by G. Akella
"I understand, teacher," Rynec nodded, studying carefully the symbols engraved on the amulet.
"Good that you understand," the disavowed scratched his chin contemplatively, then added with a dash of skepticism. "I really would like to teach you at least a little... but I can't. You mustn't have prolonged contact with me. And, actually, the less you know, the better. You'll pick up the basics in Ahn Kulad, and I'll teach you the rest afterward. Now try to relax while I put a mental block on you."
Urgam stepped up to Rynec, reached out and put a hand on the back of his neck. The next moment, unbearable pain gripped the necromancer's body.
"It's over now! There won't be any more pain," Urgam's words reached him through the fog blanketing his senses. "Here's some malise," the disavowed offered him the familiar vessel. "Keep the flask. And hide the amulet. G'Larnus will supply you with locks and money for the road. He will take you outside the walls of Vaedarr and give you an idea of the lock's mechanism. He had studied at Ahn Kulad once, but we didn't have access to the Mirror then."
"Will all my studies be accompanied with this kind of pain?" Rynec inquired of his teacher, wincing as he sipped the cloyingly spiced mixture.
"No," Urgam shook his head. "But this way is about a hundred times faster and more reliable. We are done now, pupil. I've put the block on you, and widened your source. Your cairat will aid you in mastering it. Don't worry if my words don't make sense to you now—you will understand when the time comes."
"This disk... and the runes on it. Will it help destroy Ahn Kulad?" Rynec asked his teacher as he got up.
"Yes! And the gray-haired beast along with it! I'm talking about Celphata's favorite pet," Urgam said, frowning. "We've lost too many in this unending war. Five years ago my daughter and two sons were burned at the stake in Rehava's central square. G'Larnus lost all his brothers. The Great Sequence of Rebirths is inviolable, but does it really matter who's in control of it? Classes in Ahn Kulad begin on the first day of spring. You must not miss it! Now go, pupil! And may our Master be with you!"
Rynec braked, reached into his bag for the gifted flask, took a few swigs, and put it away with a grimace. He had long learned the art of brewing malise. There really wasn't anything to it. And though Earl Pharex advocated abstinence for recently initiated adepts, that admonition didn't extend to Rynec. The young serpent on his wrist kept careful watch over the body's general state, so he needn't worry about it. The cairat ended up being a rather valuable acquisition. Rynec would grasp the theory, as well as all the fundamental spells and medications, faster than anybody else. And no one could possibly guess that a first-year student could be in possession of such a valuable totem. In fact, he had become quite fond of his studies at Ahn Kulad, and even regretted the fact that it would all soon come to an end. But no, regret wasn't quite the right word. Earl Pharex, the instructor of Artifact Theory was probably the only one of the staff who wouldn't purse his lips in disgust at the sight of the upstart commoner. And after his demise in Fertan Valley, Rynec wouldn't bat an eye if all the rest of them passed to the Gray Frontier to meet their precious goddess.
Urgam turned out to be right—they couldn't be bothered verifying his story. A gray-haired necromancer from the Togota mission heard him out, then let him hold some stone with a rough finish, then gave a shrug and a wave of the hand. The next morning he was delivered by portals first to the border of Helstaad, and then to the university campus. Regular people didn't study at Ahn Kulad. In the vast majority of cases, the Gift awoke in the children of noble families, and Rynec found it awfully hard to keep his loathing for those spoiled brats from boiling over. He hadn't made any friends here, but neither had he made enemies. He was generally avoided, if not shunned, and he was content to be left alone.
Two weeks after classes started, Ahn Kulad suddenly emptied out. When hordes of the Netherworld's demons invaded Erantia, according to an ages-old contract with the king, all adepts above fifth degree, as well as most of the instructors, set out to join the army. And the Battle of Fertan took place later that spring. Was he happy to have learned of his future Master's triumph over the humans? Truthfully, he didn't care. Everything he had—his life, and his slaked thirst for vengeance—he owed to Master Urgam. And though it had transpired somewhat differently from what he had imagined, he would nonetheless carry out his teacher's task, no matter what it might cost him.
His group was assembled the day before yesterday by Master Kiyaret himself. After a round of solemn congratulations, he issued everyone their amulets and bid them to prepare for a four-day trek to the cemetery. Rynec broke into the university's treasury that very night.
Everything went according to plan. By then Rynec had already learned the kind of lock that was built into the university's small treasury, and how to open it. Moreover, he even knew what treasures were hidden inside, and their properties. Such things weren't hidden from the adepts of Ahn Kulad, but were actually discussed openly in class.
The war had made certain adjustments, reducing the number of artifacts kept at the university from ten to four—the rest were taken by the instructors when departing to join the king's army. Hel's Rune Disk, however—a gift to the rector by the goddess' companion—was naturally left in the treasury due to its quality of magically concealing the university's location, thus greatly hindering access to the cemetery to the Goddess of Death's enemies. The small brown disk lay on a low stone pedestal, and Rynec allowed himself half a minute to stand there and observe impassively the runes as they kept changing their patterns. When the symbols glowing red seemed to fill his entire essence, and his consciousness began to swim, he recoiled and hurried to leave the repository, closing the door carefully behind him. Now nobody would know that anyone had been here at all. The amulet he'd gotten from Urgam covered absolutely everything, including tracks left in the Astral.
Upon entering the cemetery, Rynec felt a sharp pain in his forearm—an apparent signal from the cairat—but the pain quickly receded and never returned. He had been wandering the cemetery since, waiting. Waiting for whoever was to show up for the procured information. Rynec hadn't a clue who it would be or how this information would be passed, seeing as he didn't remember a damn thing about the observed pattern. All he could do was hope that the procedure wouldn't end up fatal for him. He wasn't afraid pain—not after all the pain he'd already endured.
Rounding a small pond, the necromancer walked past four felled tombstones, clambered over a wind-fallen spruce, and ended up in a clearing.
Just then, the moon emerged from behind the clouds and illuminated the small meadow before him, stopping Rynec dead in his tracks. "Well, I'll be!" he uttered, his voice hoarse with tension. Standing in the center of the meadow was a crypt, its white stone glinting in the moonlight, framed by four warriors with swords raised overhead. No undead could be seen anywhere around, as if the unknown ruler's tomb scared them away better than the fumes from the great censer of Holy Myrt's main temple in Vaedarr. The necromancer knew right away that the person buried here had been anything but ordinary in life. Treading carefully on the soft grass, Rynec drew closer and proceeded to examine the tomb.
"This is the grave of the first human emperor!" he exhaled in astonishment, turning to the bonehound behind him. "The crown with nine crooked jags symbolizes Vaedarr and the eight great princedoms! And those birds! But... how?! How was it revealed to me?! The grave of Erast the Great should be concealed so that only Great Essences could find it! But then..." he bent down, carefully inspecting a short metal pillar with a stone set into the finial. After ensuring that the object wasn't imbued with magic, he pulled it out of the ground and brought it closer to his eyes.
"We've been here before, Myrna..." he sighed despondently, examining the stone in the finial, blackened and cracked with time. "Somebody knew exactly what to look for it, and this thing must have helped them to dispel the magic hiding the tomb." Rynec tossed the now-useless object, and glared at the lion scowling from the wrought-iron gate. "It's p
robably already empty! I bet Bel and Sata are having a good laugh at our expense! But wait..." he stopped for a minute, contemplating a particular thought, and his spirits rose instantly—yet another sharp emotional swing within the past several minutes.
"The Great Deceiver! Mistress! Thank you! And forgive my foolishness and lack of faith! And for blurting out stupid things without thinking..." he spoke solemnly, his open palm pressed to his chest as he gazed up at the cloudy sky. Then he turned back to his bonehound and gave a playful wink.
"Anyone who entered the king's tomb had to have taken that with them," Rynec nodded in the direction of the discarded object. "But they hadn't. So, where does that leave us?"
The question was of the rhetorical variety. Fond as he was of his pet, she hadn't the power of speech. But she knew how to listen, and in the years spent in the company of Bolo, so tight-lipped he could go for weeks without speaking, Rynec had learned the art of talking to himself.
"That's right!" he continued, answering his own question. "Whoever it was that had entered this tomb is still in there! Apparently, the tomb's guardians had proved too much to handle. Good thing I needn't worry about the guardians at all!" He slipped the amulet around his neck. "In fact, they won't even see me coming. And besides, somehow I don't think that whoever I'm here to meet is going to be showing up in the next few hours. I'll be right quick, too—in and out."
The necromancer's tone sounded just a tad too apologetic. He shook his head, walked over to the still hound, and ran a hand over its spiked snout.
"Lie down, Myrna," he said tenderly. "Wait for me, promise I won't be long!"
He gave the hound another encouraging smile, then spun on his heels and, under the crimson unblinking gaze of his pet and only friend, started toward the entrance to the legendary king's crypt.
Sure, a dead dog was just as happy lying as it was sitting or standing, endurance never being an issue by default. Still, Rynec preferred to care for her as if she were alive. In the future on he would have several others, but this particular hound would always have a special place in his heart. She was, after all, the first to answer his call and imbibe a part of his own.
Carefully descending the marble steps while casting a spell that exposed traps every three seconds, he soon found himself in a wide dry corridor. Magic lamplight illuminated twelve runic sarcophagi placed along stone walls, and the air was heavily scented with temple incense. The necromancer's mood soured yet again—to get by those vertical caskets without disturbing the tomb's guardians, one had to be a true master of theft or necromancy. What if that piece of iron was chucked aside for want of necessity? he thought, but immediately refuted the thought. No, the infiltrator wouldn't have discarded it, be they a thief or necromancer. Reassuring himself with those thoughts, and remembering that he had only six-seven minutes left till the amulet stopped working, he kept moving carefully down the corridor. After descending the stairs flooded with magic lamplight, Rynec peeked into the king's burial vault, and froze still with awe. The space was huge, ornamented with glyphwork and bas-reliefs, with a grand sarcophagus standing over by the far wall. But it wasn't the lavish decor that left the necromancer breathless; rather, it was the runes glowing a soft blue color etched into the eight columns propping up the stone ceiling. Rynec realized that he was looking at letters of the Ancients' magic alphabet the moment his eyes fell on a familiar rune—one of the twelve—the knowledge and calligraphy of which endured to this day. Naturally, mages were aware of all forty letters of the ancient alphabet, but could only compose spells from twelve of them. Then again, the truly outstanding archmages knew how to keep secrets. Whoever Emperor Erast might have been before uniting the Eight Great Princedoms under one rule in Erantia, he certainly had capable helpers on his side. Rynec felt a pang of unbearable bitterness at the thought that he had only about four minutes before the amulet's duration would end, and the tomb's guardians would sense his presence. Worse yet, he hadn't yet learned how to leave marks at the Great Cemetery, meaning he might spend the rest of his life looking for this crypt and never find it. So, his deliberations on runes and Erantian history could wait.
If there was one thing about the situation he was glad about, it was that whoever had come here before him had never made it out. Lying on the lowest step of the staircase leading to the sarcophagus was the corpse of an elf—only their scouts wore cloaks of that specific cut and design. The body was face down, making it difficult to discern gender, but Rynec wasn't so crazy as to start moving it for the sake of curiosity. The sarcophagus' lid wasn't in place, and Rynec hoped that the elf hadn't managed to raid it. Something had killed it, either before or after... Well aware of his fleeting time, the necromancer started toward the vertical coffin, looking around him nervously while perma-casting the same trap detection spell.
He noticed the daye having drawn to within ten feet of the elf. The magic lamp flickered in a peculiar way, and the shadow of the cunning beast sitting right on top of the sarcophagus grew long, extending past the shadow cast by one of the columns. The grave mower hadn't reacted to him in any way, but Rynec still stopped and took out a potion of Mental Reflection. It would only last one minute and reflect just one attack, but the daye couldn't use his mind-dominating abilities more than that anyway. Rynec very much hoped that Earl Kiroto—the instructor at the university teaching the habits and habitation of the undead—knew his stuff. If things got hot, one minute would be quite enough to make one's escape—hell, he could run all the way to the southern border of the Great Cemetery! Suddenly, he felt a strange weakness take hold of his body. Without stopping, Rynec rounded the corpse on the stairs carefully, produced a flask and took a few big swigs, then wiped his mouth on his sleeve. At last, he had reached his goal. Lying in the sarcophagus was a square case of truesilver, coated by century-old dust. And nothing else! No bones, not even any ceremonial armor customarily used to bury human kings in. But he would contemplate this mystery later—he was running out of time! Rynec's eyes returned to the item stored in the sarcophagus. The length of each side was barely smaller than an elbow, with a small ring affixed to a raised lid, and a pattern obscured by dust—the metal alone must have cost at least a hundred gold in material. If this was the container, what could the contents possibly be? Rynec felt his head spin from the myriad possibilities that flashed before his eyes. He looked around frantically, and his gaze fell on the monster hanging directly above his head. He desperately didn't want to die—he had way too many unfulfilled obligations—but leaving this case here was simply beyond his capacity. His entire essence was screaming that whatever lay inside the truesilver vessel was of such value that the movers and shakers of the world would reward whoever brought it to them most generously. And he so badly needed power and money... It took a few more heartbeats for him to gather up his courage. Then, snatching the case from its resting place, he jumped sharply aside and, hearing the racket of the monster plopping down on the floor as it missed him, dashed toward the staircase. The racket continued as the lids of the runic sarcophagi shattered into innumerable shards. He still had time to make it out! It would take the guardian a few seconds to get his bearings after leaving his dwelling, and those few seconds should be enough. He zoomed past the reapings as they stirred awake, glimpsing their undead eyes ignite with their version of life, dodged a sweeping blow of a giant two-hander, and nearly slipped on one of the many shards strewn underfoot. At long last, he was at the exit!
"Myrna, follow me! Hurry!" he shouted to the hound who was waiting patiently for her master, and kept running down an already familiar trail. Yes, such magical custodians never left the tombs they guarded—they weren't like bonehounds, capable of pursuing their prey in perpetuity. And yet, as the saying went, Bel helps those who help themselves. This was a wisdom firmly instilled in him by Bolo, and Rynec wasn't about to start taking needless risks.
He braked near a familiar gravestone—the very one where the disavowed had once been buried. Breathing heavily, he walked over to a t
hick sprawling tree nearby, lowered himself to the ground, leaned back against the rough trunk, and closed his eyes wearily. His bonehound took a seat next to him.
"We did it!" the young necromancer wheezed, still catching his breath.
Opening his eyes, he glanced at the case lying in his lap, and took another look around, just in case. The sky had purged all the clouds, leaving the young moon all alone to cast twisted, broken shadows amid the chaotically arranged trees and gravestones. A few dozen skeletons and zombies roved amid the graves, their blue eyes sparkling like little stars in the night. The necromancer wasn't worried about them at all—with Icham's Ring, which was issued to every adept at Ahn Kulad, all these lower undead were rendered harmless. He and Myrna must have crashed into a dozen stiffs while running here, and to no ill effect. Rynec took stock of his mantle, and sighed. If it weren't for his clothes and boots being enchanted to repel water and dirt, he would be covered head to toe in muck after their mad dash across the cemetery.
"Well," he ran a hand over the light matte surface, then glanced sideways at the dog lying nearby. "Shall we have a look at our trophy?"