Necromancer's Curse

by D. M. Almond

  Once they had a small wall of flipped tables and piled wooden chairs in place, Isaac called Corbin and Alma over to him. He chose a position near the wall, with the stained glass to their backs a few feet to the left and the entrance to the secret tunnel on their right. “This is a good spot. The ley lines converge here, giving us enough magical energy to get on our way with a little extra oomph, and if the room is breached, we are positioned out of the way and close enough to the tunnels that we can get out of here at a moment’s notice.”

  Corbin never ceased to be amazed by how calculating the mage’s actions were. He turned to his brother and threw him a half bow. “Looks like we’re off.”

  Logan stepped forward and wrapped him in a hug, patting his back. “Just hurry back and try to stay in one piece.”

  Corbin nodded awkwardly and moved to Isaac’s side. It was plain how freaked out Logan was over the whole idea of Corbin traveling through the Gralok. But where Logan was only concerned, Corbin was downright petrified. And he did not want his brother to see it. It was going to be hard enough to take this step into the abyss, but if Logan saw his uncertainty, he would surely pull the plug on the whole plan.

  But as much as the idea of following Isaac into the Gralok terrified Corbin, he knew it was an absolute necessity. It was their fault the Necromancer was awake, and he was going to do whatever it took to put that wretch back in his coffin.

  Corbin gripped Isaac’s hand. Against that warm, smooth palm, he suddenly realized how dry and calloused his own was. The mage paid no attention, falling into his chant with closed eyes and his white staff leaning against his chest. How the magical implement stayed there, Corbin could not imagine.

  He took one last look at the room and then closed his eyes, concentrating on the psionic energy flowing through the three of them, just as Isaac had coached while walking the tunnels to the library.

  The mage had said it would be much like scanning for sentient minds in the wild, except when he found them—which was child’s play, since they stood hand in hand—he worked a net of psionic energy over them. Corbin pulled the three minds together then created bold lines of radiating psionic energy that only he could see and rooted them to this place, in this time, in this world. This was the tether they would use to find their way back.

  “Ready,” he said through parched lips.

  To their friends, it appeared as if the three of them all convulsed at exactly the same time before becoming limp, yet standing unnaturally rigid. They looked very much like wax statues about to fall over.

  “They have left this place,” Nero said.

  Isaac took a great stride forward, tugging the three of them out of their bodies and into the nothingness. Corbin’s foot came down on open air, and he felt the wind rustling past him as he fell forward into that empty void. His rational mind panicked, screaming that the mage had messed up, they were going to die, they were already too far gone, this was a mistake, they were doomed to be forever lost in the abyss!

  “Corbin, steady yourself,” Isaac said, his voice coming from far away and just beside him at the same time. The sound of it was deeply confident and reassuring.

  Corbin opened his eyes to find the three of them standing side by side, hand in hand, in a long, empty tunnel. Everything about him in the world, if this place could be called as much, was monochromatic and devoid of guiding light. It had a strange effect on him, that absence of color, giving him the sense that this was a dream of sorts, or more accurately the beginning of a nightmare. A dense grey fog swirled all about their forms, which were slightly translucent yet firm and strong, and everything was blanketed in a hazy dim glow that came from nowhere.

  To Corbin they had become wraiths of a sort, and now they stood in a long, never-ending corridor with no ceiling above, and the sounds of madness encroached all about them.

  Broxlin shattered the ribs of the last fallen skeleton with a grunt. Sweat covered his thick arms, and he rested the base of the heavy two-handed hammer on the floor so that he could lean on it and catch his breath. The ground was littered with bones, among them the slaughtered bodies of several of their kin who had been turned into ghouls. The sight of it sickened him.

  King Thorgar was frowning over the body of a slain warrior. Broxlin felt his pain.

  “Ye died a most honorable death,” Thorgar said. Several other warriors kneeled around the body in reverence. “Please forgive me.” Thorgar spit in his palms and raised his glass battle-axe far over his head.

  Broxlin had to turn away as the king beheaded their fallen kin. It was a gruesome sight. There could not be a more glorious way for a gnome warrior to perish than in battle, but they were always given a proper burial, as they deserved. Broxlin cursed the foul Necromancer for taking that right away from his brothers. He knew, as they all did, that if the king did not severe the heads of the fallen, then the Necromancer would torture their souls and force them back inside their bodies as new servants. It was about the sickest, most twisted thing he could imagine, and he did not envy the king’s responsibility as he walked among the dead and made sure they would stay that way.

  Once Thorgar was done, he looked weary, not physically but emotionally. Not for the first time, Broxlin found himself in deep admiration of their king.

  “At least that’s the last of ‘em,” Broxlin said.

  “For now, at least,” Thorgar said. “We’re a ways from the library, though.”

  Broxlin looked down the long, dark corridor and nodded. After the initial ambush, they had feigned retreat, luring the undead ranks far away from the paths to the library before turning on them and crushing their pursuers. The king’s words served as a reminder that there was at least one other warrior who had fallen back in those tunnels.

  “We should circle back around and join them,” Thorgar said. “They’ll need our protection if they’re going to retrieve the Agimat.”

  “Truly,” Broxlin said. With a grunt, he hefted his war hammer over his left shoulder and addressed his warriors. “We fought good and true in this hour, but the bulk of it is yet to come. Let us march for—”

  His words cut off as the sound of beating drums echoed down the halls. Everyone froze as they heard the familiar song.

  “War drums!” Broxlin whispered in a shrill voice. “The cobolds do come.”

  Thorgar’s expression was hard to read in the shadows. He looked at once enraged and deeply frustrated. Broxlin knew his king’s mind as well as his own, and he could tell the thoughts battling each other in Thorgar’s mind at that moment.

  Broxlin cleared his throat and took a tentative step toward the king. “My Lord, you must go to the library and protect the mage on his journey.” Thorgar looked deeply offended, and Broxlin quickly spoke again before the king could deny him. “I will take the bulk of our men and hold the cobolds at bay. You must do this. Only you can keep the Necromancer from overwhelming them, and without the Agimat, all has been for naught.”

  Thorgar chewed his lips and became red-faced. He hated the idea of his men facing the cobolds without him at their lead. He looked over the grim faces of his warriors, no doubt weighing how many of them might fall on the battlefield without him at their side. War drums continued to beat in the distance. The cobold forces would soon be at the castle.

  “My king,” Broxlin said, grasping his good friend’s shoulder and forcing him to make eye contact, “there is no other way. You must keep them safe.”

  Thorgar stared hard into Broxlin’s eyes. He could read the torment there. Finally the king closed his lids and gave a short nod. The two of them locked forearms. “I’ll meet you at the gates,” Thorgar swore.

  Broxlin nodded. “We’ll be there with a pile of dead cobolds at our feet. Better hurry and get to the library. There might not be any cobolds left for you to kill by the time your old arse gets back down here.”

  The warriors chuckled, and Thorgar shot them a heavy grin. “Stay true and may Ohm’s light be with you.” He saluted, placing his battle-axe
against his chest in honor. The small army of gnomes returned his salute and bid him farewell.

  With a heavy heart, Broxlin watched his king run down the halls with five warriors nipping at his heels. He wondered briefly if it was the last time he was to see his king.

  Realizing all eyes were now on him, Broxlin pushed the melancholy away and forced a wicked grin onto his face. “Who’s ready to knock some cobold heads together?”

  The gnomes cheered, and he ran past them toward the sound of the war drums, never once turning back at what they were leaving behind.

  Chapter 20

  The unholy yellow glow faded from the skull’s empty eye sockets, and Logan kicked it away from the broken barrier, bouncing it down a row of bookshelves to the right. Bipp was nearby, pulling his hammer from the remains of a ribcage.

  “I believe we would be best suited to rebuild the barricade,” Nero said.

  “No arguments there,” Logan said, taking in the rubble.

  The makeshift half wall they had put up looked strong enough until the skeletons, who felt no pain, battered the doors from the outside. The skeletons had only created an opening thin enough to squeeze through, but once it was there, they tore over the piled tables and shelves like they were nothing, showing Logan just how paltry their defense was.

  Logan sized up one of the bookshelves. That would seal the door much better. He grabbed one side of it. “Bipp, can you help me with this?”

  The gnome ran over and gripped the other end. Together they dragged the heavy shelf in front of the door and toppled it over so the top was wedged against the doorway, with a shattered table and some chairs pressed beneath it.

  “Let’s gather a couple more,” Logan said. Nero was already sliding a wobbly table over, and Bipp followed him to another bookshelf.

  “Sorry about the whistling,” Bipp said, referring to the noise that had alerted the skeletons to their presence inside the library.

  “It’s not your fault,” Logan said.

  Bipp was as on-edge as he was, and the gnome had just been trying to settle his nerves by whistling a weak tune when the skeletons passed by. Bipp looked grateful to be let off the hook but still rather miserable.

  They let the shelf fall on top of the previous one, its weight splintering the one beneath. “I just hope we don’t run out of shelves before it’s too late,” Logan said.

  Bipp sighed. “All these books lost to time. It breaks my heart to think of so many lost works crumbling away to nothing. We’ll never know what knowledge rested between those covers.”

  “It is a sincere travesty, as you say,” Nero agreed, shoving some legs he had broken off of a table between the wedged shelving to strengthen the wall.

  Logan snorted. “You’re waxing awful poetic for two saps stuck in a castle filled with the undead.”

  “Isaac is a great mage, and Corbin is a valiant hero. They will return with the Agimat,” Nero said confidently. “And then we will do what must be done and be away from this place.”

  Logan screwed up his face at the android. “Why do you do that?”

  “Do what?”

  “He means why are you always so nice to Isaac when he’s such a jerk to you?” Bipp said.

  Nero tossed a chair over the top of the developing barricade. “Such resentment must have roots in a traumatic experience upon which Isaac has built his wall of beliefs. I cannot change what has happened to him in the past, though my programming pushes to understand it. I’ll not fault him for this, without knowledge of what got him here. It is undeniable that he has proven to be a deeply resourceful ally and a highly adept mage, thus earning my esteem.”

  The concepts muddled around in Logan’s mind, and he felt dizzy trying to grasp them. He shook his head and motioned for Bipp to help him flip one final bookshelf over onto the barricade. “I don’t know. For me, things are a bit more cut and dry than that. I just think that you should treat your friends as you would want them to treat you. Isaac’s a cool guy and everything, but it does piss me off when he acts like you’re just a machine.”

  Nero stared at the stained glass window. Though his mechanical eyes did not reflect it, something about the way he stood told Logan the android was deeply contemplating their conversation. Logan left him to it and took in the barricade they had rebuilt.

  “Not bad, eh?”

  “It’s twice as strong as the first one,” Bipp agreed, rubbing his palms together in a cloud of dust that made him sneeze.

  “You may be correct,” Nero said softly. “I look at these animated corpses, and it makes me wonder about my own situation. You are so convinced that I have life, that I am more than just my programming, and I feel…deep down inside, a…I don’t know how to describe it.” Nero paused, blinking and frowning.

  “A feeling?” Bipp offered.

  Nero nodded. “That might be the only word that comes close. I know that all logic dictates it should not be there and is more likely a byproduct of my internal cold fusion systems. And yet, here I am, pondering my own mortality. What finer example of living intelligence can there be?”

  Logan wondered which part of what he had said made the android ponder such a heavy topic. He shot him an unsure grin. “You are alive Nero, as sure as me and Bipp.”

  “Then if I have a life, I have a will, and my will is to treat others how I would like them to treat me. I am determined to win Isaac over through this tactic.”

  Bipp snorted. “Well, nobody said you weren’t a strange one, Nero.”

  The android smiled, which was rare and looked awkward, like he had to go to the bathroom. Logan and Bipp shared a laugh at his expense.

  Bipp was the first to let his mirth die down, pointing at the library entrance. “We should keep quiet. No sense in rebuilding it if we’re just going to invite company.”

  “Let’s put a couple more things on there, just in case,” Logan said.

  The three of them fell back to work moving furniture until the whole front of the room was barren, with only the remains of books scattered on the floor and scores of tracks in the dust.

  They were working a particularly heavy bookcase when a heavy drumming began to beat outside. Logan let his end of the bookcase drop to the floor and stared toward the stained-glass window.

  The drums beat in a steady rhythm. They were deep and filled his heart with dread.

  “War drums,” Nero said.

  “But who?”

  “Cobolds,” Bipp breathed.

  The prospect of an army of cobolds raining down on them filled the room with unspoken trepidation.

  Logan stared at his brother’s lifeless form. They should not have come back here. They should have just headed straight for Malbec, where Corbin could have settled down and lived out his days in peace beside Elise. Why did he always have to be so stubborn?

  Logan shook his head, pushing away his aggravation. Suddenly he found he was not mad at Corbin but angry that he could be so selfish. How could he doubt the need to follow through with this task? He averted his eyes, afraid that Bipp would see the shame he felt.

  “How far do you think they’ve gotten?” Bipp asked, reading his thoughts.

  Logan absently rubbed his cheekbones. “Not sure. I only hope they get back here before it’s too late.”

  Something massive crashed against the door to the library. Every board of wood, toppled table, and leaning bookshelf rattled under the heavy blow.

  Logan and Bipp spun, shaken by the unexpected caller. Again a massive blow rattled the barricade.

  “I think it might already be too late,” Bipp said.

  Wisps of fog came out of Corbin’s mouth each time he breathed. The air in the Gralok was as cold as winter’s touch, and it seemed like the longer they spent in there, the more frigid it became.

  “How is it that even my bones feel cold?” Corbin asked in a low voice. “In fact, how is it I feel anything at all when our bodies are back in the library?”

  Hand in hand, the three of them walked carefull
y through the dense mist, Isaac’s white staff floating before them. It served as their compass, leaning the direction they needed to walk, pulled toward the White Tree from which it was born. Normally a halo of light would surround the staff when Isaac walked such dark paths. However, in the Gralok, light did not rule. Isaac had attempted to breathe light into his staff, but the dim glow was immediately swallowed by the fog, like a veil cast over their eyes to dull the world.

  “We exist here as much as there,” Isaac said without taking his eyes off the path ahead. “There is no simpler way of explaining it.”

  That answer did nothing to quell Corbin’s mounting anxiety. He found the Gralok unnerving at best. For long stretches of time, it seemed that they were walking through a void, with only a stone floor beneath their feet to give shape to the path. However, at times the corridor would narrow, revealing walls made of large cinderblocks of grey stone, or they would make a turn and come close to a corner or pass under an archway. There was no ceiling above, or if there was, it was too high for Corbin to see.

  The sounds of weeping men and women constantly assaulted them, from both far away and close at hand. At times it sounded as if they were right on top of the unfortunate souls.

  “We are getting close,” Alma said in a quivering voice. Corbin knew she was just as scared as he was, since in between bouts of thick silence, she would mutter prayers to Ohm, begging for his light to see them through this safely.

  “To the White Tree?” Corbin asked.

  Alma shook her head, keeping her lips pursed. Her head twitched, and she looked to the path ahead with wild eyes. Corbin followed her gaze and saw the outline of a figure. He was hard to make out at first through the mist, but each step brought them closer to the man, who stared at the floor, muttering to himself. His face was veiled in shadows, and his fingers jerked erratically as he spoke. Corbin guessed he was having an argument with himself.