Two Necromancers, a Bureaucrat, and an Elf

by L. G. Estrella

  “It will do.” Katie pouted, the rat aimed an arrow, and Timmy reached for his shovel. “I mean it’s wonderful. Send it at once.”

  “Can we send it the usual way?” Katie folded the letter and placed it in an envelope before stamping it with Timmy’s seal: a skull with a shovel imbedded in it. He frowned. Odd. He couldn’t remember giving her a copy of his seal. She must have made one on her own. Clever girl. It would also explain how she’d managed to order a cart-full of pink drapes without him signing anything.

  “No.” Their usual messenger was a giant zombie falcon wreathed in malevolent energy. It was tireless, efficient, and terrifying. Timmy wished he had ten of them. “I think it would be better to send one of the servants. Yes, I’ll have one of the servants ride to the capital to deliver it. The Council has never been big on zombies. Sending one might be taken as an insult.”

  “Aw.” Katie pouted, and the shadows around her stirred. “I wanted to send Julian.”

  “Its name is not Julian.” This was another one of Katie’s many quirks. She had to name all of their zombies. And she didn’t give them scary names either. She gave them normal names.

  “Well, that’s what I call him. It suits him.” Katie folded her arms over her chest and tapped one foot on the ground. The rat on her shoulder mimicked her pose. “Now that we’ve got the letter out of the way, you need to come help me with my latest batch of zombies. I’ve had them waiting in my laboratory since yesterday.” She levelled another scowl at him. “You are supposed to be teaching me, aren’t you?”

  “Fine, fine, I’ll help you. We’ll get that zombie pig-lion of yours up and running in no time.”

  They sent the letter off the next day. Two weeks passed before a reply came, and the Council delivered it in characteristic fashion. Never let it be said that the Council didn’t believe in the awe-inspiring power of bureaucracy.

  “Please, don’t eat me!”

  Timmy grimaced as he looked down at the grey-robed mage curled up into a ball on the drawbridge with a zombie bear looming over him. Please, Timmy thought, don’t let it be a Council bureaucrat. Like most mages with too much time and power, the Council had invented countless layers of utterly pointless bureaucracy. The mages in charge of that bureaucracy tended to fall into two camps: megalomaniacal whackos with a penchant for paperwork and snivelling cowards who had never ventured out from behind a desk.

  He hurried down to the drawbridge. Regardless of what he thought of the Council’s bureaucrats, he couldn’t afford to let one of them get eaten on his premises. The man was still cowering on the ground when he arrived.

  “Why don’t you get up now? Gary here wasn’t actually going to eat you.” Timmy gave the zombie bear a pat on the head. The zombie could thank Katie for its name. “He just likes to play around. We’ve been expecting you.” The man continued to cower, and Timmy sighed. “Please, get up. You can shake his hand. He’s completely harmless.”

  The other man finally got to his feet. He appeared to be somewhere in his fifties with grey hair and blue eyes. He was unusually tall and unusually skinny. “Okay.” He reached out and gave the zombie bear’s hand a tentative shake. The creature made a sound that would have been playful coming from a living bear but which sounded horrific coming from a zombie. “Um…” The man fumbled around with one hand and then pulled a folder out of thin air. “Are you Lord Timothy Bolton?”

  “I am.” Timmy smiled in what he hoped was a charming manner. “And you must be the emissary from the Council.”

  “Yes, that’s me.” The man took a big step away from the zombie bear and drew himself up to his full height. He had to be at least six and a half feet tall, but the way his grey robes billowed around his lanky frame made him seem more like a scarecrow than a mage. “I am Inspector Gerald Willis, one of several inspectors that the Council has tasked with determining whether or not a pardon can be issued and what services will be required for it be issued. The Council has received your letter and has sent me to negotiate on their behalf.”

  “Of course.” Timmy gestured at the gates of the castle. The colour had returned to Gerald’s face. Clearly, he was more comfortable falling back on protocol. “Please, come inside. You must be famished. There is a meal waiting for us. By the way, where is your horse? I hope you didn’t have to walk here.” The closest village was three hours away on foot.

  “Your food, was it… cooked by zombies?” Gerald’s face turned an interesting shade of green.

  “I don’t know what you’ve heard about necromancers, but I can assure you that all of my food is cooked by qualified chefs – living, qualified chefs. They make a mean apple pie.”

  Gerald gaped. “Apple pie?”

  “Yes, apple pie.” Timmy waved one hand at Gary, and the zombie bear returned to patrolling the area around the drawbridge. Some of the flesh had fallen off its left shoulder. He’d have to get that fixed, but he wasn’t sure if he had any bear shoulders that big laying around. He’d have to speak to some of the local huntsmen, maybe put in an order or two, or he could send out one of his zombie wyverns and hope it spotted a bear. “So, did you walk all the way here?”

  “About that.” The inspector shuddered and made the sign against evil. “I did have a horse, but something… ate it. At least, I think it ate it. To be honest, I didn’t stay long enough to be sure.” He shuddered. “I threw a book at it and then ran.”

  “The thing that ate your horse, was it all eyes and teeth?” Timmy felt a headache coming on. He’d gone over this with the things that lived under the castle. They were supposed to stay out of sight until the negotiations were done.

  “As a matter of fact, it was.” Gerald blanched and hunched over. “It was all eyes and teeth and twisting flesh.”

  “That sounds like one of Sam’s people. I asked them not to do anything, but you can’t reason with all of them.”

  “Sam?”

  “Trust me, it’s better that you don’t know what that thing was. It makes it easier to sleep at night.” Timmy paused and scratched the back of his head. “But if you do see something like that again, it might be a good idea to run really, really fast.”

  * * *

  Timmy led Gerald to the dining room. It was one of the few chambers in the castle that wouldn’t terrify a casual visitor. Zombies weren’t allowed in there, and experiments were expressly forbidden. It was a matter of hygiene. Zombies had this annoying habit of dripping everywhere, and experiments often resulted in things exploding – dead, squishy things.

  The dining room was tastefully decorated with polished oak furniture, finely woven carpets, and sensible paintings on the walls. In the old days, Timmy’s master had insisted on paintings filled with blood and gore, but Timmy had replaced those with landscapes and nature scenes. He’d even added a few of Katie’s paintings. The girl was a dab hand with a paintbrush although she spent most of her time painting pictures of her latest creations. Her painting of the zombie pig-lion trying to bite off Timmy’s nose was shaping up nicely.

  As Timmy expected, dinner was already waiting for them. Katie was there too, watching the food like a hawk. For someone who wasn’t particularly big, she ate quite a lot.

  “Can we eat yet?” Katie asked.

  Timmy rolled his eyes. Katie could get snippy when she was hungry. Thankfully, she hadn’t brought any of the rats to the table although they could have turned themselves invisible. “Inspector Gerald Willis, meet my apprentice, Katie. Katie, the inspector is here on behalf of the Council. He will be deciding if we get a pardon or not.”

  “Nice to meet you, Katie.” Gerald settled into one of the chairs at the table. “According to my files, your master is famous for several things.” A flick of his wrist summoned another folder out of thin air. “He’s best known for his skill in necromancy, his use of a shovel, and his skill in hand-to-hand combat. However, I don’t know much about you.”

  Katie glanced at Timmy. He nodded back. Telling the inspector about her abilities would make for a goo
d show of faith. Besides, if they wanted to get their pardon, she’d have to show them sooner or later. “I can do the usual necromancy stuff, but I can do some other things too.”

  Her brows furrowed, and the air grew thick and heavy. Every mage’s magic had a certain feel to it. His master had always told Timmy that his magic reminded him of someone setting fireworks off in the middle of a graveyard. Katie’s magic was different. It was exceptionally rare for a child to have magic that felt so ominous. It was like being in the path of a storm. The darkness beneath Katie’s robes lengthened and formed into shadowy hands. She grabbed two sandwiches and a glass of juice. “See?”

  “Fascinating.” Gerald darted over to poke at the shadows with a fork. “How interesting. Your shadows are completely solid.” He poked them again. “I’m assuming that you use your magic to give existing shadows a physical form that you can control, or can you create them entirely out of magic alone?”

  “You ask a lot of questions. Do you study magic?” Katie shot Timmy another glance. He shrugged. He’d let her decide how much she shared.

  “I do, in my spare time.” Gerald pulled another folder out of nowhere, along with a quill and some ink. “Yes, yes. It does seem like you’re taking existing shadows and using your magic to turn them solid before you take control of them.” He held up a piece of bread. “How much control do you have over your shadows? Can you make them sharp?”

  “I can.” Katie pointed one finger, and one of the shadowy hands turned into a dark blade that sliced the bread in two before becoming a hand again and catching the bread. “But how about we eat first? We can talk about this later.”

  “Of course, of course.” Gerald watched closely as Katie let the shadows recede and return to normal.

  As the servants – all of them very much alive – filed in to help serve the meal, Gerald gave the food on his plate a tentative poke. His hesitation vanished moments later after he took the first, hesitant bite. He grinned. “This is wonderful, my lord.”

  “I’m glad you like it. But just call me Timmy, everyone else does.” He gave Katie a pointed stare.

  Katie’s shadows gathered into a big hand that flashed him a rude gesture. “Give me a break, master. It’s been ages since I called you that.”

  Gerald chuckled. “I must admit you’re not what I expected.”

  “And what did you expect, inspector?”

  “Please, call me Gerald.” The inspector took another bite of his chicken and then reached for more. Katie was kind enough to pass the gravy with her shadows. “Your master was one of the most notorious necromancers in history, and one of the Council’s most fearsome opponents. If I may speak frankly, I doubt that Everton has ever seen a more terrifying, cruel, and evil man.”

  “I won’t argue with you about that. He was a colossal jerk.” Timmy took a sip of water. “But I learned a lot from him. I learned that I didn’t want to end up like him. Jerks don’t last long in my line of work unless they’re willing to do some truly horrible things – things that I’m not willing to do.” He sent the servants out of the dining room. “Now, why don’t we get down to business?”

  “Ah, yes.” Gerald fumbled around and produced several more folders. It had to be magic, but he did it so quickly and easily that it was hard for Timmy to tell what kind of magic it was. “As I’ve said, you’re famous in your own right.”

  Timmy certainly was. He still held the record for the most zombies simultaneously animated by a single necromancer without outside assistance – a solid forty thousand. It had happened when another necromancer had picked a fight with him on top of an ancient graveyard. Animating regular zombies didn’t take much of his magic, which was good since there were necromancers out there with more raw power than him. What he did have in spades were skill and control. His forty thousand zombies hadn’t shambled around in one big group. No, they’d moved with all the precision and coordination of a real army.

  He also held the rather dubious record of being the only necromancer in Everton’s history to successfully file for a tax rebate on stationery. Katie had bet against him, and so he’d gone out and done it just to show her that he could still teach her a trick or two, even when it came to paperwork.

  “To be fair,” Timmy said, reaching for an orange. “I haven’t killed that many people, and most of them were bad.” It was a policy of his: avoid making unnecessary enemies. Not every zombie came back mindless, and the vengeful dead were more than enough trouble without adding members of the living. “In fact, I have a feeling that most of the people I’ve killed are people the Council was glad to see dead.”

  “That is one of the reasons that we’re considering your application.” Gerald flipped through one of the folders. “But, to be honest, you’re the most prominent person to ask for a pardon so far. The program was designed to deal with low- to mid-level offenders, so the Council has given me a great deal of freedom for these negotiations.”

  “I’m guessing that not everyone on the Council approved. Tell me, how many of them wanted me dead?”

  “One. But there were a few who voted in favour of having you imprisoned.”

  “Was it James?” Timmy’s lips curled. That self-righteous jerked fancied himself the avatar of justice. When Timmy’s master had smuggled him into one of Everton’s most prestigious academies for a year to round out his education, Timmy had spent the majority of his free time clashing with James. The other man hated necromancers and anyone who defied tradition, two things that Timmy excelled at. Timmy had spent many a night at the academy dreaming of what his shovel would look like imbedded in James’s forehead. “It was James, wasn’t it?”

  “Councillor James Fredrick Arthurs did indeed vote to have you killed. I believe he suggested that we draw and quarter you. However, he was outvoted. A clear majority of the Council were in favour of arranging some form of probation.”

  “Probation?” That was better than execution. “Go on.”

  Gerald gave them a sunny smile. It was so bright that Timmy had to fight the urge to cover his eyes. “It’s like this…”

  An hour later, Timmy had begun to wonder if Gerald was insane. The inspector’s presentation had featured all of the usual terms and conditions – no betraying the Council, no turning representatives of the Council into zombies, and so on and so forth – but neither he nor the Council wanted Timmy to give up necromancy. If anything, Gerald and the Council wanted him to get better at it.

  They wanted him to work for them, to handle all of the problems they couldn’t deal with the usual way. They also wanted him to recruit a bunch of equally interesting individuals. Naturally, most of those individuals were somewhat unenthusiastic about joining. It would be up to Timmy to convince them. Joy.

  “Let me get this straight. I’m going to be some kind of mercenary for the Council, and you want me to recruit other people for this little… gang they’re putting together, is that right?”

  “That’s about right.” Gerald had summoned a small mountain of paperwork over the course of his explanation. Now, it began to disappear. His smile faded, and for the first time that evening, there was something almost steely in his gaze. “The situation is worse than you think. War is coming, and we’re nowhere near ready. Despite everything you’ve done, Timmy, you’ve never acted against Everton itself. I even have several reports of you turning down lucrative job offers that would have forced you to aid Everton’s enemies. If Everton is going to make it through this war in one piece, we’re going to need every scrap of power we can lay our hands on. We can’t afford to waste someone as powerful as you. As for the others that the Council wants you to recruit, they’re reluctant, but the Council is confident that you will be able to bring them around. Once the war is done, all of you will receive a full pardon.”

  “A full pardon?” Timmy leaned forward. “How full is this full pardon? You never did get to that part. What happens to my castle and other properties?”

  “It is a full pardon.” Gerald emphasised the
word ‘full’. “The Council is willing to wipe the slate clean. This castle and all of your other properties will be recognised as yours, to be done with as you see fit. If the Council’s information is right, then you’re also the only one who has a hope of controlling what’s under this castle.” Gerald took a deep breath and folded his hands together on top of the table. “The way the Council sees it, if we’re going to have a necromancer around, it’s better to have one that is reasonable and on our side. From what I’ve seen so far, that seems like the right decision.”

  “Fair enough, but I need some time to think about this.” Timmy had two copies of the paperwork in front of him. He’d read one set himself and give the other to Katie. “I should have an answer for you by tomorrow morning.”

  “That would be wonderful.” Gerald took a deep breath. Negotiations had gone about as well as he could have hoped. His horse might have met a rather grisly end, but he was still going strong. “About tonight, where will I be sleeping?”

  “I’ll have one of the servants show you to your room.” Gerald paled, and Timmy bit back a chuckle. “Relax, I meant one of my living servants. And, yes, your room is completely normal. But try not to wander too far from it. The part of the castle where you’ll be staying is safe, but I can’t guarantee your safety if you wander around.”

  Katie giggled. “We still haven’t found that zombie pig-lion I made. Based on some of the tracks we’ve found, I think it’s learned how to walk on the ceiling.”

  Gerald immediately looked up at the ceiling. How exactly did a zombie pig-lion learn to walk on the ceiling? “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  “If you do run into trouble, call for help. It won’t be long before one of the rats turns up to give you a hand.”

  “Rats?” Gerald twitched. He was, Timmy thought, a very twitchy sort of person. “What kind of rats?”

  “Not zombie rats, ninja rats. They live here, and they’ve been told to keep an eye on you. So if you see any rodents running around with swords, maces, bows, or any other weapons, relax. They’re here to keep you safe.”