A Different Kind of Despair

by Nicole Martinsen

  "He gambled his legs?"

  The demon snorted, "No, sweet Shaman. His soul, all for the sake of the Lady Diana Galatea."

  Diana; there was that name again. Leo mentioned her mere hours ago, about how Marvin was still mooning over her. My stomach twisted into a solid knot. Marvin loved this woman so much that he risked his soul to save her.

  "But if you're in his service..." I murmured pensively. "Doesn't that mean he saved her? And if he did, then where is she?"

  My breath caught in my throat as the human mask Koronos was wearing transformed into a grisly image of his true form. He smile was so wide I thought he would eat me with one bite of his giant maw.

  "Funny how Fate works," said the devil. "He won his bet through a rather shady channel, and as a consequence, Lady Galatea was saved... for about five seconds. Oh I can tell you're dying to know more, great Shaman. And I would love to fill you in on the details."

  I tensed my jaw.

  "You've said more than enough already."

  "Oh don't be like that," he pouted, reverting to his human facade. "Rather, since it's you, I can arrange a meeting. Why not hear the story from the woman herself?"

  I blanched.

  "You... you can do that?"

  "My dear... I can do things you can scarcely dream of. Think bigger, my Lady. Any two-copper magician can summon a spirit for a minute or two. I can cure diseases, save lives, even... avenge your family."

  It was enticing. I'll even admit that I considered it for a fraction of a second, but not before a smile lit up my face. It was genuinely, horribly amused, and Koronos was taken aback by the expression -probably because he was shocked at the contrast between my mirth and the murder in my eyes.

  "How much of an idiot do you take me for?" I asked him. "If you think I'll trust the words of a devil then you're better off looking for some other profession."

  "My Lady, I did not mea-"

  "I will never allow some honorless filth to get involved in this matter. I will find the Kurai, I will demand answers, and if those answers do not satisfy me then I'll see that every man, woman, and child gets their throats cut by my own two hands."

  The words lingered of my lips, and the only thing that frightened me more than the fact that I'd uttered those words was that I meant them -every last one.

  The shocked look on the devil's face quickly turned into a curious mix of awe and admiration. His ghostly arms pressed the envelope of the veil as I felt one snake around my waist, the other coiling across my chest so his sharp nails grazed the space above my jaw.

  "It's been some time since I've seen so much raw... potential." His voice grew more otherworldly as he went on. If I could speak, I would've cried out for help -anything to get his disgusting touch off of my skin. "You'll grow to be a fine woman someday, my sweet, sweet Shaman. Truly, one after my own blackened heart."

  I mustered every ounce of my will, shivering in effort.

  "Release me, pig."

  And he did, but before Koronos let go completely I felt his lips kiss the base of my neck. It burned intensely, its heat traveling through my bones like warm, molten honey. I clutched my arms around my body, feeling hot and deeply violated. How dare he make a fool out of me this way?

  In my mind, Kurai was at the top of my list of people to kill.

  But Koronos had just become a very close second.

  I did my utmost to dispel his presence from my mind.

  Nethermountain, once I paid more attention, was an astonishingly beautiful place. Its walls were made of solid quartz; they diffused the glow of torchlight in such a way that entire hallways shined with a gentle ambiance. It reminded me of the snow we would sometimes get on the steppes by the mountains. It was like a fluffy white fog, enigmatic and omnipresent.

  I also noticed what wasn't present.

  People.

  "Uhm," I started, feeling on edge. "Where is everyone?"

  "This is pretty normal for Nethermount," said Marvin, falling in step beside me. "Necromancers don't usually come out of their labs unless we're having dinner in the main hall."

  "But aren't you family?"

  "In a... loose sense," he hesitated. "We're more like an enclave, a group of people with a very specialized set of skills. As for where we're going, that entrance we came through belongs to House Soma -Leo's home, and yours."

  I furrowed my brow at the surroundings. "My home?"

  "I know it's nothing like the Cascadian Plains," he said apologetically. "But at least you'll be safe here, and you won't have to worry about food or shelter under our roof."

  I pet Tully on the head, smiling a bit as he snapped at my fingers.

  "How long has it been since you've last come home?" I wondered.

  "A little over two years, give or take."

  "And you didn't go back once?"

  "It's a bit of a trek, and frankly, I was pretty happy to leave." He looked around the hall of cloudy gems. "Just being here makes me feel like a failure."

  "A genius," I said, recalling what Will had mentioned earlier. "How is it possible for a genius to be a failure? Especially among his own kind?"

  Marvin smiled ruefully. "Let's call it a talent."

  "Alright," said Leo. We turned and looked to him. He motioned to a set of double doors with skeletons on either side dressed in brown robes. "This is the main living area for House Soma. Miraj, you pay close attention, since this is your House too."

  The skeletons opened the doors for us, and our procession entered the den of necromancers in a single file line.

  The cavern House Soma called home was actually warm compared to the dreary halls. There was a great fire pit in the center of the space, smelling strongly of natural gas. Couches and gigantic pillows littered the room in a seemingly errant fashion, with piles upon piles of books stacked in every feasible cranny.

  A pair of children, both with gray and white hair, held an intense debate over a heart in a glass jar, scribbling notes at intervals in between. Another old man hummed to himself as he scratched his head, flipping through research logs on his lap.

  I'd expected to see all manner of grotesque experiments -but instead I found a den of quiet scholars who couldn't be bothered with casual attention.

  "It's normal," I muttered.

  Leo huffed, "Well duh. We keep intense projects in the morgue or chilled labs. It's just unsanitary otherwise."

  "I saw how you scarfed down lunch. Half the meal went on your shirt and you want to lecture me about sanitation?"

  "Food is food, work is work," Leo insisted stubbornly. I laughed a bit. First a rusalka helped me learn about my heritage, and next I came to a den of necromancers to find that they weren't nearly as bad as stories made them out to be.

  Marvin tousled my hair with his hand. "See? It's not that bad, is it?"

  "BUSTINGMYBALLS!"

  I choked. Marvin's face drained of what little color it had. Leo raised a finger at us to wait.

  "Hey! Uncle Larry!" we heard him call around the corner. "Uncle Lar- GODS DAMMIT, I THOUGHT I TOLD YOU NOT TO TOUCH MY SAMPLES?!"

  "I didn't touch them you hackneyed brute! Bustingmyballs-"

  "Bustingmyballs? Bustingmyballs is a golem. GO-LEM. YOUR golem. He listens to what you tell him to do! Go on, try to pin it on Bustingmyballs again -I'll bust YOUR balls in a second!"

  I was torn somewhere been horror and amusement. Marvin was red up to his ears at the exchange.

  "So much for good first impressions," he sighed.

  After some more squabbling, Leo finally dragged Uncle Larry out into the open. Like most necromancers, he had a head of gray hair and a wiry beard. He moved his thick goggles off his face and onto the top of his head, squinting at our group in his lab coat.

  "So what's this thing I have to see?" he asked, the irritation palpable in his voice.

  Leo waved me over.

  Tully knelt so I could dismount. I approached the men cautiously.

  "Uncle Larry," Leo said. "This is Miraj. Your dau
ghter."

  "My what?"

  I straightened my back. "I'm the only child of late Shaman Mother Suna of Hikari."

  Larry's staunch expression softened at the mention of my mother's name.

  "Suna," he repeated, speaking of her with a tenderness I never knew could be conveyed in words alone. "Late Shaman? You mean she's dead?"

  I looked down. "Murdered."

  Marvin placed a hand on my back, the first to notice that we were finally starting to draw attention.

  "Let's take this somewhere a little more private," he suggested.

  Larry blinked at him. "You're the Heir of Thanos, correct? I thought you'd gone on an expedition. Why are you here?"

  "He's here," I cut in, determined not to be separated, "because he's my husband."

  Larry sputtered just a bit, his eyes zeroing in on the totem around Marvin's neck. He quickly ushered us into a private room I could only assume was his.

  It was filled with the scent of pipe tobacco and mounds of paperwork. I couldn't even see the bed beneath the piles of books and fountain pens scattered across the parchment dunes.

  Larry quickly cleared off the chairs at a seating area by the fireplace.

  "Please, come in. Tell me everything that's happened."

  Leo, Marvin, Will and I all took a seat at the desk, with Larry at the farthest end to evaluate our overall condition.

  Marvin recounted the events that led up to our abrupt departure. He was creating a new potion when Leo and Will came to visit two days prior -days when I was busy carving the totem I would later give my unwitting spouse.

  He glossed over the particular exchange that led to our status as husband and wife, skipping to Will's report of riders in the distance. We stayed long enough to identify the attackers as the Kurai horde, and then we fled south, skirted through the Moor of Souls, and arrived here in a matter of tireless days.

  Larry sat back in his chair, processing the order of events with the eyes of a haunted man. Finally, he looked at me directly.

  "I'm sorry you had to go through that, Miraj. Marvin, Leo and Will did the right thing in bringing you here." He paused then, rubbing the back of his head. "Honestly, Suna and I had an arrangement. We would see one another every so often, but she insisted in keeping me out of your life... at least until you were an adult. It just seemed cruel for you to have a father for a few days every couple years."

  I raised my hand.

  "Among the Tribes, and further west, it's fairly common to be raised solely by women, with many children not knowing who their fathers are all their lives. If you think I'm upset with you in any way, you're mistaken," I explained. "Truthfully... I'm glad just being able to put a face to the name."

  He smiled with evident relief, running a hand through his hair. "Gods, my very own daughter, here in the flesh."

  "With her very own husband," Leo reminded, flicking his eyes towards Marvin. "Heir to Thanos, Inval's Inheritor; your daughter did pretty well for herself, don't you think?"

  I squinted at Marvin myself. "What's with these titles? Are you actually someone important here?"

  Larry gaped at us.

  "Miraj... Marvin runs Nethermountain, at least when he chooses to be here, otherwise the Crone does a pretty good job of it."

  Marvin winced at the reminder. "It's a fluke, that's all."

  "So you're Shaman here?" I asked, my wonder growing.

  "The Inheritor," he muttered uncomfortably. "But in standing I guess it's about the same."

  9: The Grey

  Shortly after we cleared up our reasons for being there, my father, Larry, asked if Leo would be kind enough to show me to the baths while he found a clean set of clothes.

  Marvin and Will went off somewhere. I didn't have much chance to ask before they simply left to discuss something. One way or another, I was confident that I was safe in Nethermountain, so I was sure I could go off and find my companions if need be.

  "So what do you think?" Leo asked me.

  "I think... I've misjudged you. Thank you, Leo. You've been nothing but helpful. And I know I'm not the easiest person to deal with."

  He blinked at the unexpected confession, finally breaking into his familiar easy-going smile.

  "Hey, that's what family's for, right? Little cousin." He flipped my hair over my head.

  I laughed in spite of myself, feeling, for lack of a better word, relieved. A tension I didn't even realize had been building suddenly fled my body. I felt tired, and warm, and I think, to a lesser extent, my hope had been restored in the process.

  "Alright," said Leo, motioning to two arched entrances. "Left is for men, right is for women. I'll wait around here until you're done so I can show you where you'll be sleeping. Sound good?"

  "Sounds wonderful," I beamed, taking the right entrance.

  The baths of House Soma were shockingly lavish, at least on the women's side. I was accustomed to bathing in rivers or in the rare natural hot springs the tribe would come across in our travels. It was normal, and perfectly acceptable, to go without bathing for days at a time.

  I stripped off my worn leather and threadbare linen, taken aback by the stench. I wondered if it smelled particularly awful after all the wear these past few days, or if it was the sterility of my surroundings that made the smell much more evident.

  I could no longer see the greens and browns the men wove into the fabric. It was simply a mottled yellow throughout. Were I to die wearing the garb I knew no one would be able to identify me. The markers that made the outfit so special were gone.

  I sighed as I threw the clothes into a pile of similarly damaged linens; my identity was in my heart, not in my wardrobe. I wouldn't do anyone any favors looking like a vagabond and smelling like an unwashed ass.

  The actual bath, once I left that foyer, consisted of a series of tubs lined up against the walls. I selected one, tentatively lowering myself into the bubbles, before finally sinking into the warm, rushing water.

  I grabbed the bristled brush hanging from the wall and began to slough off a week of dirt and sweat until my skin ran raw. I did the same with my hair, loosing all the grease into the hot liquid, the cleanest I've been in living memory.

  I decided to step out once I started to feel light-headed from the steam. I shook off the excess water, wrung out my hair, and dried myself off with one of the towels hanging on the far end of the room.

  Leo set my clean clothes near the entrance. I put on a billowy night gown that brushed against my knees. I'd never felt more naked in my life.

  "You look like a completely different person," said Leo as I stepped out.

  "I look shameful."

  "You look like you aren't going to kill someone for looking at you the wrong way," he stated bluntly. "There's nothing wrong with letting yourself be a girl once in a while."

  I squinted at him as we walked.

  "What's that supposed to mean? Letting myself be a girl? I've been a girl all along."

  He made a face at the statements. "Look, if we want to be really, really technical about this, men and women can be equally great at anything."

  "True."

  "But, generally speaking here, men are just wired to look after you. What you think is vulnerable or shameful," he paraphrased, "is actually your greatest strength, or at least that's how I see it. I guess that's what they call feminine charm."

  I saw my foggy outline reflected in the quartz walls, the nightgown trailing in my footsteps like a curtain of diaphanous clouds. My hair, when wet, hung almost to the middle of my back. I looked older, somehow. Different in a way I couldn't place.

  "And here's your room." Leo stepped aside. "Sleep tight, cousin."

  I offered Leo a tiny smile. "You as well."

  The giant plodded off into the distance. I stepped into the room, closing the door behind me.

  The space was lit by a dozen or so lamps. To my amazement, tapestries depicting the history of the Four Tribes were hung on the walls. I thought about the traders who would o
ccasionally intersect our routes; it was only natural that the necromancers would have so many of our pieces. To them, these were simply exotic designs. To me, it was home.

  I climbed atop the bed, startled by its softness as I sunk into the mattress. How could anyone bear to sleep on this kind of surface? I bundled up the blankets with one hand and set them on solid ground.

  The door opened at that moment.

  Marvin made a perplexed face at the stripped bed, following the edge of the blanket to where I sat on the floor. Like me, he had also come from the baths, if his dripping hair was any indication.

  "Miraj? What are you doing?"

  I thought about how foolish I must've looked in his eyes, wrapped myself in the sheets, and hid in plain sight.

  "The bed was too soft."

  He snorted, taking the spot next to me on the floor.

  "I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks so."

  We sat there for the next several minutes, drowsy, but too awake to sleep. It wasn't an awkward silence; the kind between acquaintances scrambling for smalltalk, but a quiet filled with mutual respect -a conversation with no words required.

  "So," I said, nearly an hour after his last comment. "What brings you here this evening?"

  He looked in my direction to see whether I was looking at him. I was. He quickly darted a glance in the opposite direction. Was that a blush?

  "It might have something to do with the fact that I'm avoiding my mother, or it might be that I'm a bit worried about how you're adjusting to all of this."

  I released a tiny breath at that round-about reasoning.

  "Careful there, husband. If you keep acting so sweet I might actually believe I have a chance at snatching your heart."

  "I've been meaning to ask you about that," he admitted. My ears perked with interest beneath the covers. "Were you serious?"

  I blinked at the unexpected inquiry. But rather than get angry, (and I was most definitely tempted by the option) I decided to take this from an objective approach -a necromancer's approach.