by M. R. Forbes
We entered another structure, and then another. Still no dice. It was starting to get dark, the sun beginning to set. I didn’t want to be out here when night came. I didn’t want Dannie to be stuck out here, either. I was tempted to go back to her, to call on Death and see if he could help us out, maybe give us a clue. I didn’t. We kept searching.
Night came. It was pitch black beyond the narrow beam of my flashlight, and the din of the nocturnal creatures left us stopping to listen every few seconds. I pictured Frank and Ash outside, getting antsy as hell about the delay. I was feeling the same way.
That was when we found the palace.
I decided to call the building the palace not because it was larger or more impressive than any of the others, and certainly not more than the pyramid. I called it that because when we entered, we immediately noticed a stone throne in the center, with a skeleton resting across it in a seated pose. His flesh and muscle had long disintegrated, and even his bones had seen better days. He was leaned over like he had been asleep when he died.
“Just like the druids in the other building,” I said.
Amos approached the throne, drawn to it when my flashlight glinted off something in the skeleton’s folded hand. He angled his head, trying to get a look at it without disturbing the dead, keeping his distance like it might jump up at him at any second. Around here, maybe it would.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Dunno. It might be a ring. The fingers are clenched pretty tight.” He reached out toward it.
“Wait,” I said. He stopped moving. “There are other ways to get stuff from the dead.”
I joined him beside the throne, reaching down and putting my hand on the corpse.
“Come back to me,” I said, reaching out with the death magic to call back the dead leader’s soul.
Nothing happened.
“That’s weird,” I said.
“What is?” Amos asked.
“Hold on.” I took my hand off for a moment and then put it back on, adding more energy into the summoning. “Come back to me.”
I could feel the tendrils of magic reaching out for the skeleton’s original soul. They couldn’t find purchase.
“It’s like he doesn’t have a soul,” I said.
“Or maybe Samedi ate it,” Amos said.
“That would mean Samedi visited this place once.”
“Maybe he lived here,” Amos replied. “Maybe he was the druid who fucked everything up?”
I couldn’t deny it. I had no idea what the truth was.
“We’ll have to do it the old-fashioned way,” Amos said.
He reached for the hand a second time.
A stopped him a second time.
“Hold on,” I said.
“Again?”
I knelt down, shining the flashlight on the hand. “Look at this,” I said.
Amos knelt beside me. “What?”
I pointed to the knuckles. They were slightly scraped. “Someone else opened his hand.”
“Who?”
“How the hell should I know?”
“Well, it’s our turn then, I guess,” he said.
We stood up. He took hold of the hand, turning it until it snapped off. He lifted it, using his other hand to pry open the fingers and leaving the item the corpse was holding exposed.
It wasn’t a ring, but it was a stone. A simple, mottled gray stone with small flecks of silver in it.
“Garbage,” Amos said, picking it up off the skeletal palm and bringing it closer to his face. “He probably just liked to hold stuff. I heard anxious people do that because they need something to do with their hands.”
He shifted his hand like he was going to throw it away.
“Wait a second,” I said, reaching up to stop him. “Do you know what Tarakona’s dragon egg looked like?”
He paused. “Oh. Yeah, it looked like a rock.” He eyed the stone again. “You think this is an egg?”
I turned my hand over, and he dropped the stone into it. It was heavier than I expected.
“No, but I think it might be significant. Why else would this guy be holding it?”
“With a death grip. Heh. Literally.”
“Come on,” I said.
I left the palace, heading straight back to the pyramid. Amos trailed behind me, staying quiet for once, just letting me do my thing. I don’t know why I thought the stone was a key. I guess because it seemed important, and what else would it be used for? It didn’t have any discernible magic in it, death or otherwise. For all intents and purposes, it was just a rock.
Except I couldn’t believe the druid had been holding it because he was anxious. Ancient fidget spinners? That was just stupid.
Besides, we knew someone had been here before, and the hand had been opened before. It made sense and seemed to fit.
We descended back into the pyramid. I walked up the forward wall, shining my flashlight against the surface. The face was perfect. Flawless. Even after thousands of years.
“What about the floor?” Amos asked.
I shined the light on the ground, covering it methodically. It was unblemished.
“So much for that idea. Good try though, Skeleton.”
“We have to search the whole pyramid,” I said.
“Are you kidding? You gave me one good knee, Baldie, but the other one is barking like one of those werewolf thingies out there. You go on ahead; I’m going to rest here.”
He dropped to the ground, leaning against the wall.
“Damn it, Amos,” I said. “We’ve already wasted hours. How many people do you think Samedi and the Morrigan have had time to kill?”
“Don’t care,” he said.
“What about Dannie?”
“She ain’t going nowhere without us, and without the spell.”
“Do you have to be an asshole right now?” I shouted, my voice hoarse.
I coughed immediately, lifting my hand instinctively to my mouth. My blood splattered on the stone.
It started to glow.
40
Break on through to the other side.
“Uh, Baldie,” Amos said, pointing at the rock.
“I see it,” I said.
It was glowing, a soft blue light that increased in intensity as the blood from my cancerous lungs was absorbed into it. We watched as it spread across the room, illuminating the entire thing, revealing a handprint on the wall that hadn’t been there a moment earlier.
“Do you think?” Amos asked.
I nodded, handing him the glowing rock and walking over to it. I put my hand on the print.
The wall started to sink.
“Too bad Frank’s missing this,” Amos said. “He’d be all like ‘Awesome; it’s like those places where you have to solve the puzzles to escape from a room before it explodes or something.’”
I almost laughed. His impression of Frank was spot on.
The door continued to sink until it vanished seamlessly into the earth. I still hadn’t sensed any magic from it, but maybe there was an enchanted component deeper underground?
The rock was still glowing, illuminating the room past the door. The odd smell was overpowering now, emerging from the space and buffeting my senses. Amos put his fingers to his nose to hold it, making a disgusted face.
Even from outside, I could see the walls were covered in writing. Not English, of course. Hieroglyphics of some kind - a language I was sure I didn’t know. It wrapped all the way around the room, from the floor to the top of the seven-foot ceiling, which curved upward at the center to form a dome.
The top of the dome was where the action was happening, in the form of a tiny point of darkness no wider than a finger tip. It stood out from the rest of the room because the light from the stone couldn’t pierce it.
I heard the voices then. Hundred of thousands of voices. Not a cacophony of souls, like I was accustomed to with Samedi’s mask. A whisper. A hint. Single words from single voices. Love you. So tired. Want to go home. Happies
t I’ve ever been. Things like that. They were positive and negative, the words and thoughts of the dead.
There was power in them. Power that stretched out across the room and beyond, into the walls of the city. This was the source of it all. The magic the druids had unlocked that caused their death.
“Baldie,” Amos said. He was staring at his hand. It was beginning to change color, developing the same rash as the others. “I think I better bail.” He tossed the stone back to me.
I nodded. His resistance wasn’t enough to stop the power in here from eating away at him. He hustled from the room and out of the pyramid, leaving me alone.
I stood there, listening, making out each word, each thought. How many souls were trapped in between life and death? How did they get stuck there? Or maybe I was thinking about it the wrong way. What if only parts of the souls remained? Just enough to bring them in from the further reaches of the afterlife. To hook them up and yank them back.
I stared up at the point of darkness. I had always heard death magic as little more than noise, so random and chaotic compared to the order of other magical frequencies. But maybe I hadn’t been smart enough to hear. Or maybe I had been too far away from death to hear. That din wasn’t chaos. It was these voices, layered on top of one another, hundreds strong.
I looked down at the stone in my hand. Was it more than a key? Was it something Death wanted? Was it the real reason I was here? Part of me thought I should leave it. Part of me thought I should take it. For now, I set it on the floor to use it for light, taking my phone from my pocket and using it to grab photos of every last bit of the scripture. With any luck, Ash would be able to read it. If not, I was certain Hades could.
When that was done, I dropped the phone back in my pocket and considered the stone again. I didn’t pick it up right away. Instead, I moved to the center of the room, staring straight up at the dark spot. I started raising my hand toward it. I knew what it was. A smaller version of what I was supposed to create. A portal from this life to the beyond, small enough that the power could pass through but nothing else.
I kept reaching, extending my index finger toward it. My heart was racing. With fear. With excitement. This was the other side. This was my chance to understand it before I had to confront Samedi with it. I was hoping it would help alleviate my fears, that it would bring me comfort.
My finger slipped into it.
The power rushed through me like an electric shock. I closed my eyes, the sudden explosion of voices overwhelming me. I could feel my muscles give way, but something was holding me, keeping me upright, keeping my finger in the portal. It was loud. So fucking loud. I tried to separate the voices, but I couldn’t.
“You don’t belong here,” I heard someone say. It came across clearly, breaking out from the madness behind it. “Not yet.”
“Necromancer.” The word echoed behind it in an accusing whisper.
“We’re trapped,” a series of voices said. “Stuck.”
“Eternity.”
“Help us,” one voice said.
“Help us,” another cried.
“How?” I said. My voice was on the wrong side, and they couldn’t hear me.
“The throne is empty. The gates are closed.”
“Closed.”
“There is no passage.”
“We’re trapped.”
“Help us.”
“You don’t belong here,” the first voice said again.
Something pushed my finger out, disconnecting me from the portal with enough force that I fell back and onto my ass. I cursed at a flare of pain in my back, rolling sideways and finding the stone underneath me. The glow was fading, my blood gone.
I stayed where I was, on the ground staring up at the portal, trying to make sense of the voices I had heard. They were speaking random words. They were talking directly to me. I was sure of it. But what did those words mean?
The throne is empty? No, it wasn’t. There was a corpse on the throne. The one I had taken the stone from.
The gates are closed? I hadn’t seen any gates, but the wall was breached.
Were they even talking about the City of the Damned?
Or were they referring to the netherworld?
What the fuck was going on?
I rolled over, gathering myself and getting back to my feet. I stumbled out of the room, barely noticing that it sealed itself behind me. I ascended from the pyramid, walking haggardly through the city to where the others were waiting.
I could hear the death magic in my head. Only I had learned something in there. The noise had faded, and I could make out individual words. Care. Hate. Loss. Miss you. Lonely. Fantastic. Those were just some, and now that I knew they were there I couldn’t stop hearing them. I felt the death magic more acutely. My mastery over it was growing.
But at what cost?
41
Whatever makes you feel better.
I made my way out of the city, back to where Amos, Dannie, Ash, Frank, and the wisps were waiting.
Dannie approached me first, wrapping her arms around me and holding me tight. When she pulled back, her expression was flat.
“Did you get it?” Death asked.
I stared at him, not answering right away. I was pissed at him for using her like this.
“Oh come now, necromancer,” he said. “She was already dead. You’re the one who got her killed. I simply took advantage of your mistake. In the end, we want the same thing.”
“We both want Samedi gone,” I said. “Other than that, we don’t want the same thing.”
He laughed. “You have no idea what I want.”
I smiled back. “You have no idea what I want, either.”
“Yes, I do. You want to find a way to stay alive. To send Samedi through the portal without going through yourself. You want to find a way to destroy me, too. Of course, you do. It doesn’t take much to see right through you, Conor. You’re as transparent as glass.”
“I’ve got the fucking spell,” I said. “Not that I can read it. Now what?”
“Ask your dragon to translate it for you. It’s the reason I sent you to Tarakona’s lair. Not to save the Great Wyrm, but to rescue his son. Then the hunt for Samedi can begin.”
“What about the Morrigan?” I asked.
“Find a television,” he replied.
Dannie’s face shifted again as Death retreated from her. Fresh tears sprang to her eyes.
“Damn it, Conor,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
I embraced her again. “It isn’t your fault. You shouldn’t have gotten wrapped up in this, not this way.”
“I never wanted to come back,” she said. “I always thought you might be the one to do it. I always wondered whether or not you would keep your promise. I didn’t expect some other asshole to molest me like this.”
I felt like I had been punched in the gut again. I wanted to make more excuses for what I had done, but I was out of them. There was no reconciling how badly I had treated her. There was little difference between Death and me.
I turned away from her, looking at Ash and pulling my phone from my pocket. He had discarded his human form to help me fight the snake, remaining in his natural state. Even at his age, he was intimidating, nearly twenty feet long, his shoulder starting at the top of my head. The wisps were climbing over him, picking between his scales.
“Thanks for the help against King Cobra,” I said. “You saved my ass.”
“Mine too,” Amos said. “Well, most of me.” He motioned to his dead leg.
“You would do the same for me,” Ash said. “That is the nature of our bond.”
I wasn’t sure if I would have done the same for him, but okay. “You heard Death. He thinks you can read this.”
I opened the photos on my phone, holding them up to him. His head dipped, leaving me closer to him than I had ever been. I could feel the heat from his nostrils. I could see the young intellect in his eyes. He was impressive, that was for sure.
“It
will need to be translated into your book,” Ash said. “But yes, I can read it.”
“It is the portal spell, right?”
He nodded. “Yes.” His eyes scanned it. “Go to the next photo.”
I did. He scanned it.
“Go to the next photo,” he repeated.
I did. Again.
“Brother,” he said, and then paused.
“What is it?” I asked. I got the feeling he had seen something he didn’t like.
He hesitated. “This spell will take a great amount of magic to complete.”
“Samedi is somewhere close to the source,” I said. “There should be plenty of magic down there.”
He didn’t answer right away, but eventually, he nodded.
“I don’t want to be the downer,” Frank said. “But did Death happen to mention how we’re supposed to get back home?”
I had been assuming he would arrange transportation, but he hadn’t mentioned it. “Ash?”
“I can’t transport you, brother. The others, yes.”
“Great,” Amos said, laughing. “We completed the fucking quest, and now we have no ride home? I’m pretty sure Uber doesn’t have service out here.”
“How far is the closest major city?” I asked.
“Brasilia, Brazil,” Ash replied.
“How long would it take you to fly there?”
Ash drew his head back. “I know what you’re thinking, brother. I’m not a damn taxi.”
“What about our bond? You can save my life, but you can’t give me a ride?”
“It’s humiliating. I’m an immortal wyrm.”
“Do you think I want to ride the back of a dragon? No offense, but I’d much rather take first class.”
“You can’t spend my inheritance on first class. You don’t need that much leg room.”
“I know there’s a bestiality joke in here somewhere,” Amos said.
“Shut up,” Ashiira and I both said at once.
“Fate of the world, Ash,” I said.
He growled softly, a bit of smoke streaming from his nostrils. “Damn it. Very well, but only this one time. I’m not a horse.”