Books & Bone

by Victoria Corva

  She tried to think of herself as other people saw her. Stocky build, sickly skin, shadowed brown eyes, and with dark hair pinned and trapped beneath her hood. Unremarkable among the denizens. Maybe unremarkable anywhere.

  She’d never put much thought into her appearance. It wasn’t like people spent a lot of time looking at her. And on the rare occasion she attracted a snide comment, it had slipped from her mind without care. But it was different this time. She would grit her teeth and force her mind to other things, and yet it still kept circling back. The look of horror on his face ...

  They carried on their journey upwards, across a rattling bridge and along the side of a steep black ravine. ‘Think about it, Larry. It’s not like I march into people’s homes and compare them to apes or goblins. I bet when you were alive, you wouldn’t have put up with that.’

  Larry gargled at her and tried to bite her arm. She shook him off with an admonishing tap on his forehead. ‘It doesn’t matter.’ Ree turned the corner. ‘I don’t care —’

  Ree froze midstep, panic seizing her muscles as surely as a healer’s spell. Cold pierced her like an arctic wind. Her gaze locked with white marble eyes in a translucent-skinned face, mere feet from her own. Horror clung to Ree like sweat.

  She reached for her father’s training, for the mental wards that would protect her, but she couldn’t tear her eyes away from its pale gaze and already she could feel herself disappearing into it as if caught in a blizzard.

  The Lich leaned closer. It was a pale, man-like thing that hovered an inch above the ground, robes swirling like tentacles. Its breath rattled through peeled-back lips and its long-nailed fingers reached for her, slowly.

  There was only one being in the crypt with such tangible, arresting power. It had been a necromancer, once. So old and so far-gone into the Craft that it had forgotten how to be human. It was the biggest monster of the crypts, but also its most powerful protector — so long as nobody crossed its path.

  Ree’s chest squeezed. She leaned away from the Lich, torn between the danger of getting caught and the danger of running. A lifetime of her parents’ warnings drummed in her mind, a constant litany of ‘Don’t get caught. Don’t let it see. Do not disturb the dead.’

  And now, just as they’d always warned, she could feel the air grow heavy with tiredness as its magic pooled around her. Her eyelids drooped, her body sagged.

  It spread its arms wide. ‘Imaz kwizzat?’ it whispered, with magic as dry as parchment. ‘Kwizzat erd vizzin?’

  Its power pressed on her, leeching energy from body and mind. She felt exhausted by it all; by her life in the catacombs, by her fear of the Lich, the constant twitchy thoughts of whether to run or hide. It would be so much easier to give in …

  ‘Don’t close your eyes. Don’t fall asleep. Don’t forget you’re alive.’

  Its arms started to close around her, a cold embrace with the overpowering smell of dust. She heard it chanting the words of binding even as its magic drained the life from her and let it bleed into the stone. It was just so very hard to care …

  ‘I say, Ree, is that a friend of yours?’

  Smythe’s cultured, upworlder accent shocked Ree out of her stupor. She reeled back, even as the Lich whirled and glided toward this new intruder, death magic trailing it like red mist.

  ‘Run!’ Ree shouted, but her tongue was thick and sluggish.

  ‘Wha —?’ Smythe froze as the Lich rose up in front of him, the tatters of its robes swirling about it in slow motion as if underwater.

  Adrenaline surged; Ree leapt for Smythe, but the Lich was already sliding one withered hand under his chin.

  Smythe stared into its marble eyes. ‘I — I beg your —’

  ‘Erd.’ The word curled in the air. Smythe’s eyes rolled up into his head and he collapsed to the floor.

  The Lich started chanting; Ree snatched at Smythe’s hands, steeling her mind to the Lich’s cloying necromancy. The Lich reached for her and its magic pressed down on her, a suffocating force. As lethargy set in, she savagely bit her lip; pain seared as hot blood poured down her chin, reminding her she was alive.

  She tried to drag Smythe away but he was heavy, made all the more so with the Lich’s eyes on them. She just needed a moment, just to get Smythe out of its sight ...

  Larry shambled in, groaning forlornly. The Lich’s back straightened; its nostrils flared. It turned slowly on the spot to face Larry.

  Its magic faded along with its attention. Ree seized her moment. She grabbed Smythe, cursing him for his considerable weight even as she fought the tail of the Lich’s lethargy. She dragged him behind a stack of crates, her pulse pounding in her throat. Escape routes flashed through her mind: the drainage tunnel at the back, the trap door beneath the southern wall, but she could take advantage of none of these without abandoning Smythe, who was even now rapidly paling, his skin growing as clammy as a corpse.

  She ought to leave him. What was he to her, really, this boy from the world above?

  This boy who had saved her life.

  When the Lich turned back from Larry to find his quarries missing, Ree held her breath. His white marble eyes swept the room, and Ree pressed further back behind the crate. Then, the energy in the room eased; the Lich folded its magic back into itself. It hunched in, and the light in its eyes died. It crooked a finger at Larry, almost an invitation, but the minion only gawped at it. Its arm dropped; it glided from the room as if nothing had ever happened.

  Ree peered out from behind the box, her entire body tensed to flee. Larry spotted her, gargled what might have been delight, and tottered toward her. Ree slumped in relief.

  Larry bumped into her shoulder and she patted his leg fondly. ‘You did well, Larry.’

  He tried to nibble her hair, and she swatted him away.

  Though the immediate danger had passed, it was hard to let the tension from her body. They had come so close to a fate worse than death; to be a minion of an immortal Lich, forever enslaved.

  She had lived under the threat of the Lich for as long as she could remember. How many times had she watched it from afar as it searched through the archives or chanted its rituals? It had always seemed to her some kind of sinister automaton, but its danger had felt contained, its threat unreal. It lived its life on rails, unaware of anything that didn’t directly interrupt it. She’d been taught its schedule, where to avoid and when. It had become familiar. She had almost felt fond of it.

  Now, she trembled from the memory of its magic. Larry touched her head with his clammy hands, groaning piteously. Bizarre to think that if he’d been following anyone else today, Ree would now be dead — or undead.

  Her gaze fell on Smythe. His chest barely rose and all colour had drained from his face. ‘And what am I supposed to do with you?’ Ree murmured. Larry leaned around her, drool dangling from his open mouth. ‘Okay, Larry, I need you to — no, don’t chew on him! Just hold still …’

  The denizens of Tombtown were loathe to chain themselves with rules and regulations. In those early days, they agreed on only one: no outsiders, unless they were fellow necromancers. They had all been ill-used by those of the world above, and intended the crypt to be their sanctuary. But six years after founding, that law would be put to the test when a healer of considerable power descended into the crypt. After disintegrating the defending minions with a single fell blast of magic like sunlight, she put her lone hand on her hip. ‘I’m building a house. Don’t bother me.’

  The necromancers were awed, so when the healer settled in their town, they only bothered her a little. The law was given a very small addendum: no outsiders, unless they were fellow necromancers — or otherwise too powerful to chase out.

  If there is one thing all necromancers can be trusted to respect, it is power.

  ~from A History of Tombtown by Emberlon the Disloyal

  CHAPTER TWO

  THE TOWN HEALERS

  Girl and minion dragged Smythe’s limp body through dusty tunnels and crumbling halls,
right into the heart of the town: the central mausoleum. There, winding between tombhomes and with a worried eye over her shoulder, Ree smuggled Smythe into her house without catching the attention of curious necromancers. She was still panting from the effort, her hair plastered to her forehead.

  Now, she stood before the tall, wan form of one of the only other non-practitioners in town, not quite meeting her eyes.

  ’You’ve brought home a dying man? Such a dutiful daughter.’ Ree’s mother’s lips quirked, the iciness in her eyes melting minutely. She stalked around the body sprawled across her kitchen table, darting gaze taking in the colour in his skin, the healthy fullness of his cheeks. Her fur cloak flared as she walked; her cassock scritched along the floor.

  They stood in the family tombhome, a repurposed small stone tomb that her family had lived in since the town had first been settled some nineteen years earlier. With exposed stone-brick walls, scratched marble floors, and aged furniture padded with limp cushions, it had a certain ‘small-town cemetery’ charm — and gravemould smell. The uncluttered serenity of home.

  Ree squared her shoulders, trying to push away the discomfort she always felt when her mother went into priestess-mode. While her father was on the town council and so deep into the Craft that he barely looked human anymore, he was a steady and predictable force in her life — if not always a positive one. Her mother, though, with her brittle mane of ash blonde hair, the eyes of a fanatic, and a manner that shifted between eerie priestess and hard-hearted huntress, was something else entirely. Ree trusted her mother, but she never knew quite what to expect from her. Such was the trouble of a mother who was also the Priestess of Morrin the Undying.

  Ree took a deep breath while her mother peeled Smythe’s eyelids back and peered into his rolled-back eyes. ‘Mother, I need —’

  ‘What twist of fate led you to an upworlder boy? No — nevermind. I know better than to question what Morrin provides. You can help me with the burial rights — the goddess prefers them with a little life left.’ She pinched Smythe’s wrist to take his pulse, then let it fall again. Smythe’s lips moved, mumbling unintelligibly.

  Ree’s stomach lurched with something between hope and dismay. ‘He’s not for sacrifice, he’s —’

  Ree’s mother cupped her cheek, the rough cloth of her cassock sleeve scratching her skin. Ree jumped at her touch; an unexpected show of affection. ‘We’ll have to move quickly if we’re to get him to the Altar of Many Gods before your father returns.’

  Smythe moaned something that sounded a little like ‘fascinating’, his head turning.

  ‘Mother.’ Ree mimicked her father’s tone of command, wishing she could imitate the crack of power that went with it. She couldn’t quite suppress a sigh when her mother stopped, her head tilting to one side. She was so tired of being spoken over, even within her own family. ‘I intend to save him,’ she said.

  Her mother’s eyebrows lifted. ‘Save him,’ she repeated. The disbelief in her voice encompassed a hundred questions.

  ‘I owe him.’ Ree rubbed her eyes. ‘Look, it’s … sort of a long story.’ And if she revealed the Lich’s part in it, she would be in a world of trouble. The town council forbade interacting with the Lich, for fear that it might follow someone back to the town. ‘Can you heal him?’

  Her mother clasped her hands in front of her. ‘There’s no shame or dishonour in letting the dead pass, Reanima.’ Her voice was gentle, reassuring, but Ree wouldn’t meet her eyes. ‘It is the natural order of the world. The living die, and their souls pass into the keeping of the gods. The bodies are exalted and put to service of the living. You may not practice, like your father, but you know it’s true.’

  She wanted to snap at her mother that she could make up her own mind. That Smythe wasn’t dead yet, and Morrin was welcome to him when he was. But an argument would get her no closer to saving him, so she stored it away in the black pit in her chest where she kept all her resentments. ‘Can you heal him?’ she repeated, as evenly as she could.

  Ree’s mother pursed her lips. ‘Possibly. But the town council will be furious if they hear. Did anyone see you bring him?’

  Ree shook her head. She’d used all her knowledge of secret pathways to get him into town unnoticed.

  Ree’s mother shrugged off her patchy fur cloak and rolled up the voluminous sleeves of her brown cassock. She hovered her hands over him, closing her eyes; white light shone through her skin and limned Smythe where he lay. Warmth pulsed from her in a heartbeat rhythm.

  Even under a death curse, Smythe looked out of place in Ree’s home. The old stone walls of what had once been a small tomb were cold and dull, the marble floor carpeted not in fabric but in straw and moss and hardy cave mushrooms. Bricks had been pulled from the walls in places, and filled with pottery and urns taken from the surrounding tombs. Once great treasures or works of art, now they held food or trinkets, the odds and ends of daily life. The furniture, largely made of reclaimed crate wood or scavenged from embalming rooms, was old and rickety, and frequently scattered with knuckle bones or femurs, such as Ree’s father required for his Craft.

  Amongst the grey and green, and the flickering light cast by the tallow candles, Smythe looked altogether too alive, jarringly vibrant amongst the gloom.

  Ree’s mother’s eyebrows pinched together. ‘This is no normal curse. It’s knit deep into him, hooked into his bones. Do you know what cursed him?’

  Ree crossed her arms. She didn’t want to tell her mother about the encounter with the Lich if she could possibly avoid it. The town council would be nothing compared to the fear and anger of her worried parents. That she had been so foolish as to walk directly into his path was bad enough; that she had dragged this idiot with her was beyond careless.

  Her mother took her silence for uncertainty. ‘It must have been a greater dead, at least. Maybe even a greywraith.’ Her lips pursed. She’d named a minion so powerful that few could summon one — a creature of rags and grey flesh, only half-corporeal. The essence of a body, pure and dangerous, with none of the physical drawbacks of a minion like Larry. But nothing compared to the Lich.

  The trouble Ree would be in if her parents found out she’d crossed the Lich didn’t bear thinking about. They’d try to force her into learning the Craft, and that didn’t suit Ree at all. Once you started using a school of magic — necromancy or healing — you were locked in. And Ree had other plans.

  Her thoughts flickered uneasily, torn between the boy she owed and her determination to continue her study at all costs.

  Ree’s mother turned from Smythe and considered her daughter. ‘How much do you like this boy?’

  Ree shuffled her feet, She didn’t like where this was going. ‘I just met him.’

  The light faded from Ree’s mother, gradually returning her to her wan, haggard self. Her eyes were solemn as she considered her daughter. ‘I haven’t the skill to save him. He’ll die on this table before the day is out. We could take him to Andomerys …’ She trailed off, but Ree knew where the sentence ended.

  They could take him to Andomerys, but then the whole town would know. And that was dangerous in an entirely different way.

  If Andomerys even agreed to save him.

  Ree’s mother wasn’t concerned about the danger to Smythe. She was only thinking of the trouble it would mean for Ree. Ree would have to face the wrath of the town council, and she’d always gone out of her way to avoid their ire.

  There were very few rules that a town full of necromancers would agree on, but Ree had broken the only one that mattered: no outsiders allowed. If the upworlders found out about Tombtown, it would bring disaster (or worse, priests) down on all their heads.

  It would be a blow for her. Another reason for her parents to claim she was helpless and the council to call her clueless, an outsider in her own town. They might finally force her to learn the Craft, as they had been threatening for years, as if being a practitioner would somehow give her better judgement.

  An
d of course they would kill Smythe.

  She looked at Smythe, greying and shallow-breathed. He might not even live. What did it matter that he’d taken a curse meant for her? It would be a mercy to die quietly now, before the council got their claws into him.

  Ree scowled and scrubbed at her face. ‘We’ll use the back stairs,’ she said.

  Her mother canted her head to one side, as if Ree had surprised her. Ree shrugged off her scrutiny.

  Smythe was all arms and legs as they bundled him out the door and dragged him up the back stairs, no doubt adding several back-bruises to whatever lumps and bumps he’d received when Ree and Larry first hauled him into town.

  ‘Morrin’s teeth! He’s gangly as a spider.’ Ree’s mother puffed with the effort of carrying him.

  Smythe’s back hit another step; he grunted, and mumbled, ‘foremost burial scholar at the biggest …’ He trailed off into incoherence.

  Ree’s mother wrinkled her nose. ‘Urgh. There’s no shame in letting him pass beyond, Ree. He’ll be welcomed into Her court.’

  ‘Mother.’

  Her mother made a snorting sound that Ree interpreted as ‘you can stop using that tone on me’, but they eventually heaved him up the final flight of moss-strewn steps and laid him in front of the door of a crumbling wooden shack — the only true ‘house’ in the whole town.

  There was a story behind its construction. There was a story for almost every house in the town, of course, and Ree had been present for most of them. But though this wooden shack was an intimidating replica of upworld society, Ree was much more interested in the woman who had built it.

  Ree scanned the town behind them, stretching below in a honeycomb of repurposed tombs and altars. Robed figures milled about the town square, and a cabal oversaw a small horde of minions at the northern passage, but there was nobody close enough to question why Ree and her mother were dragging around a body that was still breathing.