The Necromancer's Nephew

by Andrew Hunter

  She gave him an exasperated look, but did as he said. Warren had abandoned his tirade in favor of leaping to join his friends. He swung his arm in a scooping motion and sent one of the creatures flying. It bounced off the ceiling and rolled away in a ball only to unfurl its legs, right itself and join the scurrying crowd of arachnids now advancing upon the intruders.

  "Let's go back!" Garrett said.

  "There's more of them coming from that way too," Marla said. She brought her foot down hard on a spider's back. It made an awful wet crunching sound and lay twitching on the floor.

  Garrett grunted with effort as he bashed one of the creatures with his torch. It scrabbled away in panic with tongues of witchfire flickering over its glossy carapace.

  Warren had the worst of them. The ghoul roared as he pinwheeled his arms, batting the spiders away with such force that soon many of them lay curled into balls upon the floor.

  Garrett yelped as a spider lunged forward to sink its fangs into his leg, or rather his boot. As uncomfortable as necromancer boots could be at times, he was at least grateful for their rugged craftsmanship. The spider's fangs could not penetrate the thick leather. Garrett jammed his knife through the monster's thorax and pried it off. He pushed it away. His skin crawled at the sight of the slimy goo that now coated the blade of his dagger.

  He looked back at Marla. His heart leapt with fear to see that she no longer stood behind him. Then, suddenly, she was there again, and just as suddenly gone once more. The girl moved with such speed that he only really saw her when she stopped to choose a new target. He watched her in bemused silence. She was amazing.

  Marla paused long enough to frown back at him, and then she was once again a blur of gray. She ripped a large spider off of Garrett's back and hurled it into the shadows. She stopped again, her hand on Garrett's arm, and a little smile on her face. "Can I borrow your torch, dear?"

  "...Yeah," Garrett slowly lifted his hand to offer her the witchfire torch, but it wasn't in his hand anymore. Marla had it.

  She spun and danced among the spiders, trailing witchfire in shimmering arcs and crazy swirls of emerald light. The thick impact of blows on spider bodies punctuated the roiling, crackling whoosh of the torch as Marla beat them back. Garrett smiled in spite of his fear to witness the fiery beauty of Marla's defense.

  Warren growled. Garrett turned to see his friend who was now completely covered in spiders. The ghoul flailed wildly, tearing the creatures free and casting them away. More scuttled in as quickly as he could knock them off. The spiders jabbed their fangs against the ghoul's thick hide, unable to penetrate it, but causing him considerable misery.

  Garrett leapt forward, slashing with his knife at one of the creatures clinging to his friend's leg, but the blade glanced harmlessly off its leathery back.

  Then Marla appeared, wreathed in arcs of green flame as she swept the spiders from Warren's back with savage blows from her torch.

  A moment later, Warren stood, free of the beasts, yet still swinging drunkenly at empty air. He paused, opened his eyes and brushed his paws over his shoulders, checking his back for spiders.

  Marla twirled the torch between her fingers and smiled up at him.

  Warren shuddered, wiping his palms on his shaggy haunches. He looked at Marla in wonder then glanced down, shamefaced.

  "Thanks," Warren said quietly.

  "Yeah, thanks Marla," Garrett said, "You were amazing!"

  Marla grinned, shifting her weight from foot to foot. "Thanks for letting me borrow your torch, Garrett." She offered it back to him.

  "Uh, you'd better let her keep it," Warren said. He jabbed Garrett in the shoulder to get his attention and pointed further up the hallway.

  At the edge of the firelight, dozens of huge scuttling spiders hung back, watching them. From the darkness beyond them, something even bigger approached.

  A spider the size of a horse crawled down the tunnel toward them. Its skin glistened in the torchlight, black and shiny. Dagger-like fangs flexed, their tips dewed with poison. Garrett glanced back over his shoulder to see more spiders scurrying up the tunnel behind them.

  "What do we do?" Garrett asked.

  "I dunno," Warren said.

  Marla's expression turned grim. She held the torch before her like a two-handed sword.

  The spiders before them parted to allow their enormous companion to pass. Its long, spindly forelegs lifted tentatively as it regarded them with eight obsidian-black eyes.

  Garrett's heart pounded in his chest. Horrible thoughts fought for space in his mind, but the worst of them was the realization that his friends were here because of him.

  "I'm sorry I made us come here," he said.

  Warren looked at him, his eyes wide with fear. "Are you kidding?" he said, "This is the most fun I've had all day!"

  Garrett couldn't help but laugh.

  Marla laughed too. "Same for me, Garrett," she said.

  They all laughed together then, and somehow their situation no longer seemed quite as horrible.

  Then a forth laugh sounded through the web-shrouded tunnel, a high, girlish laugh.

  Warren looked shocked. "Garrett," he said, "I think the spider likes jokes. Think of something funny, quick!"

  "That wasn't the spider," Marla said.

  "Merre'nal lachoala!" a voice called out from somewhere nearby, "Shoo, shoo!"

  The spiders scattered, tumbling over one another to escape. One even scampered over Garrett's boot as he turned to let them pass. They fled up the tunnel into darkness or wriggled back into the thick silken walls. Even the monstrously giant spider wriggled its mandibles nervously and withdrew into shadow.

  The friends looked at one another. Warren shrugged.

  "Whoever it is," Marla whispered, "she speaks draconic."

  "Great," Warren grumbled, "another vampire."

  "I don't think so," Marla said, her voice trailing off as a portion of the wall's webbing stretched and tore free to reveal a dark cloaked figure that stepped into the center of the hallway before them.

  The stranger pulled back the hood of her brown cloak to reveal a young human woman with a round, slightly down-turned face, short brown hair, and large brown eyes that darted from Marla to Warren and settled on Garrett. She smiled, hesitantly. She stood only a little taller than Garrett, and her weight shifted on the toes of her brown boots, as though at any moment she might run away.

  "Is that Anna Gree?" Garrett asked.

  Warren sputtered. "Does that look like a ghost to you?"

  The girl laughed again. Her eyes sparkled in the witchfire light. "I am no ghost," she said, "though I am Anna's friend. If you have come to harm her, I will not allow it."

  "How could we harm a ghost?" Marla asked.

  The stranger regarded Marla for a moment before speaking, "The same way you harm anyone, really... with words."

  "We just want to talk to her," Garrett said, "I promise we won't try to hurt her."

  The girl looked back to him again. Her head tilted a little, and she leaned forward slightly as she studied him.

  "My name is Garrett," he said, "and these are my friends, Warren and Marla. What's your name?"

  The girl jumped as though startled from a daydream. "My name is..." she began, but her hand flew to her lips, and she looked suddenly ashamed. "It isn't important," she said at last. She looked away and pulled the hood back over her head. "Follow me. I'll show you the way to the one you call Anna Gree."

  ****

  They walked until the last of the cobwebbed tunnels lay far behind them. Garrett tried again and again to coax information from the mysterious girl in brown. Again and again, she would only look back over her shoulder at him and smile silently.

  He decided to try a different tact.

  "How did Anna Gree become a ghost?" he asked.

  "Her name is Annalien," the girl in brown said, "and she was once the Verisjha of the city before humans came here."

  "Verisjha?" Garrett asked.

  "
It's like a priestess of sorts," Marla said.

  "I dare not disagree, noble lady," the girl in brown said, "but to call her a priestess implies worship. It is plainer to say that she spoke for her people."

  "Spoke to whom?" Marla asked.

  "To the Ones that made us both, noble lady," the girl answered with a pearly grin.

  Marla frowned.

  "Yeah, so why did she take the flower?" Warren asked.

  "The goblin's flower?" the girl said, "She did not take it."

  "Then who did?" Garrett asked.

  "I did," she said.

  "Why?"

  "Because Annalien asked me to," she said, shrugging her narrow shoulders.

  Warren groaned. "Then why did you..."

  "Stop!" the girl in brown interrupted him. Before them, the tunnel opened into a vast subterranean chamber filled with light. Its walls, composed of white, seamless stone, curved up from the malachite floor to form a great dome overhead. The girl pointed toward the center of the chamber where stood a smaller dome-shaped building. From its many small, irregularly spaced windows poured the shimmering golden light.

  "Ugh," Warren said, shielding his eyes with his paw.

  Marla drew back, leaning against the wall of the tunnel.

  "What's wrong?" Garrett asked, moving to Marla's side.

  "I don't know," she said, looking as thought she might be sick.

  Garrett turned back to the girl in brown to ask her the source of the light. She was gone.

  "Where did she go?" Garrett asked.

  "What?" Warren looked at him, his snout wrinkled.

  "The girl."

  "Marla?" Warren asked.

  "No, the other girl."

  "What are you talking about?"

  "The girl that led us here," Garrett said, "She just disappeared."

  "I led you here," Warren said.

  Garrett groaned in frustration. "The girl that saved us from the spiders," he said, "Where did she go?"

  "Marla saved us from the spiders," Warren said, "with a little help from me of course."

  Garrett rolled his eyes, waving his hands. "Never mind!"

  He turned to Marla. "Did you see where she went?" he asked.

  "What are you talking about, Garrett?" she said, rubbing her temples with her fingertips.

  "The girl that..." Garrett could no longer remember what it was that he was about to say. Something important was dancing just beyond the grasp of recollection. His mind fought to keep its hold on the thought as it slipped away from him. Garrett stood there, wondering what he had been trying to remember that was so important, and then he looked back to the center of the room and the strangely illuminated little building there.

  "What is that gad-awful light?" Warren said.

  "It's sunlight," Marla whispered.

  Chapter Ten

  "That's as close to it as I'm going," Warren said. The ghoul held a furry forearm over his eyes to block out the golden light that streamed from the little windows of the dome at the center of the room. Marla had been able to approach no further than the tunnel's mouth in the wall of the large outer chamber. The light, she said, made her sick.

  Garrett thought it was beautiful.

  He handed Warren the unnecessary witchfire torch and moved closer to the center dome.

  He should be afraid, part of his brain reasoned. He was here to find a ghost, and ghosts should be frightening, but he could not imagine anything frightening inside that little sunlit house.

  He walked around the perimeter a short distance, squinting his eyes against the brilliance of the light. He soon found an open doorway. His sight still overwhelmed, he could make out no details within. Nevertheless, he stepped through the door.

  Garrett gasped, almost sobbing with the wave of emotion that swept over him as he entered the room. Golden warmth filled his body, and a scent like a summer meadow brought tears of half-remembered joys to his dazzled eyes. His knees trembled beneath him, and Garrett reeled, leaning a gloved hand against the stone doorframe for support. His fingers tingled as though he had plunged his bare hand into a stream of warm water. He pulled back his hand and stared at it, almost daring to rip the glove off to see if the scars were still there. Then he mastered himself, and his hand balled into a fist at his side.

  "Welcome," a woman's voice said.

  Slowly the golden glow dimmed enough that Garrett could make out the interior of the room. The domed chamber seemed larger inside than it had from the outside. All manner of plants filled the room, planted in urns and troughs, stacked upon shelves and hanging in baskets above him. A large circular pool of blue water dominated the center of the room, and, from the center of the pool, rose a low stone pillar. Atop the pillar sat what appeared to be a crystal shard about the span of Garrett's hand. The crystal shimmered with what could only be described as pure sunlight. Garrett had seen no light so beautiful in the three years since coming to the city of Wythr.

  A movement in the corner of his eye drew his attention, and there he saw his first ghost.

  Anna Gree stood a foot taller than Garrett. She was a slim woman, though obviously not a human. Her overly large eyes glowed a pale blue. Indeed her thin body and her ornate robes gave off a faint azure glow, and he could see the wall behind her through her translucent form. She wore long, wispy hair that hung straight down on either side of her heart-shaped face, though the tips of her long, delicate ears poked out. She smiled at him, and he smiled back. His eyes fell then to the wasted stumps where her hands should have been.

  "Hi," he said, a bit hesitantly, "My name is Garrett."

  "I know," the ghost replied, "My friend told me about you. Your friends are waiting outside, I take it?"

  "Yes," he said, "the light is too bright for them."

  "But it's not too bright for you?"

  Garrett grinned. "I think it's wonderful!"

  Anna Gree's smile widened.

  "Your friend told you about me?" Garrett asked.

  The ghost watched him for a moment and then nodded.

  "Your name is Annalien, isn't it?" Garrett said.

  "How did you know that?" the ghost asked.

  "I don't know... I just did," he said, "It's like there's something..."

  "Something you're forgetting?" Annalien mused.

  "Yeah," Garrett said, "It seems like I can almost remember, but then it's gone again."

  Annalien laughed, glancing sideways. "Very interesting."

  "Do you know what it is?" he asked.

  "It's not my place to say," Annalien answered, "but I've got a feeling it will come back to you in time."

  "I hope so," he said.

  "So, why did you come here?" she asked.

  "Oh," Garrett said, "I'm sorry. I came here because the goblin king said that you had his flower."

  Annalien laughed, a high, musical laugh. "Yes, yes, I did steal his flower, I suppose."

  "Would you mind giving it back?" Garrett said, "I mean I could take it back for you, if you'd let me."

  Annalien did not answer, but moved closer to Garrett, her ghostly sandaled feet making no sound as she approached him.

  Garrett felt suddenly uncomfortable, wanting to step back, but he forced himself to stand his ground as the ghost drew near.

  "You don't seem very afraid of me," Annalien said, stopping only a few steps away from Garrett.

  "I... I guess I am a little," he admitted, "I've never seen a ghost before. It's just..."

  "Just what?"

  "Well, you don't seem very scary," he said, "and this place isn't very scary either."

  "Your friends didn't find it very inviting."

  "They don't really like sunlight very much," he said.

  "I see," Annalien said.

  "Why is there sunlight here?" Garrett asked, "I mean, how can there be?"

  Annalien looked back over her shoulder to the glowing crystal shard at the center of the room and sighed. "It is beautiful, isn't it? I thought so myself when I first saw it. The day th
e Old World died. The day I died."

  "I don't understand," Garrett said.

  Annalien smiled and motioned for him to have a seat on a low stone bench, half-hidden among the ivy. She sat down beside him. She started to reach out to him with a handless stump then drew it back, looking away.

  "I lost my hands when I picked it up," she said, "It had fallen from the sky, landing in the forest near the city. I saw it fall and followed it, believing that it was a sign that we might be saved. We had no hope, you see. The dragons had all fled away, and the elves simply awaited our doom."

  "What doom?" Garrett asked.

  She regarded him silently for a moment. "Why you're little more than a child!" she exclaimed.

  "I'm thirteen," he said.

  She laughed again.

  "Garrett!" Warren called from outside, "You all right in there?"

  "I'm fine," Garrett answered, "Can you see well enough to come in?"

  "Uh, I think I'll stay out here as long as you're all right."

  "Your friend is very brave," Annalien chuckled.

  Garrett said nothing.

  "Ah, yes," the ghost said, "you asked what doom came to the elves. I owe you an answer."

  "How many moons are there in the sky?" she asked.

  Garrett paused, wondering if he had misunderstood the question. "One moon," he said.

  "Correct!" she said, "At least you are correct now. There was a time, long ago, when your answer would have seemed to me as foolish as my question seemed to you. There were once two moons in the sky."

  Garrett stared at her in disbelief.

  "One, the moon you know now, silver and pale, still watches over the world above, but she had a sister. A crystal moon once hung in the sky beside her, and, because of her, there was no night. This second moon caught the light of the sun and cast it back down on the face of the world when the sun had set, and all the world reveled in her beauty.

  "Most of all, the dragons loved the crystal moon, for dragons love beautiful things, and nothing was so beautiful to them as her light. It was the only thing they loved that they could not possess, for their domain extended only to the skies above and not beyond. For this reason, they made a pact with a thing that could traverse the blackness between the worlds... a creature which had the power to give them the one thing they desired but could not reach."