The Temple of Heart and Bone

by Evren, S. K.

  Troseth approached his Master, concern clearly showing on his face.

  “My Lord,” he began, “the dead are too many for this square. Perhaps we should find another area in which to stage.”

  “You are quite right, Troseth,” the Necromancer replied, “The dead are too many for this square. As we speak, the majority are staging around the city as they filter in from the fields and countryside. These here are but a few, those from the city itself. The city, however, is fallen, and no longer needed.” He opened his mouth as if to issue Troseth an order, then shook his head. “Never mind, dear boy, I’ll handle it. Fall your men and our caravan out of town, Captain. Æostemark is a memory.” Troseth looked questioningly at his Master for a moment, then quickly spun to issue orders. The Necromancer had lifted his head, and the undead legion gathered in the square began to file out of the city. Of their number, several began to pull burning wood from the fires of the night. Carrying the wood like torches, they walked through the city igniting all that had remained unspoiled.

  By the time the last of the gruesome company had left, Æostemark was engulfed in a firestorm. Great waves of flame rolled through the city, pushed on by gusts of hot air. The living among them, the cavalry and black-robed minions, even the Necromancer himself, pulled back away from the city, the heat becoming scorching, unbearable. The dead, those closest to the city, stood stock still, unaware or unaffected by the seething air around them. Those with tattered remains of clothing or flesh smoked and smoldered in the heat. The recently dead cooked in their own fluids, smoking and dripping onto the ground on which they stood. The garrison at the border post watched from the walls of their small redoubt as the city of Æostemark burned in its funeral pyre. They never noticed the detachment of skeletal cavalry approaching from the shadows. Within a few hours, they had joined their comrades as members of the new Imperial Army.

  Troseth, shielding his face from the heat, looked out over the gathering dead. The number from the city was insignificant compared to what had been staging in the surrounding fields. Horses stood in order along with men and beasts of burden. It seemed to Troseth as if a great wire army had been bent into the countryside by some overly-bored cooper. The figures were there, there was no denying, but they were thin and hollow, the night sky showing clearly through their forms. Looking out around the fields he saw streams of bodies pouring into the area. Columns of unspeaking corpses scraped dust into the air with unshod feet. More dead animals, horses, oxen, and creatures he could not recognize without meat and hide, shuffled in alongside the men. Troseth wondered if they were aware of each other, or even, for that matter, themselves.

  He mounted his horse and rode to a line that was leading almost directly from the west. He began to look more closely at the once human forms marching silently past, listening to the dry unison of their footfalls. He looked into the bones, his mind searching for the difference between what had once been men and once women. After several comparisons, he was certain he could distinguish the difference between the two. He was amazed at the number that had once been women. His mind reeled at the idea of just how many had died in the invasion and the following seven years. He wondered just what he had attached himself to, and he wondered if she was among them. Would he recognize her as simple structure? Would he want to?

  Poson had promised him what he wanted, even though she had been, and remained, lost. He wondered what kind of promise could lead from what he now saw to his vision of happiness. Did anything of self remain with these… these beings?

  He rode out along the line following it back into the west. He looked for its end, for the last former person bringing up the end of the line. After an hour, he gave up and started to ride back east, back to the gathering and his Master.

  This, he told himself, was the Harvest. He looked out over the sea of creatures bleached white in the moon’s remaining light. This, he thought, was a bitter, frightening fruit. He shook his head to clear it of such thoughts. He reached into his memory and clung to Poson’s promise. These people were already dead, and he was certain he hadn’t killed all of them. If this was the price for his pleasure, so be it. He was certain any one of them would have done the same to him. Except her, perhaps, and he rode back to his Master, troubled in his own mind.

  Chapter 5 – Pain

  It took fully two and one-half days for the dead to stop their migration to the fields around Æostemark. The plains were littered with shambling, rotting corpses, called to the smoldering beacon of the twice-dead city. The Necromancer spent most of his time in his red and gold wagon, occasionally coming forth to size up the fruits of his labor.

  Troseth rode amongst the ranks of the dead, searching faces, postures, hoping for some sign that he alone could read. The chill and revulsion of mingling with death gnawed at him. He was certain that the bottom of his stomach had become one vast hole where everything good had drained from his system. The stench of the more recently dead caught in his throat, refusing to allow even his own saliva to pass. He stifled the urge to gag and choke, and it took much of his will to keep down whatever food he could eat.

  When he grew too tired to search, or when darkness made it less practical, he would return to the camp and try to relax among his living troopers. He heard their whispers, their wondering as to his comings and goings. He never answered their curiosity. He thought it good for his men to find him mysterious, even eccentric. Eccentric, he thought, probably so, and nodded to himself. He also watched to see how they were dealing with their new “allies.”

  His men were brave soldiers. Each was an experienced warrior, hand selected for this mission. They had been chosen for their bravery, chosen for their skill, chosen because of their proven loyalty. Each of them, however, was faced with something for which no sergeant or captain, no battle or training had prepared them. Only in their nightmares had they seen anything like what they were witnessing. Only in their deepest fears had those who had fallen beside them, fallen by their own hands, risen to take ranks with them. In that initial experience, some of them had almost broken. He knew then that he had made good choices. Certainly, they had lost some control of bodily functions. Some had shaken, some had vomited, others lost temporary control over bowels or bladder, but none had broken. Their minds hadn’t broken, their lines hadn’t broken.

  He was certain they still shared the same chill, the same revulsion that he felt, but they didn’t talk to him about it. That was proper. He, of course, shared none of his feelings with them. It was crucial to maintaining the mystique, the illusion that he was the source of their hope and power.

  He watched them on his returns, each of them eager to find ways to prove to him their first-encounter fears were under control. As he took rest in his blankets or light meals of stale and foul tasting rations, he watched his men walk in the nearer ranks of the dead. They would circle a figure, talking to it, tentatively touching it. If the figure didn’t respond, they would push it slightly, and watch it regain its balance. On one occasion, they tugged at an arm just a little too hard, and it came away from the dead torso. The men, like errant children who’d just broken a window, stared at each other and the arm for mere seconds before the man who held it, dropped it, and they all bolted. Troseth chuckled softly to himself at the sight. Before he set out for his next search, however, he asked his men not to disassemble any more of their “comrades.” They looked at each other sheepishly, and said, “Of course, Captain.”

  Troseth, in his searching, finally had to admit to himself that if he were to find what he was looking for, it would only be by sheer luck. There were uncounted thousands standing, decaying in ranks around Æostemark. He wondered how they knew to stand in rank and file, attributing it, finally, to the power of his Master. He shook his head in wonder at that power. There were just so many. Bones of the tall mixed with what were most likely children. There had been a great many children, the number shocking him at first, just as he had been surprised by the number of women. The skeletal children, ho
wever, seemed to end at a certain point. He had seen no infants or toddlers, unsure of how he’d react were he to see a skeletal creature crawling into rank on tiny hands and knees. He’d heard a woman once say that children were born with soft bones. Maybe that made the difference. Maybe the Master had set some limits on his grave robbing, just as he had set some order in the ranks. Troseth shook his head at his musings. What insane propositions rose to the mind, and what, he wondered, made them more sane simply because they could be real?

  Though he was now able to distinguish between the bones of a man and the bones of a woman, most of the bones carried little else with them. There were, of course, the more recently dead. He looked these over as closely as the others. There were corpses which still had flesh clinging to their bones, not knowing it was time to rot off, or not yet eaten by creatures large or small. Some of these still bore their burial clothes, or the clothes in which they’d been murdered. They were also the hardest for Troseth to encounter.

  The skeletal figures were bones, animated, granted, but dry, for the most part, bones. The corpses still bearing flesh were stained with colors that sent the primal parts of his mind into hysterics. Bloated and rotting, these beings showed secrets that the living were not meant to know.

  Troseth’s thoughts turned to his own mortality when faced with those wretched bodies. This, he knew, was a stage of his existence. No matter what glory he found in this life, this was something that he, himself, would become. Looking at them, he wondered, what had their lives mattered? What glories or infamies may have surrounded these… people? What, if anything, mattered to them now?

  He shook his head trying to clear those thoughts just as a dog might shake to rid itself of water. He had to believe that something, anything mattered to them. More importantly, he had to believe that one among them, that she among them had retained some part of her self.

  Poson had told him that the dead could be raised. Poson had told him that they could retain a sense of self, and could even be restored to flesh, and some semblance of “life.” It was hard to fight off thoughts of mortality in wave after wave of death, but Troseth had to hope, had to continue. Otherwise, he thought, he was just as much an empty shell as the thousands surrounding him.

  On the second night, the midnight after the ceremony, Troseth returned to the area where his men had been staged. One of the black-robed minions of the Master arrived with a summons. Making himself as presentable as he could, he followed the messenger back to the red and gold wagon. Troseth waited outside as the messenger went in to announce his presence.

  “Our Lord will see you now,” the messenger told Troseth, exiting the wagon.

  “Thank you,” Troseth replied and entered.

  Troseth had never before been in his Master’s wagon. He was surprised at the size and luxury of the interior. Light and heat were provided in the autumnal night by four braziers mounted to the floor, one in each corner. Leather bound chairs and divans were spread about the cabin, as was a desk, and an area that Troseth could only guess was for some sort of ritual. One part of the wagon was obviously meant to be a sleeping place for the old man, another was curtained off entirely. The floor and walls were varnished a deep and shiny color, and objects of gold and silver littered the interior. Some sort of incense burned in the air. Troseth was uncertain if it was for some mystical purpose or simply to give his Master a more palatable air to breathe.

  The Necromancer, himself, was not to be seen, and Troseth suspected he might be behind the partitioning curtain. Time passed slowly in the wagon. Troseth stood at attention, waiting. Time continued to pass, and concern began to intrude itself on his thoughts. Like a schoolboy waiting for a scolding, he was certain he had done something wrong.

  “Good morning, Captain,” the old man finally spoke from behind his curtain.

  “Good morning, my Lord,” Troseth replied.

  “How are your men holding up?”

  “Very well, my Lord. After their first encounter, they are becoming accustomed to their new allies.”

  “Excellent, Captain, excellent. And how are you doing?”

  “Fine, my Lord,” Troseth replied. The old man had never, not even once, inquired as to his health or welfare, and his concern deepened.

  “Outstanding, Captain.”

  The Necromancer pushed back the curtain to his partition showing an easel holding a charcoal drawing. Troseth focused on his Master, but let his eyes dart once to the picture. It was a sketch of a city, a magnificent city unlike any Troseth had seen in his lifetime. Some of the features, he thought, looked familiar, but he tried to focus his mind on his Master.

  “It is a hobby of mine,” the old man said, indicating the drawing, “from my earliest youth I had a talent for drawing things.”

  “It’s amazing, my Lord,” Troseth offered.

  “Is it now?” the old man asked. “It was, you know, it was indeed. This was the capital city of the Empire. Not the entire city, mind you, just the Arcane Quarter.” He pointed to a few buildings in the image. “These… these were the buildings where Imperial mages studied their art, where secrets were passed down and rituals repeated.” The old man looked into the image as if he could see old friends walking down the avenue. He sighed once, and looked back at Troseth, who, for his part, was surprised by his Master’s seeming intimacy. He relaxed slightly, and the old man smiled.

  Intense, shooting pain filled Troseth, twisting his innards and forcing him to scream against his will. He felt as if he had swallowed burning snakes, and his bones seemed to light on fire beneath his skin. His body slammed into the floor, shuddering violently, and tears ran from his eyes while mucous and saliva poured from his nose and mouth. Pain blanked out all thought from his mind. White, white was all he perceived amongst the pain, and he felt consciousness slipping for a moment, before, somehow, it was rooted in place. Then, as swiftly as it started, the pain was gone, entirely.

  Lying on the floor, aware of the fluids flowing from his face, almost certain he had soiled himself completely, he looked up at the smiling old man. He saw a hunger in those ancient eyes, and a slight, twisting gesture of the wrinkled hand. The pain returned anew, more intensely than before. He forgot who he was and where he was, all was white and pain. His head slammed repeatedly into the floor, trying, perhaps, to render itself unconscious. Again, the pain stopped, and the old man was no longer smiling.

  “You killed one of my servants, whelp, and in doing so, you severed my connection to Poson. Why?” He punctuated the question with an intense burst of pain in Troseth. The pain, however, did not end this time, but merely receded like a flame lowering to simmer.

  “My Lord,” Troseth spat out hurriedly, “Poson… Poson warned me to watch the animal. He warned me, my Lord.” The words were shoved out of his mouth between gasps. The pain returned anew, and the thought of words melted from his mind.

  “Poson warned you, did he,” the Necromancer mused, “what did he warn you of?” Realizing his words had not sunk through his servant’s pain, he gestured and Troseth’s writhing lessened. “I said, ‘what did he warn you of?’”

  “My, my—” Troseth gulped at the air, trying to find fuel for his words, “my Lord,” he continued. “Poson told me that the beast might try to prevent your sacred ceremony, that if you weakened, the beast might fall upon you and,” he winced struggling to speak, “slaughter you.” Troseth collapsed back on the ground, trying to prepare himself for the next dose of pain. The Necromancer ignored him for a moment, considering the young soldier’s words. He let his eyes fall on the young man, noticing the fear and expectation. Angered at the natural presumption, he returned the pain to Troseth’s body as he again considered what he had heard. As an afterthought, the old man released the strictures against the captain’s consciousness. Within a few minutes, Troseth had beaten himself unconscious, and the Necromancer was free to think in peace.

  “So,” the old man said to the unconscious captain on the floor, “he told you the beast would a
ttack me, did he? But why? That cat was our link, the only way for one of us to watch the other, to know of one another’s actions…” There must have been something Poson didn’t want him to know, but what, he wondered.

  He dismissed defense as a reason from the moment he heard it. The great cat, and its sibling with Poson, had served the old man since before the fall of the Empire. He seriously doubted that the cats were capable of treachery. He also doubted the goodwill of Poson, who had never fully explained why he had reawakened the old man in the first place.

  The Necromancer looked at the still body on the floor. The captain, he thought, may or may not have understood what he had done. He may have believed what Poson had told him, or he may have been part and parcel to some other scheme. Killing him now would be no chore. The captain could even continue to serve in the new Imperial Army.

  Killing him, however, would provide the old man with no answers, and he hated to waste opportunities. The pain he’d inflicted on the young soldier should do no permanent damage, and the boy would be out and sifting through the ranks of the dead in almost no time at all. He was not entirely sure why the boy, as he thought of Troseth, conducted his daily excursions, though the old man had watched him closely as he did. He was looking for someone; that was certain. An old comrade, family, did it really matter? Though it would do no permanent harm, the pain should serve as a fair warning, and help the boy to stay in line.

  “I wonder, boy,” the old man said, nudging Troseth with his foot, “if you’ll continue your search after our little chat.” He nodded his head as if agreeing with himself. “If you do, I suppose we’ll see exactly how important this search is to you, won’t we?”