The Heart of a Necromancer

by Eddie Patin

  Scanning through the journal past the pictures, Jason found tons of info. There wouldn't be time to get into it now—not until they were home and rested, for sure. But he saw a recurring name: Malydamus. Flipping through the book some more, he paused at a cutout from what looked like a Scientific Journal. There was a picture of the necromancer smiling—just his face and shoulders, but definitely him—and a mention of a genetic engineer named Derek Norton working for the United Earth Alliance.

  "United Earth Alliance?" Jason muttered to himself then looked up. "Hey, I think this guy's name was Derek Norton."

  He saw that Riley was looking at the biometric scanner at the front of the room with Morgana and Gliath standing behind him. When no one responded, Jason pulled off his pack and tucked the journal into it.

  "Yeah—the right hand," Riley was saying. "That's what he shot the pistol with. It's probably the one he used for this."

  "Okay," Morgana said, then walked back past Jason with a quick glance and a smile. She produced shining Dawnbringer from her ring and unceremoniously chopped off the necromancer's hand.

  Jason nearly choked on his own spit, then swallowed and put his bag back on.

  Morgana brought the hand back to Riley, who took it and pocketed a couple of rings that were on its fingers. Then, he spread out the hand's digits and squished its palm and fingers up against the scanner on the wall.

  The futuristic door slid open almost instantly with a quiet hiss. The quiet, droning room of modern style was immediately overtaken by the loud, crackling and chugging noises of the green-fire machine and the wails and cries of the prisoners chained to the dank, cobblestone walls in the darkness of the other side...

  Chapter 31

  "Get away from me, you bitch!" the trapped Virgin Oracle shrieked as Morgana moved to unhook the manacles' clasps from around the blue-robed woman's wrists. "It's your fault we're here, Soloster!"

  Morgana stepped back and put her hands on her black-robed hips.

  "Do you want to be set free or not?!" she asked.

  Jason walked up behind her, feeling uncomfortable. He wanted to make Morgana feel better. It was wild how these people still glared at her—those that weren't sobbing or lost in their own private horrors in their heads. The blue-robed woman was especially vitriolic. The Oracle's black mask was gone—probably dropped in the mountains somewhere over the gargoyle-ride that brought her here—and Jason looked at a skinny, pale face twisted in fury. The woman was freaking bat-shit. In the pale green glow of his night vision eye—he'd turned it on when they started searching the huge, drafty room—the Virgin Oracle furious eyes definitely showed more than a touch of madness.

  "This is your fault!" she screeched, drawing murmurs and groans from some of the other prisoners lining the walls all the way to the stairs. There were perhaps a dozen men and women in chains; all a collection of clearly starving townsfolk and a few Chosen soldiers still dressed in brigandine armor and clothes bloody from the battle. One man with a golden mask hung limply from his chains, dead; bled out all over the stone floor under him from an untended wound. "Your actions," the Oracle raged, "your misguided rebellion led to the death of the Speaker! Magister Estren is dead because of you!"

  Riley scoffed loudly, drawing Morgana's attention from behind. Jason watched Gliath slowly patrol around the room, leading with his shotgun's muzzle.

  "Just leave the bitch," the cyborg said. "She's crazy."

  Morgana seemed to consider it for a moment then shook her head.

  "She is crazy, yes," the young woman replied. "But it was the necromancer who brought her here; not her crazy actions against me." With that, Morgana reached up again in the face of the sneering, wicked woman and unhooked both manacles. "Help me with these others, please."

  Jason met Riley's gaze. They both shrugged.

  The Virgin Oracle scampered away like a frightened wild animal then rubbed at her white wrists with a scowl on her narrow face. As soon as Morgana released the next villager, the blue-robed woman beckoned him to join her, and he did, rushing over to stare back at the Reality Rifters and Morgana with wide, empty eyes.

  These people were run down, battered and broken, and basically psychotic by now. The Corsairs of the Astral Sea were right. What was that guy's name? Jason wondered. Royce something? Morgana was the only person left among everyone there from New Bozeman that still had any sense.

  Jason smiled at her. Morgana had moved on to free a third prisoner. Jason joined in to help.

  God, he was so tired! Now that they weren't fighting anymore, his eyes and skin buzzed and he was mighty tempted to just lean against a wall and take a nice, long break. The constant roar and crackling of the strange machine in the middle of the huge, dark chamber pulled at Jason like a nightmarish white noise machine. They wouldn't last much longer. They had to get home. They had to get to bed.

  By the time Jason had released a second man—a large-framed dirty individual dressed in rags—he heard Riley laugh loudly behind him. Looking back, Jason saw the soldier standing next to the roaring and chugging contraption that was surrounded by a ring of green fire. Riley stood next to the table with the bloody heart on it. He was pulling open the tall tool cabinet's drawers. Riley's face and chest were illuminated by a strong, golden glow of whatever he'd found inside.

  "What is it?" Jason shouted over the noise.

  "Jackpot!" Riley exclaimed. "There are a fruking lot of golem hearts in here! Gliath, check those shelves. See if you can find another bag of some kind. Tear up some of those sheets if you gotta..."

  That brought a smile to Jason's weary face. Any supply of extra hearts that they didn't have to bash open gargoyles to get to was a wonderful thing.

  He turned back to the next hanging prisoner and found himself looking at the soft, bleary face of a Chosen soldier without his mask. The man's bloodied face was puffy like pizza-dough, smooth a lot like Estren's. He had a 'baby face'. Is it a eunuch thing? Jason thought.

  "Your boss is dead," Jason said. "If I let you go, are you gonna try to kill me?"

  "No sir," the man replied, his eyes surrounded by bruises.

  Jason released him.

  By the time he and Morgana had set all of the still-living prisoners free from their shackles, Jason and Morgana stood near the base of the stairs to the roof. Shattered bones and huge chunks of gargoyle bodies littered the floor and steps around them.

  Morgana watched the prisoners all cluster near the Virgin Oracle. The young woman's face showed what might have been a small amount of exhausted satisfaction. Jason supposed that if she couldn't save her family, and couldn't save all of her people, then rescuing this motley crew of poor souls was better than nothing. Hell—she had freed them to an extent. The necromancer was dead—probably—and that bastard Estren was dead, too. Most of the Virgin Oracles were also gone. Things were going to change for New Bozeman.

  He smiled at the thought, but then found that he didn't really care about New Bozeman at all.

  Jason sure did care about Morgana, though, and seeing just that slightest glimmer of accomplishment on her face made him feel good. He reached out and put a hand on her shoulder, feeling it under the plush cloth of the necromancer's robe.

  Morgana turned to look at him and smiled tiredly.

  She pointed at Riley and Gliath, who were wrapping glowing golem hearts with strips of torn sheets and stacking them in a leather sack.

  "One of those hearts was supposed to be for me," she said. "That's what he did to Estren; pulled out his heart and put one of those glowing ones back in."

  "Fucking ghastly," Jason muttered, watching his friends for a moment before looking back to Morgana. Her green eyes were warm on him. "I'm glad the necromancer didn't ... you know ... take out your heart and all."

  "Me too," she replied with a small laugh that warmed Jason's heart. "Thanks to you. Thank you for rescuing me, Jason."

  Jason felt his cheeks and neck become hot. He wanted to kiss Morgana in that moment more than anything; sta
nding close to her in the necromancer's dark tower surrounded by destruction and death and flaring green fire and the crying of townsfolk being yelled at by—

  "—and this will never stop!" the Virgin Oracle was suddenly shrieking, pointing a long, skinny finger at them from across the room. "She is the cause of your woes! Morgana Soloster is the doom of our people! Do you think that she is strong?! If Morgana was strong, she would have helped the people—our village—fully embrace the Golden Lady! She is a traitor! What doom will she bring upon us next? Look at how she cavorts with these warriors from the stars! She—"

  One moment, Jason was watching the blue-robed woman's furious speech. He could see her riling the people up right in front of him as she stamped and shouted and pointed at Morgana with the fury of Hell.

  The next moment, Jason saw the flurry of Morgana's black-robed form striding across the chamber with fierce determination. The Virgin Oracle's shouting was suddenly cut off as Dawnbringer flared to life, gleaming like the rising sun as it swept through the air in a streaking arc. The twisted woman's pale head suddenly popped off of her shoulders! It fell to the ground, followed by its long, black hair like a dark flag, then bounced twice and stopped. The headless body wrapped in dark-blue robes toppled to the floor. Two terrified people next to the body were left with red blood on their faces.

  All of the townsfolk screamed and shrieked. Men bellowed. All of them cowered from Morgana like bugs from a flashlight as Dawnbringer shined golden and bright, still held in the air at the end of Morgana's swing...

  Jason glanced to Riley and Gliath with wide eyes and saw them both watching, transfixed.

  Morgana slowly lowered the sword.

  "That is the last time anyone will call me or a member of my family a traitor in my presence! If I hear any man—" She looked down and spit. "—or woman say that again, I will take their head!" With that, Morgana bent down, wiped the blade of her gleaming sword on the blue robes of the body, then Dawnbringer vanished. "Look at all of you!" she screamed. "You look upon me with such hatred and fear! Does no one remember who we truly are?! My family built the walls! We protected you for over a hundred years!"

  The people cowered and held each other. Some of them dared to glare at the young woman but no one spoke.

  Jason walked up to Morgana and gently put a hand on her shoulder. When she turned to face him, her expression looked like a cracking dam about to burst. Extending his other arm, Jason invited Morgana in for a hug. She accepted and sank into his embrace, burying her face into his shoulder. Jason couldn't hear her crying over the sound of the necromancer's machine near the golem hearts, but he could feel her shuddering into him. He hugged her, feeling her convulsing back through the robe with his hands.

  Comforting her felt amazing. Jason wanted to just fall asleep holding her right then, hugging her tightly in his arms. His mind buzzed with exhaustion.

  Finally, someone spoke up. It was a man in the group, tall with a thick beard, though thin with his muscles wasted. "Warriors from the stars," the man said loudly and uncertainly.

  Morgana pulled away. Jason saw streaks on her face. They both turned to look at the prisoners.

  "What?" he said.

  "Sir ... how ... are we to get home from here? Will you take us?"

  "We cannot walk home," another villager said. "Not through these mountains full of terrible things..."

  "The Darkness!" someone else muttered barely over the chugging and crackling noises of the necromancer's machine.

  Jason sighed and met Morgana's gaze. Her face revealed nothing. He turned back to Riley and Gliath and saw both of them approaching. Gliath held a large leather bag like a pillow case, stuffed and tied closed.

  "I uh ... I guess I can rift you home," Jason said.

  "Send us home with your magic?" a woman asked.

  "Sure."

  Jason looked at Morgana and the others. He realized that he was still holding her, so broke himself away enough to reach his pouch of focus keys. Pulling out the metal focus key that had given to him by the Corsairs of the Astral Sea, he turned back to the prisoners.

  "I'll send you to the field outside of town," he said.

  "Better not," Riley replied.

  "Why not?"

  "That'll put them like two miles outside of town. It's still night time. There are probably still some gargoyles out there."

  Jason shook his head and chuckled. Duh. He was so damned tired. He met Riley's gaze and smirked.

  "But why do you care?" Jason asked. "Nothing matters, right?"

  Riley scratched his beard and shrugged. "Eh. It's just common sense."

  "Jason," Morgana said. He turned to look at her, almost feeling lost in her eyes. God—he was going full-goober already. Jason smiled and shook his head. "Just open a doorway to my dining hall," she said. "That will be safe."

  Jason's heart sank. Did Morgana intend to go with them? It made sense that she would. She could probably take power again and lead her people in rebuilding the town. It was stupid for him to think that she'd want to go with him. Such a silly idea. Jason felt a crushing weight on his heart and his throat constricted.

  "Uh, okay," he muttered.

  Trying to hide a wave of despair smashing through him, Jason put the focus key away and pulled up his OCS. He navigated to the bookmarked coordinates of the Soloster manor's dining hall. He turned off his night vision so that he wouldn't be blinded then focused on the string of numbers and formulas representing that particular point in this universe's space-time...

  When he opened the rift—filling the huge stone-brick chamber with brilliant, swirling orange fire and added to the noise with the portal's roar and sputtering sparks—all of the townsfolk huddled together and cried out in terror. They clutched at each other and shrank away. Jason watched as the shimmering center of the gateway gradually smoothed out into a vision of Morgana's dark dining hall, still no doubt full of bodies and gore.

  Morgana stepped away from the swirling, fiery rift and gestured to her people.

  "Come on," she shouted about the noise. "Just walk through. Let's go home."

  Jason wanted to ask her to stay. There was nothing for Morgana anymore back at that backward, brainwashed town. Didn't she realize that? She was smart and amazing, brave as hell, and quite a warrior in her own right. Morgana deserved better! What a tragedy it would be for her to simply exist in this dreadful dark age life with those weird cannibal-people roaming around outside the walls, scraping by on whatever they could farm. Hell—maybe the mist would still come every night. Who knows what other monsters lived around here? Who would fill the gap that the necromancer had left behind? Jason's OCS had readout of u936 like a freaking Monster Manual's index when he looked at it before. There were so many unknowns with Lore equivalents.

  He couldn't bear the idea of Morgana eking out a difficult existence here and probably dying in her forties if not from a violent death before then.

  Jason opened his mouth to tell Morgana to stay with him; to come away with him...

  Instead, he asked, "W-what about you, Morgana?"

  The first prisoner awkwardly and fearfully poked his way through the rift, stepping into the dining hall then wandering out of sight with wide, white eyes. Two more townsfolk immediately followed him.

  "What do you mean?" Morgana shouted over the noise. Her eyes met Jason's for a moment then she looked away, helping to push another prisoner through the sputtering rift. Her long, dark hair tossed around in the gusts of the portal.

  Come with me, Jason thought.

  "What are you gonna do now?" he asked.

  Morgana looked at Jason with a torrent of words behind her eyes. She smiled grimly and glanced back to Riley and Gliath, who were watching. She looked away again. "I ... I don't know, really."

  Join me! Jason thought.

  He wanted to reach out and take her hands and demand that she join him in their adventures. Come and be happy with me! He wanted to see her happy—wanted to see her sorrows washed away with
sunshine and a nice, hot shower and a soft, clean bed. He wanted to give her laughter and love and feelings of friendship and meaning. He wanted her to be with him. Why couldn't he fucking say it?!

  Jason opened his mouth to say all of that, but faltered. As the rest of the prisoners crossed over, he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out Owen Soloster's necklace. The gold chain and sapphire pendant gleamed brightly in the fiery orange rift and spitting sparks.

  He handed it to her.

  When Morgana reached out to take the necklace, he saw tears welling up in her eyes. Her hand brushed his as he dropped it into her palm and it was like lightning flashed from her fingers into his, straight to his heart.

  Jason looked up and held Morgana's gaze. It looked like she was waiting to say something, but didn't. He wanted to tell her not to go, but he was afraid...

  "Hey, Morgana!" Riley exclaimed suddenly over the roar of the rift.

  She looked up past Jason and tears rolled down her cheeks.

  "Yes, Riley?"

  "You ... ah ... shet ... do you want to join us? Come back to Jason's house and leave this fruking dump behind?"

  Morgana half-gasped, half-laughed. Her eyes lit up, gleaming in the fiery light! She smiled as if a huge load fell from her shoulders, looked back to Jason warmly, then turned away to look through the rift. She turned back to Riley, then Jason, and took a huge, smiling breath.