Necrosis (The Omens of Gaia Book 1)

by H. C. Damrosch

  After some time it answered: “While humans see light, the brethren see – energy, one might call it. There are rivers of power which flow beneath the earth, coursing through all living things. These streams glow everywhere like fire, as clear at midnight as during midday. They mark the lay of the land, outlining areas of fertility and forsaking areas of desolation. The streams gather in fields and villages where men are present, and pool in the deep forests where men rarely go. One memorizes these patterns and navigates by them.”

  Keren’s wordless confusion must have been apparent on a mental level, because the Necrow sighed and said: “We do not use our eyes to see, understand? We see with our minds instead.”

  “Then what is the mask for?”

  The Necrow did not reply. Keren sensed she had stumbled upon something interesting. “What is the mask for?” she demanded.

  It seemed agitated by this question. “It is a reminder, and…a barrier to temptation. Do not ask more! It is enough that you asked me to discard it.”

  Keren peered intently at the creature for a moment, both curious and repulsed by its vague words and intimations. Finally she shrugged, decided she was satisfied for the moment, and rode onward.

  They made camp at the edge of the forest that night. After eating a small meal of dried rations (which was far more satisfying than the rotten gruel she had become accustomed to), Keren curled up in a hollowed-out snowdrift beside the mare for warmth. She slept soundly as the Necrow kept watch. Storm clouds gathered over the distant mountains, but here the air was still, flurries of snow falling softly through the night.

  CHAPTER 4

  THE WELL

  He awoke in darkness.

  The first memory was the sensation of water. It was everywhere, bathing his skin: cold, heavy, gurgling. It was everywhere…even in his lungs.

  He was drowning.

  He struggled, trying to move his body, but could not. He tried to scream, but no sound came.

  Finally he realized he did not need to breathe. His lungs were not made to draw air. His heart was not made to pump blood. His organs were inert.

  Helpless, he hung in the water’s embrace…

  Below, far below, was a spiral of light; something felt rather than seen, dimly suffusing the blackness. After many moments tingling fire ran across his skin, startling his nerves into wakefulness. Limbs thrashed as his body came to life.

  Then he felt his Master’s call. It throbbed deep in his bones; in his sluggish, unmoving blood. He righted himself and strained for the surface.

  He broke into air, and was assaulted by still more sensations. He retched with the shock of it, heaving black water out of his lungs. He crawled pitifully across frigid stone and bent to kiss his Master’s feet. Why he felt such incredible gratitude towards this man who had lifted him from the Well, he could not say. But certainly he had been made to worship Him.

  The man did not speak. He did not even acknowledge His creature’s obeisance. After a moment He jerked His boot impatiently from the creature’s grasp and strode away. He had other things to attend to.

  The creature, at a loss, began to crawl after the Master, ungainly in his new flesh, numb joints scraping and tripping across the stone floor. His pathetic progress was interrupted as the brethren gathered around him.

  ‘Rise, brother,’ they said.

  His mind could hear them more clearly than if they had actually spoken. He struggled to his feet, shaking with the tremors of newly-formed muscles. Although there was nothing wrong with himself as he was, the brethren insisted he cover his body with pieces of woven animal-fibers. His tentative questions were sternly rebuked.

  ‘As all men wear these, so must we. You will learn to appreciate them in time.’

  ‘What is a man?’ he asked them.

  ‘Master is a man. We are not. As His devoted servants, we must learn to imitate Him.’

  They gave him several sharp lengths of metal to carry also. ‘These are used to kill men. There are many men who do not love our Master and seek to oppose Him. They must be dealt punishment in accordance with His law.’

  Finally they gave him a mask carved from bone. As the shield was placed over his face he did not ask how he would manage to see, because he had not opened his eyes since he emerged.

  ‘The mask is a reminder, brother,’ intoned the brethren. ‘It is a reminder to men that you are not of their kind, and embody the faceless justice of Our Lord. More importantly, it is a reminder that you must not look upon the world of men, else you will fall to madness and ruin.’

  ‘Why?’ he asked.

  They did not respond.

  He followed them out of the Hall of the Well through the dank and twisting corridors of their Lord’s fortress. They showed him the places where the enemies of their Lord were kept. They showed him the dungeons, the mines, the burial pits. ‘We are dealers of death,’ they explained. ‘We have been created that Our Lord should not have to dirty His hands with the deaths of those who resist Him.’

  As they walked, he began to see more clearly…the distant ethereal waterways which filled this dark world with pulsing life. The human prisoners blazed with it, like torches in the gloom. His own brethren were as smoldering coals by comparison. He followed them meekly through their Lord’s domain, and marveled at what he saw.

  Finally they left him and drifted off about their duties. On a whim he made his way to the top of the keep, to the ramparts which reared proudly against the side of the mountain. Freezing winds battered his form, but he did not feel the cold. The sensations of life were dim here, so far up amidst rock and snow. Yet still he could make out the coal-like hearts of the brethren lining the battlements. They were not here to guard against men; no man could possibly scale this side of the fortress.

  Still they searched for something.

  Their sightless faces were upturned to the sky, masks of bone hanging limply from forgetful fingers. He wished to cry out, urging them to shield their faces against the temptations of the world. But when he brushed against their thoughts he felt only senseless rapture, a single-minded addiction that pushed him irritably away. His kin were held in thrall to something that surpassed their own feeble will.

  Instead of running to their Master to plead for aid, the creature was gripped instead by a morbid curiosity. Slowly, as if in a dream, he reached up to pry the mask from his own face. Already he felt vulnerable as it peeled away from his flesh, and dared lower it only an inch or so.

  He shook with a nameless fear as he slowly opened his eyes.

  A momentary glance was all that was needed. A white orb hung in the sky, riddled with gray ridges and seas, luminous with ghostly light. Its aura drowned out the specks of fire to every side as it rose majestically in the heavens. It’s pure, untainted beauty beckoned to him, as if the sphere housed a higher consciousness whose call lay just out of reach.

  Instead of rapture, an agonizing pain welled up in the Necrow’s chest. He clutched the mask to his face and staggered backwards, biting back screams. Cowering in shadows on the far side of the parapet, he tried to quell the awful throbbing in his chest. He did not yet have a name for emotions, nor was he able to distinguish them from physical pain. Yet what he felt then, he learned later, was anguish, longing; a feeling of unbearable separation.

  Darkness and the Well were his first memory. But when he saw the moon, a new memory began to stir.

  He had seen a light like this before.

  §

  The next day they left the forest and entered the plains. The sky was huge, stretching from low hills in the west to the jagged mountains in the east. The forest dwindled to a pile of sticks behind them, finally vanishing altogether. The sun shone freely here, hot enough to melt the snow in patches, exposing coarse prairie grass and bare rock.

  Keren dismounted and walked for much of the time, reacquainting her legs to exercise after months of languishing in the dungeons. Small snatches of birdsong rose from the desolate landscape, coloring the air with lone
ly notes of greeting. Keren breathed in deeply; the scent of the wilds was as heady as perfume. The wind smelled of icy clouds and volcanic earth.

  Her stomach rumbled slightly, but she ignored it. The rations were not plentiful, and the border was still several days away. There were scant other ways to find food when one was on the march in winter, with no weapons with which to hunt. At least she was so used to starvation that her stomach had shrunk to the size of a grape…

  Still, Keren couldn’t get over the surreal feeling that haunted her as they traipsed along beneath a cerulean sky. She wasn’t really going to the land of the Pouthenians. That was a distant realm where only those in self-imposed exile went, never to return. She’d barely traveled ten miles from her village before the day she’d been forcibly dragged away from it. Any hour now, they’d stumble upon the quaint wooden houses squatting at the edge of the forest, her kin tilling the fields and fishing the river…

  Keren couldn’t seriously consider she’d ever step foot in a foreign country. She couldn’t even be sure she wasn’t still in a dungeon cell, dreaming mad visions while dancing to the strings of an undead puppet master. If her rescuer had been human, she could have accepted that her freedom was real. That one of the Necrow had saved her was still too much to believe.

  Then she wondered, if she really was under the spell of one of the evil wraiths, wouldn’t they try to make her imaginary escape seem as real as possible? That stumped her. But Keren still couldn’t bring herself to believe it, all the same.

  They were heading south at a fairly brisk pace. The Necrow led the mare ahead, and Keren did her best to keep up. The day grew warm as the sun passed overhead, despite the winter clime. Keren slung her cloak and boots over the saddle and pushed along in just the oversized jerkin and trousers. Before long she was daydreaming about all the nice clothes she’d be able to wear once they’d reached their nonexistent destination…

  Lunchtime consisted of Keren taking a few bites of flatbread while the Necrow blankly faced the horizon. Fortunately for her the thing didn’t need any sustenance, and she didn’t feel like sharing.

  A few hours later, she’d exhausted both her stamina and her imagination. Slumped in the saddle and bored to tears by the faceless, unchanging landscape, Keren cast about for another conversation topic.

  “What’s your name?”

  “…Why would you assume there was one?”

  “Your friend had a name – the one you supposedly staked to the floor. When you rescued me.”

  “Malthusias? He is an outlier, a reprobate. The Necrow were not given names by Our Lord; neither do they choose names for themselves. It is human pride which demands such things.”

  “Huh. Hardly pride, I’d say, since we humans would never know who we’re talking to if we didn’t call each-other by different words!”

  “Then the Necrow are wiser than men, for they always know to whom they speak, names or not.” The creature touched its forehead in clarification.

  “Ah, of course. You’re psychics. How could I forget?” Keren rolled her eyes and inwardly cursed them all. “Well, as I said, humans have a hard time talking to things if they don’t have names for them. We even have a name for God, though it is forbidden to speak it! Do you want me to name you, Necrow?”

  “No.”

  “Too bad! You should have predicted this when you chose to get yourself involved with a human! Now let me think…” Keren made a show of stroking her chin and peering profoundly into the distance, as the elders were sometimes wont to do. She was pleased when she noticed the Necrow’s cowl turn slightly towards her, as if the undead spirit within was intent upon her decision.

  It only took a minute to think of something fitting. Keren pretended to ponder a while longer, however, in order to draw out the suspense. “Ah-ha! I have it! Henceforth, you shall be known as Akar!”

  “What does it mean?”

  “Why would you think it means something?”

  “All human names have meaning.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “…No one.”

  “Well, I’m not going to tell you!”

  “…It means ‘nuisance’, doesn’t it?”

  “Stop reading my mind!”

  The Necrow turned its face towards her, and Keren saw the stern lines around its eyes. “That is a fact you must learn to live with. Especially since you insist on mocking and deceiving, when thanks would be more appropriate.”

  “Thanks?” Keren gave a hoarse laugh. “For what? Destroying my village and imprisoning my tribe? Saving me from your malicious brethren so you could stalk me and read my every thought? Forgive my oversight! How could I ever think to name you Akar when Samael would be more appropriate?”

  The Necrow’s hand constricted around the bridle, and of a sudden Keren felt the same presence she had in Malthusias’ chamber. It was crushing; not merely insinuating emotions into her mind, but overpowering her altogether. The mare whinnied and jerked beneath her, and Keren fought to keep her balance as she curled her consciousness into a tiny ball. She tried to focus on the horse’s mane clutched between her fingers, tried to escape the pain by sinking herself into obsession with a single strand, but to no effect. She could not fight it, could not get away –

  Her next reflex was purely animal instinct: she lashed out and struck the Necrow across the face.

  Instantly the presence ebbed, and Keren became aware of the Necrow breathing heavily beside her. Had it been breathing before? She could not remember.

  Do not call me by that name. It is evil.

  “What do you know of evil?” she gasped. “It’s all the same to you!”

  The Necrow groaned. No…No…It is blasphemy to speak that name. Our Lord will save us from it, just as He will save us from the light. You must not speak of it –

  “I can’t speak of the Poisoner, the Seducer, the Destroyer? Ha! And before this I thought Belshazzar was the only one worthy of those names. Men might have many reasons to fear the devil, but what reason do you have, Necrow? You have no soul – if I put a stake through your ugly heart right now, you’d dissolve into ash!”

  The black specter looked at her, and Keren was stunned beyond words to discover that the Necrow was, in fact, afraid. You truly wish for my death. Perhaps this body is only ashes, as vacant of spirit as you imagine. Perhaps the deeds which my brethren and I visited upon your people truly were atrocities worthy of hell, and we are all agents in the service of evil. Yet we fear the devil all the same, though we cannot say why.

  Keren was ready to burst into hysterical laughter. So ironic did this seem, and so close it had brought her to being obliterated. “I can’t believe I’m talking to a superstitious ghost! Well, I suppose it does make some amount of sense… A ghost is likely to know better than anything that there’s an even bigger, badder ghost out there waiting to devour it!”

  Then she came to her senses and glared at the Necrow. “So, is this how it’s going to be? You’re going to mind-crush me whenever I anger you or disagree with you? If it is, then you might as well get it over with now, because I would rather insult you to my death than take another step!”

  The Necrow faltered, then raised a hand to cover its eyes. Gradually it recovered the power of speech. Forgive me… “The reaction was unintentional. Better control will be practiced henceforth.”

  “Better control?! Surely you’re not already an expert in mind-flaying people!”

  “No… Never. There is no reason to do such a thing…except, it seems, in anger.” The Necrow’s other hand was still white-knuckled where it clutched the bridle. The mare stamped and whinnied nervously. “This is why dispassion must be adhered to. Forgiveness is asked.”

  Keren was just about ready to slip off the other side of the horse and make a break for it. The only reason she hadn’t done so already was that she knew she wouldn’t get far. A small voice inside her head (she was fairly sure it was her own) told her it would be best to get along with this creature, given that it
could overpower and kill her at any moment. Experience clearly indicated it was unpredictable.

  And yet, given that nearly everyone she’d ever known and cared about was either dead or mad at this point, Keren was less concerned about her own wellbeing than she otherwise would have.

  “Forgiveness is not given.”

  The Necrow lowered its hand from its face. Then it looked at her. For some reason, its eyes were open. Keren recoiled from the milky white orbs. The eyes of a dead thing stared at her, and there was pain in their depths. Why? Because the offer offends you? Or because forgiveness cannot be given to one without a soul?

  Keren spat her response through the hardened barricade of her mind: Both.

  The Necrow flinched, then turned away, pulling the cowl close around its face. “Then call me a nuisance, if you like. It matters not.”

  The Necrow turned and continued to lead the mare across the trackless plain. It set a brisk pace, marching tirelessly through rock and snow as the sun slowly sank into the western sky.

  Keren sat in the saddle, numb, uncertain of what had passed between them. It seemed she was not in danger of being mind-flayed again anytime soon…unless the creature’s memory was unusually short. Somehow she doubted it. Occasionally she would cast out suspiciously with her thoughts, as if she could catch the Necrow lurking like a ghost in the corners of her brain. She sensed nothing, but could just as easily chalk that up to her own lack of psychic ability.

  They made camp that night in what seemed like the middle of nowhere. The wind was much colder here, with no trees to hinder it. The stars were painfully sharp, burning within the boundless vault of heaven. The moon was new and shed little light. Keren scooped together as much snow as she could to make a break against the wind, and curled up beside the mare for warmth. From time to time she would crack open one eye, assuring herself that the Necrow had not moved from where it stood.