The Price of Life

by T. M. Nienaber

  “What? What did you do?” Kristopher looked down at the bodies, not upset, but very confused.

  “You can’t hurt the dead! And I can resurrect them when you’re no longer a threat.”

  Voices neared the front door and Lucian knew things were coming to a close as his men entered the house. They reverently carried the bodies outside and Lucian gave Kristopher one last, gloating sneer.

  “I’ll see you again, Lucian. Sooner than you think.” Kristopher didn’t look as defeated as Lucian wanted him to, but that wasn’t a big loss. Soon everything would have righted itself in the world, and that meant the war would lose steam and Kristopher would fade back into millionaire oblivion.

  “Put me in a car with the bodies.” Lucian stated as he stepped out of the house, leaving Kristopher inside with William’s body to deal with.

  “Yes, Lucian.” One of the acolytes bowed and opened a car door.

  Only ten members had come, but that was enough to keep Kristopher from following. Just to make sure, they left a small contingent of undead soldiers to terrorize the compound as they drove away. The gates shut behind them and Lucian thought the world looked much brighter the further away from the wall they went. With Kristopher out of the way for now they could travel the freshly cleared roads, and Lucian was surprised things had gotten better so quickly with the war on hiatus.

  Now there was work to be done. Turning his attention to Mira he held her hand and muttered a chant. Things moved quickly and he felt a sense of relief from the other side as the child’s soul flowed back into her body. The child’s chest began to rise and fall with breath and her now sleeping head fell once again onto Lucian’s lap. He kissed the child and smiled before turning his attention to the mother.

  It took three rounds of chanting before Lucian would admit to himself something was wrong. The acolyte driver tried to pretend he didn’t notice, focusing too hard on the road. Miriel’s body was lifeless, rigid, and losing all color faster than Lucian wanted it to. Something was wrong. Lucian had never failed a resurrection before, once he’d managed to resurrect someone dead twenty years. This was nothing. Her body wasn’t even cold.

  It was cold though, Lucian thought as he reached out to touch her hand. Too cold. Unnaturally cold. Lucian checked to make sure there was no other death wound. Checking to see if Kristopher had managed to kill her first. There was only the mark from his knife.

  His knife. Lucian looked at Mira then back to the body of her mother. In all his years of knowing Mi he had always been the one to finish a target. Except last night he had offered the task to Mira. There hadn’t been time for anyone else and he’d been too distracted to worry. Miriel’s soul had gone down to pay for his. He couldn’t bring her back.

  “The bastard knew.” Lucian muttered to himself, muscles shaking in anger. Kristopher would never have taken the risk of coming to Lucian vulnerable. It was Lucian who had had the power to send a soul to death for good.

  39. Kristopher and Lucian

  Lucian arrived at his house in a stupor, almost forgetting to carry Mira inside from the car. The child had fallen asleep on her mother’s lap, not realizing her beloved mother was dead, and Lucian was not composed enough to tell her. He did manage to carry Mira up to her new room, the one he had as a child, and laid her down on the bed. The room cried out for an occupant, and still held in it the innocence of childhood while the rest of the house took on the darkness of the things going on inside it. Mira looked at home in the room, and Lucian managed to smile as he watched her sleep. It seemed like, if he could stand here watching Mira sleep forever, he could forget about everything else. Even Miriel’s death. In that moment he knew he would raise Mira as his own daughter, teach her everything she would need to know about necromancy. Everything she needed to know to stay alive in Kristopher’s world.

  Lucian took a deep breath and softly closed the door. There were things he had to deal with outside. Life had to go on whether he felt up to it or not. Miriel’s body still rested under a sheet, Lucian wasn’t ready to look at her. Death changed people. While they still looked like themselves something about them was so far off it was painful. It was like looking into the face of an imposter, the body was whole but everything that filled it was gone. It was as if, at some point, it stopped being human.

  Lucian was not equipped to deal with death. He had lived a long time, but so had the people around him. The only time death came to a member of the cult was when they decided they were done with life. This was very different from actually loosing someone. Especially someone like Miriel, with a child to raise and plenty of natural life to live.

  “Sir?” One of Lucian’s newer acolytes met him in the hall. “Did you want to prepare for a funeral or should we just prepare the body for internment.”

  “What?” Lucian was still in a haze, the fact Kristopher had gotten the better of him hadn’t sunk in yet. There was so much to deal with and he felt ill equipped to face any of it.

  “Did you want to organize a funeral for her, sir? We don’t have much time if you want to make arrangements.”

  “Yes, of course.” Lucian forced himself back to reality. “We should plan it for tomorrow evening. It needs to be finished before Kristopher comes back.” Lucian turned to walk away, his eyes were still miles from everything going on in front of him.

  “Kristopher’s moving back, sir?”

  “Not officially, but he’ll find a way.” Lucian chuckled absentmindedly. There was so much to plan. And Mira. He had to explain it all to Mira in the morning.

  The acolyte wandered off to prepare Miriel’s body for a funeral, hesitating to leave Lucian alone but unsure of what else to do. Lucian was wandering off to his lab, looking around like he was seeing everything for the first time. Looking at things knowing Miriel was dead and he was responsible gave the world a different tinge. It was something he’d never expected.

  The very nature of the cult meant it had little use for a funeral service. It defeated the purpose of what they worked for, mastery of life and death. Having a service celebrating life and mourning the unchangeable reality of events that took it away seemed counterproductive. Still, there was a short, seldom used service Lucian’s father had written. It had been the service he performed for Lucian’s mother before they buried her under the house. Miriel’s circumstances were different, but the service would have to do. Lucian searched the bookshelf for his father’s personal tome and pulled it down. The service was the last thing he’d written.

  The procedure was very normal, comparable to any other funeral service in any other religion. It celebrated memories and remembrances as the cure to grief with the hint the person lived on somewhere else. It was the note written after everything else was finished which brought that horrible feeling back to Lucian’s gut: To be used only when we fail. When the power of life and death is beyond our grasp. And when one dies a reminder of the failures of every necromancer. Lucian could tell it had been written by his father, the first failure to be passed down from father to son. Now there was work to finish, there would be time to dwell later.

  The service required no preparation except memorization. Everything was written in English, as opposed to the normal language of incantations and rituals, which was a unique mix of Old English and Ogham and sounded like it was invented for a Tolkien novel. Things were straight forward and more of a send off than any kind of ritual. A fitting remembrance for Miriel, a woman who refused to believe in a religion because people like her were allowed to prosper in life. She had no family members alive other than Mira, so there was no need to postpone anything or contact anyone. Lucian wanted as few people present as he could manage anyway. The service would be an apology, and Lucian wanted to do it alone. Mira was still sound asleep upstairs and every few minutes his thoughts went back to her and how to explain things in a way that would keep her from grieving the rest of her life.

  Eventually the body was laid out in Lucian’s lab, a sad imitation of the woman it was suppose to be.
She was surrounded by flowers, a touch added by one of the female acolytes, and candles. The whole scene was very traditional and very respectable with no hint of the spectacle Lucian’s cult had recently become. Lucian rested his tome on a stand by some flowers, as hard as he studied the words for the service they wouldn’t stay in his head and no one would judge him for using a script. All that was left was to wake Mira and prepare her for the ordeal she would start today and work through the rest of her life.

  Lucian climbed the steps slowly, thinking over the best way to talk to Mira, trying to remember what his father had done when the task had fallen to him. Mira was still sleeping when he opened the door to her room, but it had been a restless night. The bed sheets were tangled around her small form and the comforter lay in a pool on the floor. The child’s breathing was shallow and raspy, her face covered in beads of cold sweat, but she did seem to be asleep. Lucian walked over and tried to straighten out the covers before tapping her on the shoulder and startling her out of a dream.

  “Mira, we need to get you ready, there’s something very important we have to do today. Are you ready to wake up?”

  Mira nodded sluggishly, not understanding anything but ‘wake up’.

  “Now, we’re making sure all your things get here soon, but for right now you’ll have to borrow.” Lucian waited for Mira to respond but she just looked up at him and blinked the sleep from her eyes. Lucian wasn’t used to dealing with children and for the first time realized he had no idea how to talk to her without Miriel there. “Mira.” Lucian sat on the edge of the bed and Mira inched toward him, putting her head on his leg and closing her eyes. Lucian put his arm around her. “We have to go to a very special service this morning, and we have to dress up. Would you like to dress up?”

  Mira perked up when she heard dress up, and she nodded excitedly.

  “Alright then.” Lucian tried to smile. “Let’s pick out a dress.” Lucian had asked several of his cult who had daughters Mira’s age if he could borrow something suitable. They had all found something for her, Belle had even managed to find a new black dress in her size so the child had something all her own. With the turmoil currently going on in what had been William’s society it would be impossible to get Mira’s or her mother’s possessions back, if there was even anything left after the raiding parties came through. It wouldn’t be long before there was nothing left of William’s society. Already reports of fires and riots were coming in, by the end of the week the walls would fall and the citizens would be absorbed back into Lucian and Kristopher’s world.

  “What’s this?” Mira held out a dress to Lucian and made a face. The girl had spent her whole life inside the walls. She didn’t understand modern fashion, or modern life. Lucian would have to introduce her to life all over again. Maybe that would be easiest, at least this way nothing could remind her of life with her mother.

  “Let’s try it on and see?”

  Mira looked at Lucian skeptically, but eventually allowed him to put her in the dress. “Why isn’t mommy doing it?” Mira finally asked as Lucian fumbled to tie a bow at the back of the dress.

  “Miriel isn’t going to be able to get you ready anymore. I’ll try my best to help, would that be all right? We could learn together?”

  “Is she working?”

  “No, Mira. Your mother is dead.” Lucian didn’t mean to say it so bluntly, it just slipped out.

  “For how long?” Mira looked up at him with narrowed eyes.

  Lucian was taken aback by the question. “Forever, Mira. Death is permanent. Once you take a life like this you can’t bring it back.”

  “Not true!” Mira stamped her feet. “When mommy kills someone they don’t come back. But you bring people back all the time. William said!” Now she started to pout. “Bring mommy back! You can make her come back.”

  “No, I can’t, Mira. I cannot bring back your mother.”

  “Why not?” Her eyes got wide and started to water. “Is it because of all the people she killed?”

  “No, Mira. It’s because of the person I didn’t kill.” His thoughts wandered back to Kristopher. It was because of him this mess started in the first place. He’d pay for that, Lucian would make sure that when Kristopher died the world would know exactly what kind of monster he was. He’d cash in every favor he’d built with the other side to make sure Kristopher was never allowed out of the hell he deserved. Right now he had to focus on Mira. That much he owed to Miriel. He would have to take Kristopher back to keep Mira safe, but that wouldn’t be all bad. If Kristopher stayed close all Lucian had to do was bide his time. He could do that for Miriel too.

  “Oh.” Mira seemed to understand, maybe not the why, but at least that her mother couldn’t come back.

  “But would you like to see her one last time? To say goodbye?”

  Mira nodded and reached up to hold Lucian’s hand as they walked downstairs. Mira took time to look over everything they passed, making it her own as she started to realize this would be her new home. She held on to Lucian even more tightly as they reached the stairs. The child was used to the narrow and boxed in Victorian style stairs at home. These were wide and open, the focal point of the first floor with the ornately carved banisters and the shine of dark marble. Lucian squeezed her hand in return and together they made the trip down.

  All of Lucian’s elders were present in a solid show of support. Several other cult members were present, but only the ones who’d been there for generations. No one who joined post-Kristopher showed up and none of the congregation had been made aware of the service or Miriel’s connection to Lucian. Everyone looked down at Mira with some form of compassion. The road ahead of her would be difficult enough, but learning from Lucian the art of the cult would make it even worse. Having even the smallest control over something uncontrollable was a difficult mind game to play, and raising useless corpses into useless people when you could do nothing to bring back your mother would make that game even harder to survive.

  Mira stopped in the doorway of the lab. She saw her mother laid out on a polished stone slab, surrounded by flowers. Her eyes got wide and she was confused and a little scared. Her mind told her, her mother was sleeping, but her eyes saw something strange, something not normal, not sleep. Lucian walked in before her and held out his hand. Mira took it and followed him to the corpse.

  “Is this what death looks like?” She looked up at him with eyes full of questions.

  “Yes.” He knelt down to be at her level. “Killing, dying, it’s painful and sometimes messy, but death is the same for everyone, it’s peaceful and painless.”

  “Then why do you bring so many back?”

  “Because some of us aren’t ready to die and others aren’t ready to lose people to death. So they pay us to bring them back.”

  “Was mommy ready to die?”

  “More than me.” Lucian kissed Mira’s head. “Now, would you like to say anything to your mother?”

  “Yes,” Mira said very seriously.

  Lucian picked up the child and held her so she could see her mother’s face one last time. The child looked at her mother’s body curiously. She reached out a hand to touch it but then drew it back and looked up at Lucian for reassurance.

  “Tell your mother goodbye.”

  Mira nodded and turned back to her mother.

  “Goodbye mommy. I’ll miss you. Come back if you can cause Lu can’t bring you back.” Mira looked optimistic for a few seconds, expecting her mother to open her eyes and start laughing. Nothing changed. Mira had seen enough death to know her mother wouldn’t be getting up. She pressed her face against Lucian’s chest and started to cry.

  “I’ll take care of her, Mi, I promise you that.”

  Lucian carried Mira out and signaled for his acolytes to close up the lab. There would be no service, there was no point. If there was a part of Miriel watching over the proceedings it would have heard everything it needed to hear. Anything else was just part of a ritual she’d never believed in.


  The acolytes covered Miriel with a white sheet, they’d had orders not to have her buried or burned. The lab was to be locked up. Lucian would move all his work into the basement. The doors were chained shut and sealed with wax, the idea being that they would never be opened again, from either side. The acolytes left to go back to their homes and Lucian planned to spend the day trying to comfort Mira and himself.

  Miriel lay above the grave of Lucian’s mother, a coincidence Lucian didn’t remember when he gave the order for that to be her tomb. The sheet fluttered once over her face after everyone left and the doors were shut. Then it settled and lay still.

  ***

  Kristopher waited until the day after the funeral to move his base back into Lucian’s house and take over his old office. At first Lucian’s cult tried to keep him out, but Lucian had them stand down. To make sure Mira stayed safe he had to play Kristopher game somewhere he could keep a close eye on the politician, even if that meant letting Kristopher keep a close eye on him. For his part Kristopher acted as if nothing was wrong, treating Lucian the same way he had before their civil war started. It didn’t take him long to settle in, in fact, he’d been packed for days. He had started the day Alexander came to him with the plan.

  “What’s the next move, Kris? You don’t expect Lucian to just let you take over, do you?”

  “Of course not, but we all have time. The sides are regrouping and people are deciding who to trust and what to think.”

  “You sound like someone with a plan.”

  “Well, I’m never unprepared. Especially now that things are finally back in my realm. People want stability now, they want normality and for us to rebuild. Lucian isn’t normal, he can’t offer them that, and neither can any of his little cult members.”