Silent Echoes

by Gareth Lewis

  *

  Purple lightning split the dark skies by the time he’d assured himself he wasn’t followed. He hadn’t thought anyone in the tavern would do so, but had to be sure. A night like this made it easy to spot anyone, with most sane people would be indoors.

  The unnatural colour of the skies meant unstable weather, and he didn’t want to get stuck out here. It could mean a dry rain, or burning sleet.

  No longer stopping every turn, he set a steady pace, only slowing as he approached the rope bridge. It spanned the twenty foot wide chasm separating one street from its neighbour. How deep the chasm went nobody had measured, and even in daylight the bottom was hard to determine.

  He couldn’t help glancing around before setting foot on it, since he’d be vulnerable while crossing. There was no one around. Taking a deep breath, and focussing on the trapped lightning streetlamp illuminating the far side, he crossed with a firm grip of the guide rope.

  The chasm petered out before it got halfway to the city walls, maybe a mile from where he crossed, and carried on the other way to the gaping scar where the Imperial University and Imperial Palace had once stood.

  While magic had been restricted to the elite, few limits had been placed on their experiments. The idea had been to combine various weather disciplines to assert dominion over nature. The greatest minds had worked on it. And failed. None survived to tell what went wrong, but it shattered the city, the heart of the Empire. While elements of government survived, the succession became so contentious among the surviving nobility that the nations forced under the yoke of the Empire took advantage of the chaos to make it redundant. The Empire shattered.

  With dangerously unstable weather making the city hostile, many departed. Those with money led the flight, and the city fell to the rule of the gangs, constantly vying for terrain. With surrounding lands also affected by the turbulence, few evacuees found support there, and the now-free nations became hostile to large numbers of refugees, so the exodus slowed as people realised they were stuck here. And life went on.

  The rope bridge behind him, Skerin moved through ruined buildings along the edge of the chasm, and through abandoned ones surrounding his destination. Larger than its neighbours, if not in much better condition outside, Lyrem’s house had a lightning bar above the front door, illuminating it with a crackly light. The rear door opened only from inside, so Skerin had little choice but to use the far too visible front.

  At least it offered some comfort. And protection from lightning. Lyrem would have opened the collector on the roof. He believed it easier to collect lightning at night, when it had a harder time finding its way back to the sun.

  He closed the door behind him, its creak setting his nerves on edge, and made his way through the foyer.

  Spacious, with a high ceiling and balconies on the next level, the room had relatively clean furniture. A dozen armchairs had been mostly scavenged from elsewhere, with little attention paid to how they matched. Lightning bars encircled the room with light, their luminescence currently set low. A door at the far end led to the living quarters.

  Lyrem would still be working, though, so Skerin ascended the stairs to the balcony, and made his way through to the lab. Bristling with an electric tension, the place was a supposedly organised chaos, a stark contrast to the precise order his host preferred for the rest of the house.

  Lyrem glanced up as he entered, peering over the rims of his work glasses. He frowned on seeing Skerin’s shoulder. Sighing, he removed the glasses and moved to inspect the wound.

  Of middling height, Lyrem had a receding hairline and a bushy, grey-shot, moustache. “Things are in motion, then?”

  Skerin nodded.

  “Not too late to change your mind.” He sounded hopeful.

  Skerin said nothing.

  Lyrem sighed. “You couldn’t at least have brought back a fresh corpse?”

  Skerin glanced at the shoulder.

  “You’ve got another one,” said Lyrem, shaking his head. “The agreement didn’t include patching you up.” Nevertheless, he sat Skerin down and set to work.

  The treatment wasn’t painless. Lyrem often forgot that living patients succumbed to such sensations. Ointments reduced it to a bearable level, though, and soon it was over. The wound remained a harsh lesson in planning his strategies with more care, especially for what lay ahead.

  “Progress?” he asked as Lyrem returned to his work.

  His attention on the body strapped firmly to the table, Lyrem gave a faint nod. “Some. The restored area of flesh seems to be absorbing the ambient magical energies. A limited amount, but more than normal.”

  A skilled Necromancer, Lyrem could reputedly animate a recently dead body for almost an entire day. Any which had been dead longer than a couple of days had little in the way of conscious thought, however. The main problem was that Necromantic magics relied on the absorbed magic energies within the host for their power, and bodies absorbed little once life ceased. Animating them didn’t change that, so they drew on a finite reserve.

  Skerin had learned Floramancy from the Gardeners of Harlek, one of the few magics now allowed in the former breadbasket of the Empire. One application allowed the restoration of life and vitality to plants, but took too much power to afford on any but the rarest breeds. Skerin had brought it to Lyrem with the idea of splicing it with Necromancy to restore an extra measure of life to his experiments.

  “It’s prevented the degradation of the body somewhat,” said Lyrem.

  Joining him, Skerin saw the left arm remained a healthier pink than the rest of the grey cadaver. It stirred, its vague eyes not quite focussing. They’d need something fresher for further experimentation, and he knew Lyrem was anxious to see whether the technique would have any effect on the brain, although that could be messier.

  While primarily interested in one application of the splice, Skerin was fascinated by the results, and what it could mean. It would require more testing, and now he looked at it he was sure the top of the arm wasn’t as pink as it had been a couple of hours past. Still, it could suit his purposes.