Tarous
Page 1
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 1
Nothing puts life in perspective like dying.
Another night spent meditating in a graveyard, the story of my life. I was born with a power, a fire, or maybe a miniature sun would be more accurate. It is a power that is too destructive for a mortal body to contain, so from the moment I was born I started to die. No different than anyone else I suppose, I just travel down that path faster than most.
I’ve heard of others being born with powers beyond what their mortal bodies could contain. From the moment I learned to read I’ve spent most of my time researching, gathering all the data I could. Every scrap of information I found related to my condition, I have studied. Every lead I have found, I have followed. All paths I have discovered have all lead me to dead ends.
I once read of an instance over two hundred years ago where a boy was born with the power of nature so great that he gradually lost the ability to move. His body stiffened until he became completely paralyzed. His joints locked, his skin hardened, and eventually he was no different from a tree. The thought of being trapped within my own body, unable to move, caused me to shudder.
I found another story, over a thousand years old, about a young girl with the power of ice. She was without match, her strength grew by leaps and bounds, and entire armies feared her. She was a cold and calculating fighter that had no equal in battle. One night during a full moon, when the yin qi was at its greatest, she lost control of her powers and froze to death. Even the warm blood in her veins turned to ice in an instant. Soon afterwards her body shattered into a thousand shards of ice.
I had found several more stories about children born with amazing powers, but none had survived beyond their twentieth birthday. Every one of them suffered terrible and gruesome deaths at the hands of their own powers. My power was neither of nature nor ice. The power within me was more like a burning sun, which meant I would probably have a far more violent end. Lucky me.
Imagining what it would be like to spontaneously combust, slowly burning to death from the inside out, I shuddered. I found some comfort by reminding myself it was still better than being turned into a tree. At least it was a fast death, I wouldn’t suffer for more than a minute before I became ash.
Personally I didn’t want to die either way, but if I had a choice… Besides, what if I became a tree and one of my branches started to itch? I wouldn’t be able to scratch it. Now that would truly be torture.
I took a deep breath to calm my nerves. The whole situation just felt so hopeless. Why was I cursed with this power, this life? Life truly wasn’t fair, but no one ever said it was.
I sat in the dark quiet night, a slab of cold marble beneath my butt. Maybe sitting on a grave was disrespectful, but so far the dead had never complained. I read the engraving on the gravestone in front of me.
“Frank, lived to be 78. Lucky you Frank.”
I felt bad for Frank, being dead and all, but a part of me was jealous of his long life. I could expect many things out of life, but a long life wasn’t in the cards for me. I was fated to become barbeque.
The air was frigid, just the way I liked it. If you can’t see your own breath then how do you know you’re still breathing?
I’ve studied thousands of spell books, learned more magic than a witch twice my age. Nothing like having your life on the line to encourage you to learn fast. Despite everything that I had learned, the only thing that I truly knew was that I was a dead man. However, though I hadn’t found a cure, I had found a way to resist my untimely death.
What I found was just a few notes in an old book, barely legible, on a method to absorb a special kind of energy. It was written that in areas where people have been laid to rest a unique energy is formed. I dug deeper into the subject. Since the most informative books on this subject were from the east, I decided to call this energy “death qi”. I never found the book with the actual technique in it, but I managed to cobble together my own incomplete version of the technique from all the scraps of information that I had uncovered.
Death qi was one of the few things that could quench the power within my body. It helped, but it wasn’t a cure. It only prolonged the inevitable and it took time to absorb it, even with the use of my technique. How ironic that the very thing that would bring about my death could only be slowed by death. It seemed like a cruel joke.
I could tell my condition was deteriorating. I could feel my body being slowly cooked like a Thanksgiving turkey. The pain was intense, great enough to make one realize a simple truth: that death could also be a release from pain. I took a deep breath of the cold graveyard air. I inhaled the death qi, wisps of it slowly being absorbed into my body. I guided the energy throughout my body and relief from the pain was almost immediate.
As the pain in my body receded, I noticed the chirping of crickets. I was too distracted by the pain to notice them earlier. I closed my eyes and let my thoughts drift.
I spent so much time researching western medicine, but I was unable to find a cure. My parents had taken me to several doctors. They were useless, but happy to take our money.
I turned to magic, despite the negative stereotypes about it. I found that I had a natural talent for the magical arts, but alas they were also useless for improving my condition.
After western medicine and magic failed I turned to eastern medicine, but what I found was more scams and hokum than medicine. I had all but given up when I turned to eastern magic. I found scraps of information that slowly lead me to a torn copy of an old book.
The title was arrogant to the extreme. Heavenly Emperor World Technique. It was almost completely destroyed except for the first few pages. Its writing was mostly illegible and the details of the technique were probably in the later ruined pages. Just my luck. What I found inside, on the few remaining pages, was the first bit of knowledge to actually help me with my condition. It told about qi, especially death qi, and how to absorb that qi.
Death qi was not a perfect balance for the destructive fiery energy inside my body, but it did help neutralize it to some extent. Death was cold, the grave was cold, and that coldness helped to neutralize the fiery qi within my body. I planned to continue to use death qi to stave off my death for as long as possible. Death might run towards me like a wife running towards her husband’s embrace, but I refuse to receive death with open arms.
I continued to meditate, focusing on my breathing.
My life isn’t a complete tragedy. I have learned an incredible amount about magic and through my magic I have made interesting friends. One particularly interesting friend might even visit me tonight.
Most people believe magic has to be summoned wit
h Latin or some other ancient language. That human sacrifices must be made to summon the power of magic and strange hand gestures made to control it. All of these are lies that witches have told themselves for centuries. Words and gestures are only the framework to put one in the correct mental state. Truthfully any words will do, or no words at all. The only thing that truly matters is the will of the witch. A witch doesn’t do magic, a witch is magic. That was one of the hardest lessons I had to learn and the knowledge I’m most proud of. It shaped me and allowed me to travel farther down the path of magic than many other witches my age.
“Death is a release and love a promise.” I spoke the words like a solemn oath. Words that moved me, that spoke to my very soul. The words themselves had no power, they were not magic words. They were words that moved my soul. The most powerful magics come from the soul.
A vague form began to take shape behind me. Most would mistake the form for a ghost, but it was something much more powerful. A black robe floated behind me. A hood covered its head and long sleeves covered its hands. The only thing that could be seen besides the robes was an old rusty scythe.
“Hello death, my old friend.”
The grim reaper is not something to be feared. It is an old being. It does not kill, it only comes to watch over the dead and guide them to their destination. It is a hero and a guide who deserves our admiration and respect for the lonely vigil it has held since the very first death. It is our protector, who asks for nothing, but only ever helps.
My words did not summon the grim reaper, nor would I do so even if they could. The words I spoke were less a spell and more of an invitation, the essence of my soul sent forth into the world. It was merely a ripple in the pond of magic saying, ‘I am here if you wish to visit.’
Though there was only one grim reaper it could have as many bodies as it chose. There are many grim reapers, but there is only one grim reaper. It could be everywhere at once or nowhere if it so chose. It is difficult to fully comprehend a being that can be everywhere or nowhere all at the same time. I do know one thing for sure, the reaper will always be there at the moment a person dies, to escort them to the other side. Not because he has to, but because he cares.
A silent guardian.
The world is vast so it sends shadow versions of itself to guide souls to the next life. Without this help many souls would remain on earth and either be preyed upon by evil creatures or eventually go mad from being so close to the living, but unable to touch or affect them in any way.
The grim reaper floated through the graveyard and as he did flowers began to wilt and die. Once vibrant flowers turned black and lifeless.
“Thank you for the honor of this visit.” I never knew completely why it came to visit me. Maybe because I had spent my entire life closer to death than others. It had appeared to me when I had first started training in death qi to prevent my own death. Maybe it knew that its presence made death qi gather, which made it far easier for me to absorb it. Maybe it was just lonely. Death isn’t a lot of things, but it is a lonely journey.
“I think I’m close to another break through with my technique. I’ve noticed certain magics vibrate at different frequencies. By studying the vibrations of magic I may be able to figure out a way to further neutralize the fiery energy within my body.”
I smiled at the reaper. I was so young then. So innocent, never realizing how much of the world I was unaware of.
The reaper continued to float above the ground, giving no indication that it could hear me. An occasional nod or the slight shaking of its robes was the only reactions I had ever received from it. Time quickly slipped away like the sand in deaths hourglass. The reaper just floated, silent as the grave, and just as peaceful.
I continued to sit with the reaper and breathe in the cool air of the graveyard. It was an old graveyard, older than most cities. Life constantly changes, but it all ends the same way. Though I stayed up the entire night I never needed to sleep. The technique I used was more refreshing than any night of sleep could ever be.
Soon the sun would come up, its light was already peaking above the horizon. Another glorious day was about to begin. The reaper rarely came out in daylight, it seemed to have an aversion to it. Personally I think he just didn’t want people staring at him.
“Thank you for visiting me. Thank you for all that you do for us.”
With a nod the reaper faded away. Death qi began to lessen in the area the moment he left.
The night had been peaceful. Sometimes the cops would show up and bother me, since it’s illegal to be in a graveyard after dark, but whenever the reaper visited the police were unable to see me.
The supernatural world does its best to avoid attention since the time of the Salem witch trials. Since then we have silently infiltrated all governments in the world. Behind several of the most successful politicians, celebrities, and billionaires are witches pulling the strings. Nothing like being able to talk to a horse to fix a race and no one is better with aviation than someone who can fly on a broomstick.
Now that the sun was up I had to go to school.
Chapter 2
Freak College is what all the students called it, though its official name is The Illustrious School of Mystical Arts and Higher Learning.
I personally preferred the name Freak College. We had dorms like a normal college, nice dorms, newly built. The dorms were the only thing that was new. The rest of the school was a lot older and had extensive damage in more than a few places. Probably because students kept accidently blowing up parts of the school, mostly during potion labs. Freak College was the oldest known school of magic. In the past this very spot was used by shamans to train their apprentices in the ways of magic.
Despite how cool it would be, we actually don’t go to school in a giant medieval castle. Castles are drafty, and I personally enjoy electricity and indoor plumbing.
For the student roommates, the college tried to group new students together based on their courses. This way students would know at least one person in each of their classes. Witches that could control water were grouped with other water witches and earth witches with other earth witches. Since I needed to learn as much as I could about death qi, I registered for necromancer classes.
My new roommate was named Bob and he seemed like a super nice guy. He had messy black hair and was shorter than me by several inches. We were both the same age and this was the first semester for both of us. He kept his side of the room clean, he was friendly, and we both got along right away. He didn’t talk about his family, but we bonded over our knowledge of Greek Mythology.
Unfortunately, Bob had one major fear. He was afraid of the dead. Whether it was dead bodies or spirits of the dead, he was terrified of them. A rather unfortunate phobia for a necromancer. Personally I couldn’t understand why he was even taking necromancer classes.
Our first class together was anatomy of the human body. It was a small class of only five people, as there were very few necromancers in the world. Truthfully there weren’t that many witches in the world either and out of those, very few wanted to work with dead bodies. If it wasn’t for the fact I needed to learn about death qi I wouldn’t be taking these classes either.
If the fire inside of me wasn’t killing me I would have loved to become a fire witch. Casting fireballs, maybe even acquiring a phoenix for a familiar. That would have been amazing.
Human anatomy isn’t a class one would think witches normally take, but anatomy is incredibly important for necromancers. It was very similar to an anatomy class at a normal college, it even had a skeleton in the classroom, except this one occasionally attempted to pick its nose. Witches had the ability to bend the very fabric of reality, but here I was sitting in a classroom with a skeleton that could pick its own nose. I immediately began reevaluating my life choices.
Classes here only lasted for two months and this one was taught by Ms. Valerie. Her hair was orangey-red and up in a beehive hairdo. Her earrings were tiny skeletons. Her dres
s was dark blue with black lining and it also had skeletons all over it. She seemed like a sweet person. She reminded me of my kindergarten teacher from when I was younger. She even gave us candy on our first day. I love candy!
I smiled at the memory of kindergarten. I never realized how much I would miss nap time.
Class went rather well for me, I found it an enjoyable experience. Unfortunately when they brought out a human cadaver to dissect Bob ran out of the room screaming. It wasn’t a manly scream either. The teacher dissected the cadaver in front of the class. I almost immediately regretted all the candy I had eaten earlier.
I actually learned a lot more in class than I expected too. During the dissection of the cadaver Ms. Valerie passed around a human brain for all of us to hold. I didn’t know it at the time but it wouldn’t be the last time I held a human brain in my hands.
During the rest of class I worried about Bob and his future. If he didn’t overcome his fear I couldn’t see how he would become a necromancer. Maybe I should encourage him to go into a different field of study. I felt bad that Bob had missed most of class, but I figured he would show back up for our next class. I took detailed notes for him, making sure not to get any fluid from the brain on the paper.
We were given homework at the end of class. I was rather disappointed since it was our first day. It was a piece of paper with a skeleton on the left side of the page and the names of different bones on the right. We had to match the names of the bones to the bones in the drawing. I grabbed an extra one for Bob.
I left the classroom and went down the hall to our next class which was Ghost Studies. Most of the classes in this hallway were necromancer related so the halls were empty except for the few students in my class. As I walked towards my Ghost Studies class I could clearly hear my own footsteps echoing down the white tiled hallway.
Ghosts weren’t actually dead, but merely echoes of souls or strong emotions left behind from the moment of someone’s death. On rare occasions ghosts can even be created from a piece of a living person’s soul.