“Yeah, he’s fine.”
“Uhm, Damon… why is it not attacking us?” Harold asked.
“Because I told him it’s okay,” Damon responded.
The party sat in silence. (Excluding the occasional contented snore from the creature.)
Neither Damon nor Stella seemed to notice. They were chatting amicably, as if nothing had happened. It was Sasha who broke the silence.
“I for one, still don’t know what that thing is.”
“I think it’s a basilisk,” Harold replied.
“A what?” John asked.
“A basilisk, a reptilian creature that resides in caves and hunts wildlife at night.” Harold said the definition automatically, although John did of course know what a basilisk was. Linaera guessed the after-effects of the attack had gotten to him.
“He thought we were trying to take over his home. I told him we just want to be away from the storm,” Damon continued.
The party looked at him in mute disbelief.
“Wait a minute, you can… talk to it?” John asked again.
He seems so different from when he proudly told us he’d kill one.
“I think Damon is a dragon whisperer,” Sasha said.
“Indeed,” Harold agreed.
“A what?” John asked again.
“A dragon whisperer is a gifted mage who can talk to creatures of magic, like dragons. It seems their talents apply to basilisks as well,” Harold replied, giving another weary look at the basilisk.
“Well, hasn’t this been an interesting day?” Jake asked.
In a rare moment, Linaera agreed with him.
ELEVEN
Neshvetal sat on his throne, listening closely as the Dragethir went through its report.
“—We encountered a group of about a dozen elves trekking just outside the forest to the south-west of here, Master,” it said.
“Were they armed?” Neshvetal asked.
“I believe they carried bows and swords, Master. They were easy meat.” A satisfied expression roosted on its face, like that of a starving man having just eaten a feast.
Neshvetal laughed.
“Very well then, I shall go with you and Raise them.”
“Raising” was the term used in Necromancy to describe the act of Raising the dead. It required power, and blood.
“What will you make of them, Master?”
Necromancers had the ability to create more than one type of monster: although the walking corpse (properly referred to as the “Revenant”) was the most common one, there were other, more potent creatures that could be created. They required more power and skill however.
“I shall decide when we reach there, good Dragethir. But you are indeed right – I will need something… special, for them.”
The thing chuckled, and called out to its subordinates.
“Prepare, ye snivelling crows! The master flies with us!”
“Aye, captain!” replied the other Dragethir.
Neshvetal, in his great power, had developed the ability to fly for short distances. It was something that Leira was extremely envious of – she regularly asked when she would be able to do so, and to which Neshvetal always patronisingly replied: “When you are ready, little one.”
Despite this, Neshvetal made creatures like the Dragethir to act as his scouts. Although there were other, more dangerous creatures, the Dragethir were the easiest to Raise.
The necromancer walked out of the fortress. The air outside was frigid, and its frozen teeth could bite off extremities just as well as any undead. Clouds hung over the sky, in vast, spinning edifices that drove fear deep into the hearts of his enemies.
The other Dragethir filed up: their claws were bloody from their excursion, and each face was pulled into a hungry sneer. All of them were tall, inhuman beings, towering over any normal man. And yet, they were slightly shorter than the lead Dragethir; for dark magic was unpredictable, and some creatures ended up being more powerful than others. This phenomenon only occurred with more powerful creatures: Revenants were all alike.
“Master, shall we go?” the captain asked.
“We have tarried long enough. Lead the way.”
The Dragethir assembled into formation, the captain at the front, the others at the back and on the flanks; Neshvetal remained sandwiched in the middle.
“Commence flight!” the captain roared.
As the Dragethir blew their wings, Neshvetal summoned his flight magic. His consciousness reached out, and he became aware of the air around him: aware of its solid, yet malleable texture; aware of how it seemed to move in currents, driven by forces complex; and finally, he was intimately aware of how easy it was for him to control it.
The Dragethir flew, and Neshvetal followed.
His senses tingled from the onslaught of wind that buffeted him left and right as they increased in altitude. He paid it no heed. Necromancers enjoyed the cold.
Underneath him, like a disappearing wave, lay the landscape. The mountains were tall, incredibly so: they gazed upon the ground like carefree giants, warm with their superiority. Yet even they had to look up to him.
Soon, those peaks will be covered in snow, and the ice will glimmer red in the sun with the blood of those I have slain. It was an amusing proposition somehow, so vainglorious. He would have laughed, but the stinging wind prevented him from doing so.
The Dragethir twisted its wings, altering their direction towards the south-west Like a sea-farer adjusting his sails, Neshvetal changed the current around him to follow suit.
He enjoyed flying, but travelling for too long would quickly exhaust even his great power. It was fortunate then, that they only flew for a matter of minutes before they began to descend, else Neshvetal doubted he could have performed the ceremony as well as he liked.
Neshvetal felt the wind die down against his shield as they descended towards sea-level. The landscape gradually sharpened to reveal dense pine forests, the floor underneath them covered with fallen leaves…
And corpses.
Neshvetal smiled when he saw their still forms, their bodies mangled by the Dragethir claws; their bows, hanging uselessly in their hands. Their green cloaks and insignias marked them distinctively as elves, although unfortunately for them, they were not of the magic-wielding type: for that was one of the few things that could be considered a serious weapon against the undead.
Besides fire and magic, only total dismemberment would suffice in killing them.
And that was not a feat easily accomplished with arrows. Neshvetal was distracted from his thoughts when the Dragethir posed its question:
“The sacrifices have been chained nearby. Do you wish to proceed?”
“Ah yes, the sacrifices. Bring them in,” Neshvetal replied.
In order to perform Raising, a necromancer must travel to limbo – the place between life and death where recently killed souls were transported – to bind them to the subject corpses. To do that, sacrificial killing was required. The more complex the spell, and the more corpses being raised, the more life force was required. Eventually, that would need human life, and plenty of it.
The Dragethir returned, three of them carrying struggling figures on their back.
“These were captured on a recent expedition. We chained them to a tree before we came for you,” the captain Dragethir proclaimed.
“Dragethir, you are dead now, but the living can freeze. Keep that in mind, or the next sacrifices will be dead and of no use to me,” Neshvetal chided it.
It winced. Although the undead could not feel any physical pain, the ones who possessed thought were magically whip-lashed whenever they displeased their master.
Neshvetal turned his attention to the sacrifices. One was a woman, two were men; all three were peasants. They wore their usual brown and grey rags. Neshvetal snorted. He despised them for their weakness and inability to stand up for themselves when corrupt mages took away all of their possessions.
But now they will serve a g
reater purpose, he thought. They were all gagged, but with a flick of his mind, Neshvetal ungagged the woman. She had dull, lustreless eyes and a long, but dirty, flock of hair. She was older: around forty, Neshvetal guessed. The others were younger – the Dragethir had informed him they were her sons.
“Foul monster! Leave us be! We have done you no harm!” she shouted.
“You are weak, woman. You did not stand up for yourself when the mages’ cronies came and took away your goods, did you? You shall take no part in my society. Be grateful that you will be used for my honourable cause and not turned into Dragethir meat.”
Before she could protest any further, Neshvetal silenced her. She struggled against his mind, struggled like a child against a man. But her will was weak: she would not utter another word.
He prepared for the ceremony. The Dragethir moved to obey his unspoken command, tying the humans to the middle. Around them, Neshvetal sketched out a pentagram with his stick, and took a few black candles out of his robe. (He had procured them long ago, when he was only a beginner in the art. What could he say? He was nostalgic.)
With a casual gesture, the candles lit themselves. He placed them around the humans. The other two – the boys – widened their eyes.
Interesting. They seem to know what will happen to them. Very well.
“Mano a nos libera sed,” Neshvetal began, forming the harsh words of the Aeglâr tongue.
The pentagram began to glow. It was an eerie, supernatural glow, like the azure illumination of underground crystals. The air was charged; power hung. It reminded Neshvetal of an electric storm… only far more deadly.
“Tentationem in inducas nos ne et,” he continued. He felt the power rise within him.
KILL! KILL! KILL! it seemed to urge.
“Nostris debitoribus,” Neshvetal intoned the final words of the ceremony.
Suddenly, darkness pooled around the edges of the pentagram. Neshvetal felt icicles cover his skin as the dark magic took hold around him. The world seemed poised for something to happen, and Neshvetal then did the real completion act – he took a long, curved dagger and systematically sliced the throats of all the struggling humans.
The moment their blood touched the ground, it seemed to hiss and bubble. Above the now dead villagers, an azure portal of shining energy collated.
The world blurred around Neshvetal, and a moment later, he was pulled into Limbo.
***
The peasants were superstitious and had many misconceptions about death, but they had one thing right: Limbo.
The world around him was formless; dead; dull. The sky hung lower than it should, and it had no colour. The closest thing the living could describe it as was grey, though that wasn’t really true: grey was a colour in its own right, a mixture of all the hues but partially absorbed. This colour was not grey: it wasn’t anything at all.
There was something like grass underneath his feet, but it had no colour and no texture. It just was.
In the edges of his vision, he could see shadows passing through at incomprehensible speeds, eating up distance until they were out of sight and new ones appeared. But if Neshvetal had tried to look at them directly, he would have seen nothing. He would have only seen the same grass-but-not-grass, stretching out into infinity.
What he was able to see, however, were the spirits of the dead elves. One in particular stood out – the leader, the one who wore the unmistakable insignia on his chest. (His clothes might have once been dark green in colour, though now they appeared… void.)
He was a pretty elf, as they all were: his green eyes shone brilliantly in the otherwise colourless world around him. (They were gateways to the true self, the soul, Neshvetal had read. He wasn’t entirely convinced, but what did he know?) His mouth was curved and full; his face was all sharp angles and delicate features.
“Hello. Who are you? Do you know where I am?” he asked Neshvetal.
An aspect that the peasants did not know about was that for Neshvetal to raise the dead, he had to convince the spirits of his benevolence first.
“I am… you need not know who I am. I am a friend, someone who has come to get you out of here,” he replied, feigning sympathy. The good part about this was that the spirits were confused and thus, gullible, in this state.
“A friend? Well, that’s nice. But where am I?”
“You are… dead,” Neshvetal replied simply.
“Dead? But… I don’t feel dead,” the elf said, confused.
“No, but you are all the same. Follow me, and I will bring you back to the land of the living.”
One thing he enjoyed was not telling them lies – he had said “bring back to the land of the living” not “make you alive again”.
The elf narrowed his eyes however. Elves were always a challenge: they too, were a master of misdirection, and some of that continued even in death.
“How do I know I can trust you?”
“Look around. All is bleak, empty. Do you see me? I am real. I am alive,” Neshvetal replied. It was true that his power gave off a slight aura that could be perceived in colour.
That finally pushed the elf over the edge.
“Oh, okay… friend. I am Kalensr, elf of the Northern Forests. I shall follow you,” Kalensr said.
Neshvetal smiled. Names were power in this world, and it would make it all the easier for him to be controlled now. He began to turn around, before voices called out:
“We want to come too!”
The other elves.
Neshvetal slowly turned around, as if in surprise. (He wasn’t really: he was expecting them.)
The elves themselves were all different: some male, some female. They were all tall and graceful however, and many of them had that light blond hair and chestnut-coloured eyes that characterised them. They also all wore the same trousers, shirts and cloaks.
“Very well then, all follow me,” Neshvetal said, looking at each of them in turn and hypnotising them with his power. Another little known fact – spirits often banded around other, stronger spirits in Limbo, and followed them around like sheep.
This was all very convenient for Neshvetal, who felt the world around him shaking and groaning as if in pain. He could only stay here for so long without becoming dead himself. The sacrifice may have opened the portal, but it was his power that kept him in Limbo.
He walked back into the realm of the living, the world growing white around him and then gradually sharpening itself back to where he had left it.
***
The summoned spirits glowed blue, and then seemed to struggle like puppets without their strings. The pentagram had the added advantage of not only focusing power, but also acting as a prison for those without form.
Neshvetal took out a small black book: his spellbook. Its cover was made from human skin; its pages ran with the blood of many.
Even he couldn’t remember all of the complex dark magic spells by heart. And he had plans for this lot.
He had decided on making them Aêgland – a special type of Revenant. They would remain intelligent; they would appear human; they would be death.
Contrary to what many said, the undead did not require his power to survive. Once he had bound the spirits to their respective hosts, they would draw all of their power through their unholy connection to the afterlife. This had the added benefit of making him stronger – the more undead, the more power he could draw upon.
“Statuo mori et vivere caritate hack in,” he began again.
The spirits wavered, as if undecided. Neshvetal continued chanting.
“Dignum dilectione omni, bonum perfectissimumet, infinitum summum es tu quia.” Slivers of power attached themselves on to the spirits. They were like chains: powerful, controlling, unbreakable.
“Kalensr, statuo mori et vivere misericors, et benignus, fidelis potnes infinite es qui promisitiquia consecuturum.”
The spirits wailed, and screamed, and struggled. Then they were pulled into their undead bodies.
; Neshvetal shook with fatigue. The more powerful the creatures he was summoning, the more energy it took him. People often wondered why necromancers didn’t just continually raise the most powerful creatures in their arsenal. That was because even a powerful necromancer could raise far more mindless Revenants than other, intelligent undead.
The corpses buckled and shook by some unseen force. But Neshvetal saw the glowing blue orbs of light, invisible to non-magical humans, as they entered their hosts.
Soon my pretties, you will rise. Then my enemies will find out just how fast the dead can move.
TWELVE
After the Raising, the Dragethir carried him back to base.
Truthfully, he had wished to fly himself. Raising such powerful undead was tiresome work, however: he felt too magically exhausted to consider flying back.
He once again entered the fortress.
The walls were grey granite, carted by the Dead; the floor was smooth, polished marble; magi-lamps burned in their stools, casting a pleasant illumination. (Their light was yellow: newer lamps burned white like daylight, but Neshvetal found the old colour more to his tastes.)
He opened the huge, oaken door that marked his study.
Inside, there stood his usual: a mahogany work table, covered with quill and ink; paintings of ancient artistry; jewels; and various opened books. One read: “A Necromancer’s Guide to Making Hexes”.
Neshvetal smiled – hexes were a particularly nasty type of binding spell that could wreak havoc for the unfortunate victim.
On the walls, there were oak shelves, all containing volumes of magic. Many had the black leather covers that dark magic books shared. Some were in different colours, be it red, gold or blue – they concerned more “traditional” magics. Neshvetal relaxed on the chair, an affair of smooth leather and wood, which creaked under years of use.
Before he got down to reading the book, he heard Leira walking down the corridors. His unnaturally sharp hearing allowed him to hear her steady breathing: something he lacked, ever since he cast the spells that would keep him on Arachadia forever. Soon, she would do the same thing, and continue a legacy of her own.
She knocked on the door, gently.
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