowed upon him, and he would not belittle that choice, that death, with his own tortured self-blame.