by Deck Davis
“If you want to think of death as a poem, go ahead. The bards never mention when someone pisses themselves, they don’t mention how death rattles sound. Death isn’t a lyric, and death isn’t the place we call the Greylands. Death is a hole; it’s that little place in the real world where someone you know used to be, but they’ve gone.”
He stopped talking then, because what he said surprised even himself. That kind of thing wasn’t in any of the necromancy texts. In fact, it went against the basic necromancy credo; treat death as something that is there, but don’t fear or revere it.
“What did you see down there, Jakub? You seem different.”
“I’m not going back for a while, put it that way.”
Witas patted his back. “Thanks for doing it. Let’s get this son of a whore’s name.”
“One sec,” said Jakub.
He searched the dead necromancer. He checked her robe and all of her pockets, and he took off her boots and looked inside those. When he was done, it wasn’t the greatest looting he’d ever done, but at least it was something.
*Loot Received!*
1 Key
Robes of Repel Rain
**Uncommon**
Leather Boots
**Common**
Eight teeth
He couldn’t take his eyes off the teeth. Some were pure white, others a little stained, but all of them were human.
“Monsters,” said Witas. “Eight people…”
“Eight teeth don’t mean eight people.”
“It does when they’re the same kind tooth.”
“You don’t know that. They don’t look all the same to me, and people have more than one of each kind.”
“I’m telling you,” said Witas. “Cast your Last Rites rights on them.”
“It doesn’t work like that. I need their brains; that’s where their memory is, even when they die. A tooth doesn’t hold anything.”
“Is there nothing Irvine could do with it?”
“There’s not much necromancy you can do with what amounts to a hardened clump of minerals.”
“You sound like an alchemist. If you’re gonna break the human body down like that,” said Witas, “you could say we’re all just walking mish-mashes of carbon and calcium. You really know how to suck the romance out of everything don’t you? Even your own miracle of life?”
“It’s the necromancer’s calling card,” said Jakub. “But I found something else on her that didn’t come from somebody’s mouth.”
He held the key up. Rather than a regular door key, this was a tube with a metal end that flattened at the end and spread out into four triangles.
“That’s a mana-box key,” said Witas. “There’s a few of them in the city; you pay rent and you get your own secure box. Those things are fool, mage, and thief proof; no amount of roguery will get a mana box to spread its legs.”
“We just found the key to her secret box? This is massive.”
“A woman who keeps her victims teeth in her pockets...I don’t want to know what she considers a secret. But first we’ve gotta find the box.”
“That’s the plan,” said Jakub. “We’ll find the box, and then go and see about the other guy’s name. What about after that?”
“The academy. We take everything to them.”
“Not the guardship?”
“Listen; the guardship call me in to help on their corpses, but they never once asked me how it worked, or watched me use my spells,” said Witas, “A lot of folk, they don’t want to see what you can do. They’re either scared of it, jealous, or they’ve been reading too much of Bendeldrick’s bullshit.”
“So, murders, people targeting academy kids, creeps keeping their victims’ teeth…”
“If people see a problem that they can’t comprehend, they’re going to act like they don’t care. It saves them having to admit they just can’t work it out. You want the guardship to help you? Then go report a guy who has been cutting whores in a brothel, or someone getting stabbed over a game of Cat Crowns. But if you want anyone to care about all of this, go to your academy.”
“And you’re going to come with me?”
“Ian and I haven’t seen each other in a decade. I plan on keeping it that way.”
“Seriously? Not even for this?”
“I’ve got my own stuff to do. Believe it or not, I need money, and there are easier ways than hanging around with you.”
“Let’s remind ourselves who knocked on who’s door and then ate half their breakfast,” said Jakub.
“I’ll help you find the box, but if you’re leaving Dispolis, you can go on your own.”
CHAPTER 39
“So, here’s the thing. My mum always problems come in a crowd,” said Witas. “I don’t think she meant a crazy necromancer bitch resurrecting a bunch of rats, but here we are. Now, we’ve got the rest of the problem gang to deal with.”
“What’s that?”
“Getting out of here. The necromancer must have messed with the red dragons, painted them on where they aren’t supposed to be.”
“We can just follow them back, can’t we?”
“We took a few twists and turns getting here, and I don’t like the idea of following the dragons again.”
“I know what to do,” said Jakub.
He cast Summon Bound. Waves of light formed a circle by his feet, churning around and around. Witas stepped away from them, as if it was a whirlpool ready to suck him in.
*Necromancy EXP Gained!*
[IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII ]
Damn it. So close to a level up. Just one more point.
Before he could think about what spell to cast to earn that last experience point, Ludwig leapt out of the portal. He landed on all fours, snapping his head left, right, then turning around to take in his surroundings, his tail whipping like a flag in the wind.
“Jakub, I didn’t think I’d see you so soon,” he said.
“We need you, Lud.”
“We? Who’s this? Wait…Witas? Is that you?” said Ludwig.
“You know each other?”
Witas nodded. “We met eight years ago. Though it’ll have felt like 64 to you, won’t it? Time flows differently down there.”
“Wait a second,” said Jakub. “You two met in the Greylands? What were you doing there?”
“It’s a long story. It’s the reason I’m a black cleric, actually.”
“So, what was all the stuff about me not appreciating what I’ve seen, and all the crap about poetry? You didn’t tell me you’d been to the Greylands.”
“I didn’t say that I hadn’t, either,” said Witas. “I was trying to get you to open your eyes and start appreciating things.”
“What happened? How’d you get there?”
“What, a man has to relay his life story to you? You need to let some things be. I’ve met your dog, alright? That’s enough sharing for today.”
“You’ve been to the Greylands,” said Jakub, “and you don’t serve the divine, like any other cleric would. I’ve put a hell of a lot of trust in you up to now. I agreed to come and look at the body to earn a little cash, and then I ended up fighting a necromancer in the sewers.”
“You came because I told you who the corpse was, and you lost it. Don’t pretend you were doing me a favour.”
“It’s cards on the table time, Witas. There are people snatching students, instructors setting them up. You have a link to the academy through your brother, and you’ve died once, and you never told me.”
“I’d have thought a necromancer could tell,” said Witas.
“You’ve must have been resurrected. And if that’s true, then you’re alive like everyone else. I wouldn’t have a clue.”
“Alive like everyone else…except I used up my last chance. You only get one resurrection, don’t you?”
“It’s a chance not many get,” said Jakub. “A full resurrection costs so much essence…there’s only one way you’d get it. Instructor Irvine must have used his positi
on to influence it.”
“You’re more perceptive than I thought.”
“Then tell me what happened. Tell me how you died, and maybe we can move on.”
“What if I don’t give a damn about what you do when we get out of here?”
“Witas, I saw you with the pickpocket. For some reason, you’re feeling this whole thing like a knife in the gut. You want to know who’s doing this, and you know the guardship are too incompetent. You need me to help.”
“Fine,” said Witas. He unravelled his scarf from his neck and showed his skin underneath for the first time. It was marred by a ring of red that went all the way around.
“When the resurrect you, you come back with the injuries you died with, right?” he said.
Jakub nodded. There was no need to guess what had happened here. The marks on Witas’s neck were from a rope.
He didn’t know what to say. Luckily, Witas spoke first.
“I know what you’re gonna say; you’re a necromancer, so you hate the idea of a life wasted. Ian did, anyway. But let me tell you what happened, and you can save your judgment.”
“Fair enough,” said Jakub, and listened as Witas told his story.
CHAPTER 40
When Witas was eleven he was a student at the Queen’s academy, attending it at the same time as his younger brother – Instructor Irvine.
It wasn’t so weird for a student to have a sibling in the academy, since magic proclivity was usually passed by blood, so brothers and sisters would share a degree of it.
What was strange, though, was that Ian Irvine was in the same class as Witas, who was three years his senior. The other students used this information and pounced on it, constantly remining Witas that his little brother was a better student.
“It’s just the way the apples fall,” Kortho told Witas. “Some get bigger and bigger, but some lose their lustre quickly. In the end, they all end up the same. Don’t take it personally, lad.”
Witas tried not to. He applied himself to his classes as best he could, but he always kept an eye on Ian, who wasn’t studying necromancy back then. Witas couldn’t help but watch how his brother knew the all the answers in class and always mastered his spells quicker than anyone else.
After a few months, Kortho arranged a private meeting with him.
“You aren’t studying, Witas,” he said. “You aren’t even going to class. I asked instructor Fennlip, and he hasn’t had an assignment from you in months. Not only that, but Fennlip witnessed you fighting with another student, and they saw you break his nose. That’s the third face you’ve bloodied this year.”
Kortho was quiet then, but so was Witas. He knew when someone was trying to create an uncomfortable silence, but he loved silence.
“Nothing to say?” asked Kortho.
Witas shook his head. He felt like if he opened his mouth, all his bitterness about Ian, the academy, the other students would pour out.
“I’m a necromancy instructor, Witas,” said Kortho. “I was assigned to you solely to monitor your behaviour and try to correct it; that is why we have these chats. When you refuse to improve, or to even try, you leave us with no choice. With the economy the way it is, a place at the academy is a precious, precious gift, and we cannot waste the gold on an unwanted education.”
“You’re kicking me out?”
“So, he has a tongue after all. It’s a shame you have waited to use it. Yes, Witas. I’m afraid that Quartermaster Tomkins is packing up your things now, to save you the embarrassment of facing the students in your dorm.”
“Fuck that. I’ll face them,” said Witas.
Witas went back home to live with his parents on their farm. His mother hugged him on arrival, but his father gave him the cold shoulder, and would speak more to the pigs and sheep than to his son.
He got apprenticed to an alchemist and tried to put all his effort into it, but it was tough. All that time, he could feel the magic in him, it was like a tense energy that he just couldn’t shift no matter how much he worked.
Months later, Ian came back from the academy at the Solstice holidays.
“Master Kortho has advanced me again,” he told their parents, while Witas tried to stop his brother’s voice making him want to smash things. “I’ll be studying with people four years older than me. And he’s moving me onto necromancy.”
“Bullshit,” said Witas.
His father glared. “Watch your tongue, lad.”
Not only was Ian the wonder boy, but they’d put him onto necromancy training, which had more prestige in those days.
Part of him was happy for his brother, part of him wanted to smash every window of the academy. He was self-aware enough to know he was behaving like an arse, but he didn’t have the self-discipline to do anything about it back then.
“If you’d just studied harder,” said his father, “Instead of screwing around…”
That was it for Witas, he was done. He stayed in his apprenticeship until he became a novice alchemist, since he didn’t want to waste the work he’d already put into it, and then he left home and moved to Dispolis.
It was in Dispolis that he discovered the grand library, and he started honing his magic craft again, though without direction.
He was in the library reading a book about mana-gem creation one day, when a man wearing a cassock approached him.
“You’re Witas Irvine, yes?”
“Who are you?”
“Priest Mossaraya of the Church of the Brightlight. We need a cleric healer, and I have heard about your talents. Are you ready to use them?”
This started the best period of Witas’ life. He found employment using his magical skills. He became a cleric for the church, where his job was to heal the stream of sick people who the church invited into their doors.
Lepers, the poxed, the crippled; Witas’ job was to call on the powers of the divine and use the powers they bestowed on him to heal the churchgoers. It was a job not just anyone could do; forget being religious, the divine usually only answered to those who were adept at using mana.
Around the same time he became a cleric, he met a girl called Ria. She used to go into the church and sit on one of the pews. She was so beautiful that it took Witas two weeks to actually talk to her. It took him another week to ask her out.
After that, they spent every minute they could together.
When Witas decided to marry her, Priest Mossaraya smiled. “The church will give its blessing to your union,” he said.
“I wasn’t aware I needed it.”
“A cleric is nothing if he doesn’t have the ears of the divine, and how would you hear them if you were not part of our church? You need our blessing for everything.”
Despite his struggle to adjust to church life, things couldn’t have been going better. He was using the gifts that had gotten him into the academy– though in a different way than he’d expected - he was growing stronger as a healing cleric, he was marrying Ria, and he never had to go home and see his parents and look at Ian’s smug face.
It was at this time that he heard three words that changed his life.
“Witty,” said Ria. “I’m pregnant.”
Witas couldn’t have been happier. He had to stop himself day-dreaming about boys and girls names while he was in work. It took all his self-discipline not to rush out and buy all the things they’d need straight away.
Four days later, Priest Mossaraya interrupted one of his healing sessions. Where Ria had changed his life with three words, Mossaraya changed it again with seven.
“Witas, sit down please. Something has happened.”
The next few minutes were a blur as Mossaraya explained everything. They were parts of his memory that his brain barely wanted to hold onto, and so had only remembered snatches of them.
A couple of street urchins had found Ria in an alleyway, covered in blood. One of them had run to get the guardship, while the other had held her hand as she died.
That evening, the guardship cap
tain visited Witas.
“I’ll be straight with you,” he said. “They left nothing behind to say who they were. Nobody saw a thing.”
“Was she snatched from the street?” asked Witas.
“Everything’s a mystery.”
“What about that spell Ian always talks about. Last…last…”
“Spell?”
“You called in the necromancers, right?”
The captain grimaced. “I don’t know about that necromancy shit.”
“You haven’t even asked the academy to come here? Are you fucking stupid? Tell me that her body is on the way to the academy.”
“Remember where you are and who you’re speaking to, cleric. I don’t see what a bunch of teachers can do.”
“I don’t care what you think about magic, just tell me you already arranged for her body to go to the academy.”
“Her body ain’t leaving this city until I’m satisfied that we’ve learned everything we can. She’s not the first to die. Not even the first this week.”
Witas argued with the captain until he was ready to punch him, and it took all his self-restraint to walk out of the room without smashing his nose.
They wouldn’t release Ria’s body to him given it was an ongoing investigation. That was the short of it, and no amount of talking would change their minds.
So, he took it at the point of a knife, holding a blade to the coroner’s apprentice’s throat.
Even as he left the morgue, Witas knew he wouldn’t get through Dispolis without every guard on duty hunting him.
He looked at the coroner’s apprentice, who he had seen at the church from time to time. “Your mother has grey-pox, doesn’t she?”
The boy nodded.
“Bring her to the church tomorrow. I work as a cleric there; there will be no charge for healing her, other than making sure nobody hears about this.”