‘That is where you are wrong! You are just as closed-minded as any upworlder, just as lacking in vision as you are in meaningful power.’
Usther raised her eyebrows. ‘I’m sure that would cut me deeply, were you any more impressive than a child making a “man” out of mud and sticks.’
Thus the argument continued between them. Ree, forgotten in the heat of their disagreement, walked over to study the patchwork gore monster. It was entirely red and yellow, as if it were a creature that had been turned inside-out. It had no skin, and no complete parts — where she might have expected to see a limb from one body here and from another there, there were only slivers of muscle, painstakingly stitched together with gut and twine. It had no eyes, only empty holes in its lump-jawed face. Unlike the normal dead, it was hard to imagine this fleshy statue alive. It did not look like anything that had ever lived.
While Veritas got ever more shrill in defending his genius, Ree waited for her moment. She reached under his arm and snatched the book from him. Veritas made to grab it, but Ree skittered back, holding the book aloft. ‘It has to return to the Archive. If you try to stop me, it will go to the town council, and you know how that will end.’
‘I’m not afraid of a bunch of talentless busy-bodies —’
‘Talentless!’ The air around Usther flexed.
‘— and my golem will crush any who dare oppose me!’
Ree looked again at the stitchwork monster. ‘It works, then?’
Veritas hesitated, his expression turning sheepish. He steepled his fingers. ‘Not … as such.’
Ree and Usther exchanged a look. Usther’s nostrils flared; no doubt, she was still infuriated over his ‘talentless’ comment. Ree tucked the book into her pack. ‘We’re taking the book —’
‘No!’ He grasped toward her, but she edged out of reach. ‘I need it for my work!’
‘So what … will you attack us then? Kill us for the book?’
Veritas pursed his lips. ‘Well … noooo.’ He seemed to be turning the problem around in his mind. ‘I suppose your father wouldn’t like it if I killed you.’
Ree barely blinked at the suggestion that her father was the only reason Veritas wouldn’t attack her outright. Necromancers respected nothing so much as power, and her father had a lot of it.
It was an empty threat, anyway. The council tried to crack down on murder. If one person got away with it, it would give the others ideas.
‘And the door curse?’ said Usther.
Veritas kicked at a lump of gore. ‘Was meant to keep nosy adventurers out.’
Ree headed for the door. ‘Thank you for the book, Veritas!’ she called over her shoulder. ‘If you’d like to borrow it again, you’ll have to petition Emberlon.’
‘What? Noo, he’ll never let me have another book after this!’
He sounded like he meant to pursue, but Ree was quick and used to evading far quicker beasts than he. She hurried back into the main room and ducked under his desk, pulling the chair snuggly in front of her. When he finally came puffing into the room, he found it empty of both girl and books.
‘Festering rats! How can she already be gone?’ He hurried to the door, wringing his hands.
‘Ree’s good at that. Quick. Sneaky.’ Usther crossed her arms and leaned against the doorframe. ‘I suppose she needs something to make up for her complete lack of ability in the Craft.’
Veritas cast her a worried look. ‘She’s really gone?’
Usther shrugged and examined her blackened fingertips.
Veritas shuffled back into his gore chamber. ‘Well, I suppose I could alter the ritual somewhat. Perhaps if I elide the transmographic elements of Talthir’s Summons, I can —’
Usther swung the door shut behind him.
‘What a tedious little worm.’ She looked around the room. ‘You’re in here somewhere, I assume?’
Ree pushed the chair out of the way and crawled out from the under the desk.
‘How resourceful.’ Usther paused. ‘Like a cockroach.’
‘Yes, that’s how I prefer to think of it.’
‘No need to get snippy, I just gave you a compliment.’
Ree supposed she even thought that was true.
They made their way downstairs and through Usther’s pack of drooling minions.
‘So that’s the job, then,’ Usther said. She wrinkled her nose. ‘Not the most pleasant work I can imagine.’
Ree resisted the urge to roll her eyes. ‘You spend most of your days up to your elbows in blood and dead bodies.’
‘Dreamy, isn’t it?’ Her eyes went soft. ‘The power coursing through your body, the touch of death, the spark of unlife, the comforting smell of decomposition —’
‘Lovely.’ Ree managed to keep a straight face, though Usther shot her a narrow-eyed look regardless. ‘But that’s not really the job. It’s usually Emberlon who takes on the recoveries. For me, it’s mostly mapping the crypt and collecting and returning stock from the various libraries.’
‘That sounds even more tedious. So are you going to tell me why you really want a dusty old healing book?’
Ree ran her fingers done the spine of the book, the leather split and cracked from decades of hard use. ‘No.’
‘But I just covered for you with Veritas! Hey! Where are you going?’
Ree didn’t break her stride and said nothing in response.
She had it. She had the book. If she could just put it into Andomerys’ hands ...
Usther growled and chased after her. ‘I knew you had a secret!’ Her minions lolloped at her heels.
Smythe. He might be dead now. Or dead soon, if the town found out about him and she wasn’t there to speak on his behalf. She thought of him, lying cold and grey on Andomerys’ healing table, all the vibrant colour she had seen in him in the embalming room leeched away by the Lich’s dark magic.
No. Andomerys was the most powerful healer Ree had ever heard of, and if Ree put Astaravinarad in her hands, who knew what she might be able to do?
The other denizens believed in blood and bones, but Ree believed in books.
For a society built around the study of ancient texts, there is a notable disregard for books and those who tend them. Practitioners see books as a means to an end, and one they prefer to bypass. They hate to be reliant on the knowledge of others.
One wonders what might happen, were one to rise who was both a committed necromancer AND a consummate scholar. They would surely be a strange and craven creature. But more, I worry at the power such a one might possess. With all the knowledge of centuries and civilisations at their disposal, their ascent would surely be swift and deadly.
~from A History of Tombtown by Emberlon the Disloyal
CHAPTER SIX
ASTARAVINARAD
As soon as they set foot in town, Usther shed the comfortable silence they’d fallen into on the journey home. ‘Where are you going in such a hurry? What can you possibly need that book for?’ Usther kept pace with her easily, her long stride taking two of Ree’s steps for every one of her own.
Ree dodged Ursula the Under Queen, a wizened practitioner who’d come to the Craft late in life. Ursula dropped her cane in surprise and shook her fist at Ree. ‘I’ll add you to the list, Young Ree!’
‘Sorry!’ Ree called over her shoulder without breaking stride. She wasn’t terribly concerned about being added to Ursula’s kill list — she was already on there multiple times and she was fairly certain Ursula had never met someone she didn’t want to take revenge on. Ree made for the outer stairs, Usther still dogging her steps.
‘Ree. Ree! Are you even listening to me?’
‘As a rule? No.’
Usther’s dramatic gasp left Ree fairly sure she wasn’t about to be cursed for her rudeness. It was when Usther went silent that you had to worry.
‘We’re passing your house — we’re — where are we going?’
Ree didn’t bother to respond. As she climbed the final steps to the healer’s sha
ck, Usther hesitated for the first time.
‘But what would she even want with a magic book? Everyone knows she hates healing. Didn’t she come here to die or something?’
Ree shrugged and knocked on the door. It was a rumour she’d heard before. The act of healing kept people young — but Andomerys had gone to the one place in the world where she would rarely, if ever, be asked to heal, and didn’t have to feel bad about saying no.
The door creaked open. Ree heard Usther hold her breath.
Andomerys scowled down at them. ‘The book?’
‘Here.’ Ree took it from her pack and handed it to the healer.
Andomerys turned her dark gaze on Usther. ‘What are you doing here?’
Usther puffed up. ‘What am I —’ her outrage was cut short by Andomerys’ glare. ‘Nothing. I was just leaving.’ She threw Ree a dirty look as she retreated down the stairs.
Andomerys went back inside, but left the door open behind her, so Ree followed her in.
Andomerys sat down on her cushioned chair, the book open in her lap. Lacking another chair, Ree hovered beside her.
‘I can’t read this,’ said Andomerys. She flicked through the pages then looked up at Ree. ‘Is there a translation?’
Ree bit her lip. ‘I could translate it, I think. You don’t read iyad-anar?’
‘I read modern iyadi.’
Ree’s mind spun, trying to think her way around the problem. Translating the whole book would take … well, weeks. Andomerys was keeping Smythe alive with her own magic, something she’d come to the town to specifically to avoid. She’d already saddled her with that responsibility for a few days. How much more could Ree ask of her before Andomerys refused?
They didn’t even know whether Astaravinarad had the information Andomerys needed …
‘May I?’ She gestured at the book and Andomerys handed it over with a grunt. She studied the table of contents. ‘Do you have any paper? Quill and ink?’
Andomerys pointed at a drawer to one side of her colourfully appointed room. ‘Help yourself.’
Ree opened the book to what she was sure was the table of contents and set about translating it, as best as she could given the situation. She wasn’t very keen on translation work — it taxed her in a way that exploring the crypt never did — but she’d put a lot of time into learning the old languages and there was unlikely to be a more important use for it than now. She had one hand on her forehead while she worked. Her brain felt squeezed, her thoughts stuttering every time she came across a word she didn’t immediately recognise.
It took a long time. She wasn’t fluent in iyad-anar the way she was in Old Antherian. Once she had the table mostly translated, Andomerys picked out a likely chapter to translate in full.
Ree stopped to pace often, and had to leave and find a syllabary and translation guide (which mercifully were in one of the local libraries). She worked into the night, not needing candlelight, as Andomerys did, and thus could carry on without disturbing the healer.
A toe in her side nudged her awake. Ree got wearily up from the floor, her back and sides aching from a night with only a thin rug between her and hard stone. She groaned, taking in her surroundings. Paper and books dripped from the table and encircled her on the floor. She must have wanted more space at some point, but she had no memory of moving from table to floor — nor of falling asleep.
‘Well?’ Andomerys put her hand on her hip.
Ree shook her head. ‘Give me a minute —’ She sorted through the papers around her, looking for the most recent translation. She scanned a page thick with text, then thrust it up at Andomerys. ‘I think this — I think maybe —’ She found it hard to say the words aloud, as if voicing it would make it hurt more when she failed.
Andomerys glared Ree into silence — Ree had never known her to tolerate stammering — and studied Ree’s cramped translation. Ree stretched her sore back while she waited for a response, wincing at every ache and twinge. She could remember, now, feverishly translating the chapters Andomerys had requested. She’d been crazed, fuelled by sleep deprivation and desperation in equal measure.
Now, in the harsh light cast by Andomerys’ candles, with an actual trained healer standing before her, she was increasingly uncertain. She wasn’t that fluent in iyad-anar, and she knew very little about healing magic.
Emberlon would tell her that it wasn’t an Archivist’s job to know all the information, but to know how to find it. And she had done an Archivist’s job, searching for the most likely books from the records that she held, and then going to retrieve them, and translating them as best as she could. But this wasn’t for a necromancer’s fancy as to whether undead fish would decompose in water, or tracing the genealogy of a young acolyte who wanted to claim hereditary greatness. A man’s life hung in the balance, and she didn’t think Andomerys would suspend his life indefinitely while Ree tracked down better sources for a magic that might not even exist.
‘This.’ Andomerys tapped the paper, stirring Ree from her panic. ‘I can use this.’ There was a hard glint in her eyes that Ree recognised as scholarly fervor, something she’d never expected to see from Andomerys. The healer picked up the rest of the translation, turned in a whirl of brightly-patterned robes, and strode into her healer’s room. Ree scrambled after her.
Smythe lay stretched on the table, his skin ashen and his eyes closed, his arms straight at his sides. As Ree’s eyes swept his face, she noticed the faint glimmer of Andomerys’ magic, an oily sheen across his skin.
Ree pressed a hand to her chest. He looked like he was already dead. How many times had she seen her mother lay out a recently deceased body for cleansing and vigil? There was a stillness to a corpse that couldn’t be replicated.
And he might be one for real, soon. If the magic failed, or worsened his condition. She wondered what exactly the Lich had done to him. For the first time, she had time to worry. What would Smythe become if Andomerys couldn’t save him?
Andomerys read through Ree’s notes again, mouthing the words. Then she took her hand and put it on his heart, and rested her short arm on his forehead.
Ree hovered just inside the door. She could feel power building in the room, warm and humid like a summer’s day. Andomerys’ hair stirred, as if caught in a breeze, though there was not even the faintest draft in the small, stark room.
The glow around Smythe flickered and flared, growing in strength and turning from gold to white.
Then Andomerys began to chant, but rather than the death echo of necromancy, her words became the pure notes of chiming bells. She was saturated with power, her skin growing translucent, as if her body was only a thin shell to hold in a being of pure light. For the first time since Ree had met Andomerys, she remembered that healing was the opposite and counterweight of necromancy, that a powerful healer could destroy undead and unravel all the magic a necromancer had wrought. That a healer was every bit as dangerous as a necromancer.
She was humbled and awed by the magic she was witnessing — a power greater than she’d ever seen, and a magic so old as to have passed from memory.
Smythe’s shoulders jerked. Something black and fluid bubbled at his mouth, then snaked into the air above him. Andomerys took her hand from his chest and crushed it in her hand; it burned up in flash of white light.
The magic drained from the room; the chill of the underworld returned. Ree took a step forward, her eyes shifting uncertainly between healer and patient. ‘Is it … done?’
The light was leaking away, until Smythe was once again beneath a pale sheen of golden magic.
Andomerys shook her head. Sweat slicked her hair and skin, and soaked the collar of her robes. ‘The first of many treatments.’ She must have seen Ree’s concern, because she added, ‘It’s a start.’ She walked unsteadily toward the door. ‘I need to rest. Come back tomorrow, if you must.’
Ree kept to her room that night, not wanting to discuss Smythe’s condition with her mother and certainly not with her father. She
stretched out on the padded stone shelf that had once held a cadaver and flicked through her journal, reading and re-reading the results of her own study.
Today she had witnessed a magic thought long-dead. ‘It’s possible,’ she whispered. ‘Anything is possible.’ She ran her fingers over the much-repeated word in her notes, sprawling in her own script: Wylandriah.
Another thing to thank Smythe for. If he survived, anyway. The thought made her chest tighten.
She tucked her journal under her pillow, closed her eyes, and willed morning to come.
She left through the back door as soon as the suneye in her pocket flashed hot. She pulled it out — a hardened, treated human eyeball. The eye had grown warm; the iris looked at the sun in the sky — or where it would be, were there not layers of rock, tomb, and subterranean city between it and the surface. She’d bought it from Mazerin the Bold many years before, and as long as she kept it polished and had her father charge it every full moon, it was usually accurate.
When Andomerys opened the door to her, she brushed past into the healer’s room. ‘That’s fine!’ Andomerys called after her, a growl in her voice. ‘Barge in whenever you like!’
Smythe lay still and unmoving on the bed. Ree’s breath caught. ‘Is he —?’
His eyes flickered open.. ‘Hello again.’ His voice was cracked. A nascent smile grew on his lips. ‘Terribly sorry about all this. I hear you saved my life.’
Little is known about the Lich of Tombtown. It was here before the first settlers arrived and appears to be many centuries deep into practicing the Craft. They tried to kill it, of course. It is said that the entire crypt frosted over in the chill wind of its power, and that the earth shook with the sound of hundreds of corpses standing up at once.
It is also said that all seven founders banded together and with their combined might put the Lich into a deep sleep that even now still clings to it. This is untrue, as further investigation reveals that the founders barricaded themselves into a tomb and hid until the Lich passed.
Books & Bone Page 6