The necromancer took first the washcloth, then comb, to the child's filthy hair. It took the necromancer longer than expected to finish the work of untangling the matted mess. This was longer than the necromancer had ever taken with any other child before, and the effort to hide its strange nature would soon fail, it was sure.
The necromancer knew that it had once been a normal human being, it was still technically a human, but the things it had done, the things it had seen and that it knew, had changed its mind if not its body.
The necromancer thought about the effectiveness of the kindness it had painstakingly learned to affect with the children in its care as it worked. An outside observer might think that the things it did it did reluctantly, that the necromancer was a tortured soul whose greed and lust for power overcame its humanity, but they would be wrong.
The children knew this, or at least, the children eventually figured it out as they interacted with the necromancer. Normal grown adults were often much more easily manipulated, children somehow, saw to the heart of the necromancer, even through its meticulously formulated disguise.
The truth of the matter was, the necromancer had crafted this lie of love for its own comfort, as it didn’t much care for the wailing of children. Oddly, it had discovered that its work also went much more smoothly when it fooled the children until they inevitably figured out the truth. Even the most dimwitted of the creatures always seemed to, near the end.
The necromancer had a new trick it wanted to try that might bypass the screaming, fear, kicking, and biting, and all-around tedium of the next part of its work. “Close your eyes and cover your ears child. Something very loud and very bright is about to happen, and I don’t want it to hurt you.” The little girl's face was awash in fear, but she complied, crunching her eyes shut tight, which made her face do the same in a way that a normal human being might consider “cute,” while covering her ears with both hands pressing as tightly as her little arms would allow her.
“Grahgma’tech, lie’chtek, beee’na’tech…” The necromancer began chanting the words to the spell as it put down the hand towel, its work cleaning the sacrifice completed. That same hand came back with its next tool. The necromancer raised the dagger above the child, whose eyes and ears were still shut, and she plunged the dagger down.
The necromancer didn’t hear the cry of pain and fear from the child. No, its ears were filled with the rush of mana and power it received as the altar accepted the sacrifice, and the child's soul was released to wherever the souls of children go.
Every necromancer knew to never attempt to capture the souls of children, or they would attract the wrath of a force greater than anything on Ethria, but the mana in the blood? In the bone, in the pain and suffering? Well, that was fair game, and potent. And intoxicating.
She withdrew the dagger from the child's chest, ending its life, and freeing her to act as she pleased. She examined herself and realized that she had regained more of her memories from before the slumber, more of her knowledge about magic and the world.
Almost more important to her was the realization that she was female and the knowledge of who she was. Her self awareness reemerged. Up until now she realized, she had been a creature of instinct, of calculated logic, fueled by one thought, to restore herself to what she had been before she had followed her master into the long slumber.
She called in her goblin minions. The fetid swamp goblins she used as cannon fodder, tool fetchers, and guards, were the best thing her instinctive self had been able to conquer up tell know. She vowed to do better going forward, of course, she had once ruled much grander creatures than these. But for now, they would do.
Three goblins rushed in and began to remove the body of the dead child. The girl had sandy brown hair, and green eyes, with deeply tanned skin. Physical features distinctive of the horse clans from where the girl had been stolen. The necromancer felt then, for just an incomprehensibly short moment, deep down in the very foundations of what was left of her rotted corpse of a soul, the tiniest connection to the child, and an echo of guilt.
And then she realized that she had notifications to attend to, notifications about her sacrifices, about what each was doing to and for her, about her growing power. She laughed then, long and hard. The sound echoing off the halls of the ruin she now inhabited and into the deep caves of the world. There were hundreds of them.
Interlude 3: The Wildcat
“Cats rule the world.” - Jim Davis
The wildcat stalked the forest-that-was-not-a-forest, three silver moons above its head providing enough light for it to see, but not enough to reveal it to its prey. The forest-that-was-not-a-forest smelled of too many humans packed too closely, the wildcat didn’t understand why they tolerated the smell. She was happy for it, as it made the humans dull and masked her own scent from her prey.
The wildcat licked its teeth and hunched down behind a small outcropping of rocks that the humans had piled on top of one another as some kind of shelter. The wildcat had seen other creatures, such as meerkats, do this on the wide-open plains, but those where small prey barely worth her notice. She wondered why the humans here felt they needed such things. The humans from her home forests never acted like this, they never put stone on stone. Though the wildcat had to admit, they did put tree on tree, which was odd enough in her mind.
She sniffed the air again, and she caught the barest hint of the scent of her prey. It smelled of putrid magics, smoke, and fire. She was close, she had stalked it several times over the last few moon cycles, and the wildcat had realized that at least once every moon cycle the prey would walk by this particular pile of stacked stones long after the sun had fallen and the moons had risen. And so, the wildcat waited. Revenge, in the most primal of senses, her only intent.
Her prey had stolen her human sister months ago. And though the wildcat had searched for her human sibling, she to her greatest shame had failed in that regard. If she couldn’t find her sibling, she could at least find the creature who had been there when she had been taken.
The wildcat waited patiently, watching as humans slowly drained away off the streets. Her prey was nearby, waiting for the humans to leave. Her prey, the wildcat had found, was kept away by the smell of other humans. Something the wildcat could sympathize with. Eventually, there were no more beings on the streets, and her prey stepped into the open.
The wildcat licked its teeth again, trying to keep her anticipation from overwhelming her hunting sense. She waited, patiently, as the human that was her prey, walked up to the piece of wood that blocked entrance into the human den. She sniffed and smelled smoke, fire, and the faintest scent of her sibling.
The wildcat pounced, the prey screamed, and the moons shone down brightly on the crimson blood that now bathed the cobblestones.
Chapter 8: Learning, and Power
“Scientia potentia est, cela bene! Knowledge is power, hide it well!” - Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War, Librarian
Lo’sar City, Lo’sar Forrest under the Home-trees. Frega, 28th, 2987 AoR
I woke up a short time before noon, the sun beating down almost directly into the clearing. All around me were elves pleasantly bathing in the sun, sleeping, reading, or picking at the leftover food from the night before. The food looked just as fresh as when it was first made, and as I inspected it I chose a small selection of fruit that seemed like very close analogs to what we had on Earth. Tol’geth was already gone, probably preparing for the trip we would be making later in the day to the site I had proposed as a Winters Quarters for the Pervolins, the people I was brought to Ethria to help.
As I bit down into what seemed like an apple, but that had the texture of something more like a banana, Ailsa drearily floated over and settled herself on my shoulder, leaning against my head for support as she groaned groggily. “Good morning to you too,” I said before cheerfully taking another bite of my apple-banana.
“I hate you…” Ailsa said, her voice trailing off as she fought to stay awake.
“... You’re far too happy in the mornings.”
“Poor thing.” A young feminine voice said from behind me. I turned, still chewing, and found an elf woman I had never seen before. She was tall, almost as tall as me with dirty blond hair that was mostly brown in a ponytail. She wore a leather apron with leather workman's gloves tucked in her aprons belt strings. Her hands were filled with a few of the same meat pies I had been eating the night before. “She must be exhausted! All that spell work last night, and then waking up so early with so little sleep.” Her eyes were filled with compassion for my fairy friend.
Her gaze landed on me and her expression became stern. “Fairies don’t have the mana regeneration capabilities us larger folk, even you humans. All those spells last night? That was not a kind thing to ask of her. Especially just for entertainment purposes.”
I was about to respond that all of Ailsa’s spell work and mana constructs the night before where her own doing, and all I had asked her help with was projecting the songs. Before I could even open my mouth to say that however, Ailsa spoke.
“Oh, master. I do hope I did good for you last night master. All those spells? It was such hard work.” She stretched her back, arms and wings to the sky before continuing, all the time the elf women’s expression grew darker and darker. “I was so happy to see your friends cheer and laugh as I spent my hard generated mana for their entertainment.”
I raised both my hands in defense “Ailsa come on, stop with the master bit. She’s getting really mad.”
“Oh,” She said sounding utterly dejected. “Please don’t pretend I don’t serve you, master…” Ailsa was interrupted as a pair of gloves smacked me in the face. Ailsa, laughing like a madwoman, flared her wings and made her escape into the air.
“You little brat!” I said reaching for her as she kept herself just barely out of reach. A few seconds of me trying to catch her went by before I turned back to the now red-faced elf woman empty-handed. “Please excuse her. She doesn’t do well in the mornings. As you can see, she is in no way my ‘slave’ or even my servant.”
“Then, what is she to you?” The elf asked confusion taking over where anger and embarrassment had just been.
“Shes, well, at first she was my guide to this, uh, continent. But now? Well, she’s saved my life, and I've saved hers a number of times. I think it's safe to say we are friends.” I said as I glared at Ailsa as she landed back on my shoulder, folded her wings, and leaned against me again. I sighed, bent down and retrieved the workman's gloves.
“You have found ‘Dwarven Workman's Gloves of Rhino Leather’ +4 to all skills involving the crafting of or with metal of any kind. +10 armor. -98% chance of metal spillage or damage taken from hot metal while crafting wearing these gloves. Description: These gloves were handcrafted by the Dwarven Grandmaster Rune Smith Dax’drin the Unbreakable for his one and only non-dwarven apprentice, Shil’a’kin the Elf, to quote the grandmaster himself, ‘To protect her dainty little hands from the hot fire.’”
“Shil’a’kin?” I asked as I handed the gloves up to the elf.
She nodded “Yeah, read the description did you?” She smirked slightly. “Master Dax was a hard case, but the fact he made these meant he actually cared. Or at least that's what I like to tell myself.” We stood there for a few seconds awkwardly.
“So, my name is Daaaa, I mean Rayid.” I extended my hand for her to shake, and she grabbed my wrist in an old nordic fashion.
“Nice to meet you, Rayid. I’m the towns smith.”
“Ah, I was actually going to go and find you at some point today. I have a project I was going to ask about.” As we released each other's wrists, Shil’a’kin raised her eyebrows questioningly. “I found a length of wear wood ash I was hoping to turn into a proper wizards staff.”
“Really? That is a really lucky find.” I nodded.
“He’s stupid lucky sometimes. Other times? He picks fights with Tol’geth and almost dies.” Ailsa said from my shoulder.
“Well, kind of,” I explained. Shil’a’kin smiled, grabbed the gloves from my outstretched hand, and tucked them back into her apron strings.
“The project sounds like fun, and shouldn’t be too big. Bring it by some time today and I'll take a look. Right now, I have a bunch of nails and other building supplies that I need to go make molds for. The council said something about helping a bunch of people coming north, who had a young wizard speaking for them. I wonder who that could be?” She asked grinning.
I watched her leave up one of the shadowed walkways that connected the entire town, which was made up of different canopied clearings and treehouses. When she was gone Ailsa asked “I heard your reasoning yesterday, but you seem pretty driven to help a bunch of people you have never even met before. I mean, I get why I'm doing this. And Tol’geth too, for him it's all about honor and helping those weaker than himself, and he’s getting your help rescuing Pina after we’re done getting things organized here. But why you?”
“Because I want to go home,” I said dismissing the question as I gathered up the fruit I had dropped on the ground when Shil’a’kin threw her gloves at me.
“Oh come on, it's more than that.” Ailsa prodded. I sighed.
“Okay fine. There is more to it than that.” I stood and began walking in a random direction, just exploring the clearings around the two large Home-trees. “Let me start by saying that up until we reached Cutters Hollow, I felt swept up in events. I wasn’t really acting, I was reacting, and I hate that feeling. It was a lack of control, lack of initiative. Once we got to town, I had some time to breathe and think about things. I saw what was around me, and I saw those barges just sitting there empty, I started to have an actual plan.”
“So it's just that you’re finally feeling back in control?” Ailsa asked. She wasn’t trying to shame me or to catch me. She was just genuinely curious.
“Well, kind of. And not so much. Yes, I don’t like being swept up in the current of events.” I said as I walked. The buildings in the town that surrounded the Home-trees were amazing, some of them were simple and in that simplicity were beautiful. Others were riots of color both in their paint and in the flowers that grew both around the base of the trees and from the tree branches themselves. Some trees had multiple colors blooming all at once. Some in different shades, and shapes.
“But more important than that, after hearing their situation in more detail from you as we traveled to the Hollow, I found a real connection between what they are going through now, and what my ancestors, the Mormon Pioneers, went through back on Earth. And I think that knowing those stories, and the hardships that they went through, made me want to help the Pervolins avoid at least some of that.”
As I walked around I eventually found my way to where Shil’a’kin was working at billows. A stack of five or six large bricks of something I didn’t quite understand, where inside a massive furnace, and she was pumping air into them like a madwoman. I waved hello but she ignored me focused only on her task.
I began walking around the smithy, found a large empty work table, and leaned my walking stick against it, out of the way with a note attached to it, explaining what I had done with the runes, and what I was hoping to get by turning it into a staff. I left it where she would see it, but it wouldn’t be in her way as she worked, or so I hoped.
“You see, members of my faith had to go through a lot of really bad things before they were able to find somewhere that was safe for them to live.” We were nearly halfway finished walking around the central clearing with homes, and workplaces that circled it each marked by signs in clear scripted elvish.
“Like what?” Ailsa asked, sounding more awake as I walked and she had time to wake up. As she stretched her wings again, I thought about what story to tell her, there were a lot of them. Though there were stories with more death, disease, hardship, battle, and even an extermination order during the early Mormon church history, Nauvoo just seemed the most unfair to me.
“Well, take the city
of Nauvoo,” I said, and Ailsa did. She pulled up the old-style internet interface that she had been using for the last few days and went to Wikipedia, the old text version my parents still sometimes used. As she scrolled through some images, I told the story. I explained how my ancestors were forced from their homes due to religious ignorance and violence multiple times, first from places like New York and Boston, then Independence Missouri and Nauvoo.
I explained that Nauvoo had been turned from a feted swamp that nobody wanted, into a city of marble, stone, and brick that was once called the ‘pearl of the Mississippi’ as it was for a short time, one of the most economically important ports along the great river.
“Eventually, after mobs killed Joseph Smith, us Mormons left west in an exodus that lasted months. This wasn’t fast enough for some people though, and nearly eight hundred militia using several large artillery pieces began the Siege of Nauvoo by surrounding and attacking the city. The Mormons that remained surrendered and were kicked out of the city they had built, with nothing but the clothes on their backs.” I said, finishing the story.
“But that’s not even the half of it really, remind me some time to tell you about how a bunch of crazy communist types moved into the ruins of the town and made it a center for their cult,” I said and Ailsa smiled.
“I’m reading about them now.” She explained. “But one thing is still bothering me. Why barges? They look so uncomfortable and impractical.”
“Well, people won't have to be on them for very long. Just a day or two while they ride north from the Twins. That's the plan anyway. I got the idea because a lot of foreign Mormon converts at the time used barges and steamboats to…” I was cut off as a clear silver bell rang across the clearing, it was joined by a second bell, and as I turned around I found the sources of the sounds where the large Home-trees themselves.
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