Necromancer Awakening

by Nat Russo

  “A spirit I once knew, know, and shall know again called this the great evil,” Kynthelig said. “He said it was an abomination of magic, a perversion of necropotency. He blamed himself for abandoning the priesthood for what he called life magic.”

  A cold chill passed through Nicolas as Kynthelig spoke those words. Mujahid told him that life magic was a perversion, taking life rather than granting it. Was he seeing, first hand, its consequences?

  “What can you tell me about life magic?”

  “Only what you witness here,” Kynthelig said. “It takes life, purity, innocence. The result is what you see. The spirits taken by the hellwraiths are never seen again. Sometimes they vanish before the hellwraiths can take them. Whether they are the luckiest or the most unfortunate I do not know.”

  “This can’t be allowed to continue.”

  “But it does, priest, and I fear for my own soul,” Kynthelig said. “Please. I beg of you. Say the words before it is too late for me.”

  Nicolas knew what Kynthelig was talking about. He had spoken the words many times over the last few months, but Kynthelig wasn’t under his control.

  “I don’t think what you’re asking for is possible.”

  “Then I, too, will be tainted by the great evil, and the hellwraiths will drag me away.”

  “There’s no link,” Nicolas said. “There’s no way for me to know the state of….”

  He stopped. What he was about to say wasn’t true. The state of Kynthelig’s soul was written all over the old warrior in perfect black. If Nicolas were truly a priest, then shouldn’t he be able to minister to this man? Shouldn’t he have the power to set things right? And what was the strange connection he felt? It must mean something. Besides, what could it hurt?

  He decided to try the unimaginable. No magic. No necromantic link. Just the words of a priest with good intentions.

  He placed his hand on Kynthelig’s shoulder and said “Spirit, I release you from your penance.”

  The world around him changed and he felt himself moving through space at a rapid rate. The sensation lasted only a moment, if moment held any meaning here.

  Voices rose up around him, saying, “priest, priest”, and Nicolas was no longer standing on the impossibly-high cliff. The mammoth gate rose above him like a mountain with a sheer face. The spirits nearby pressed forward as one, but some unseen force kept them from advancing any farther. He recognized many as human, some as cichlos, but there were too many different species to count. There were some that didn’t resemble life forms at all; animated rocks, sentient whirlwinds, and puddles of liquid metal that periodically solidified and walked. The feeling that he was a tiny part of an infinite universe overwhelmed him.

  Multiverse, he corrected himself. Whatever the hell that means.

  An ear-splitting, metallic sound rang through the air causing Nicolas to jump. The giant gate creaked open.

  “You have saved me,” Kynthelig said. “But there are countless others. The great evil comes for them.”

  “I won’t allow that to happen.”

  “Zubuxo must be found. Only he can control the hellwraiths and open the gate for all.”

  “You better go,” Nicolas said. “I have no idea how long that thing stays open.”

  Kynthelig laughed.

  Nicolas realized his mistake. It was difficult to wrap his head around a place where time had no meaning.

  The warrior bowed and walked toward the open gate. Nicolas looked past him, through the gate beyond, but he couldn’t see anything past the threshold. Nothing existed beyond that point, like the strange archway leading to Mujahid’s estate.

  A colossal angelic figure appeared at the gate. The being stood half the height of the gate itself, towering above the plain. Nicolas couldn’t make out any features on its face, but he couldn’t have missed the two body-length black wings.

  As the warrior approached the gate, the angel shrank to Nicolas’s height. A surge of power passed through him and the angel’s face became visible. Her skin was alabaster. Her face wasn’t long, and it wasn’t gaunt, but in perfect symmetry with her wide blue eyes and slender, upturned nose. Long, curly red hair stood in sharp contrast to the pitch-black gown she wore, spilling down over bare shoulders, down over arms covered in colorful symbols that spiraled to the tops of her hands. She was almost as pretty as Kaitlyn.

  Almost.

  She gestured toward the inside of the gate, and the warrior passed over the threshold and disappeared.

  “Zubuxo is lost, Nicolas,” she said. Her voice was lilting, like a pleasant melody. “He waits for you. We try, but there is only so much my kind can do.”

  She swept her gaze across the multitude of souls. Her wings spread as if to embrace the plane in perfect night. The symbols on her arms and across her upper chest began to glow lavender from within. A single black tear fell from her eye and splashed on the ground below. The obsidian splash became a wave, and a fountain of clear water appeared in its place. Spirits gathered around and bathed in the fountain, and their clothing turned from grey to darkest black.

  Nicolas heard his name from behind and turned. Dr. Murray stood in the crowd that was pressing toward the gate, his clothes not quite as black as the others.

  Nicolas had to do something. He couldn’t leave Dr. Murray here knowing those hellwraiths could come back.

  “Dad, wait!”

  He turned to the angel, hoping the creature could help him, but she was gone and the gate had closed without a sound. When he turned back to the crowd, his father was gone.

  The words of the angel rang in his mind. “Zubuxo is lost.”

  He heard a great tearing sound and the world retreated. Darkness closed around him and he drifted into unconsciousness.

  Nicolas sat up. He half-expected to see the hellwraiths flying above him, but all he saw was Siek Lamil helping him up next to the Orb of Zubuxo.

  “How long was I gone?” Nicolas asked.

  “If you mean unconscious, only a moment,” Lamil said. “When you struck the orb, you created a small loop of energy. You broke away and fell unconscious for a moment. Your head hit the floor and you started muttering something about Zubuxo being lost.”

  “No. That’s not what happened.”

  “My eyes never turned from you. Neither of them.”

  “I stood on the Field of Judgment. It was exactly the way you described it. I saw the throne of Zubuxo. I saw the gate to the Plane of Peace. I opened the gate, Siek. The angel told me Zubuxo is lost. I was there for…for…” He tried, but he couldn’t find a frame of reference to indicate how long he’d been gone.

  Lamil extended his hand toward the Orb of Zubuxo, stopping short of touching its surface. He looked back at Nicolas and pulled his hand away.

  “I must inform the elders.”

  “You believe me?”

  “You are many things, Nicolas, but a liar is not one of them. It has long been known that the Orb can transport a person to the Plane of Death. No one who has used it to take the journey remains alive to speak of it. Except for one.”

  “This has happened before?”

  “Walk with me.”

  Lamil walked toward the arch leading to the high priest’s chambers and Nicolas followed.

  “Tell me what you saw,” Lamil said. “In detail. Leave nothing out, no matter how insignificant.”

  He recounted the entire journey as they walked. The siek grew anxious when he mentioned the hellwraiths.

  “You were wise to merely observe. How the Gates of Abaddon have opened, I cannot say. Only a Lord of Hell can command them.”

  “Gates of—”

  “You once asked me about the Third Law of Necromancy, and I told you it was not the proper time.”

  “Too much too soon…again.”

  “What is the First Law of Necromancy?”

  “You’re really going to do this now?”

  “What is the First Law of Necromancy?”

  They spent the next few minute
s covering the details of the first two laws as they walked. Nicolas could recite them backwards if the siek asked him to.

  “The Third Law of Necromancy states there is no death,” Lamil said. “Repeat it.”

  There was no denying the truth of that statement now. Nicolas had seen too much to think otherwise.

  Lamil looked Nicolas up and down. “Repeat it, student.”

  “There is no death.”

  “Correct. Given your recent experience, do you feel as if you understand?”

  “It makes sense in a way I can’t explain.”

  “When you walked the Plane of Death, did you feel as if you were surrounded by death?”

  “I felt death energy everywhere.”

  “That is not what I asked, and you should know better.”

  The Plane of Death had a dreamlike quality about it. Every time he reached for a feeling or an image, it would slip through his fingers like water.

  “It was a strange place,” Nicolas said. “I saw things I can’t describe. But those people were alive. That angel was both beautiful and terrifying as hell.”

  Like Kynthelig, the warrior he sent through the gate, the angel wanted him to find the missing god. He looked back at the Orb of Zubuxo, and a strange thought occurred to him. The siek wouldn’t go for it without some convincing, though. He needed to make him see it was the only logical choice.

  “Mujahid once told me that no one but a god could create an orb of power. Do you agree with him, Siek?”

  “I have no knowledge of any species creating an orb of power, yet orbs exist. To agree or disagree would require a leap of logic, for it would require me to have knowledge of every species in the multiverse. I make no such claim. Nevertheless…I feel as if the answer is yes.”

  “Do you think it’s safe to assume the gods create their own orbs? I mean, if that really is the Orb of Zubuxo, then Zubuxo would be its creator and not some other god, right?”

  Lamil looked Nicolas up and down, and then faced the orb.

  “No assumption is safe when it comes to the gods, Nicolas. Your dialectic, while commendable, is unnecessary. Say what you wish to say.”

  It was worth a try. He’d have to be more direct.

  “Siek, has any priest, in your knowledge, ever thought to cast the arrow on the Orb of Zubuxo?”

  Lamil looked from side to side in a gesture Nicolas hadn’t seen before. Perhaps the siek had never considered this possibility.

  “What you are suggesting is not a valid use of the guide symbol,” Lamil said.

  “With much respect, Siek, I didn’t ask if you thought it was valid. I asked if it had ever been done.”

  Lamil smiled. “A fair objection. The answer is no. No necromancer, to my knowledge, has ever cast the guide symbol on the Orb of Zubuxo. But consider what you ask. There would be no reason to do so. There are only two known uses for the guide, and you are aware of them both.”

  “But the gods are different.” He wasn’t sure where he was going with this, but thinking out loud was helping.

  “I would agree with that statement,” Lamil said.

  “I think we just need to change our understanding of them. The gods can’t ever die…not the way we can. I’m suggesting they live along a continuum of life and death. The more I think about my experience in the Plane of Death, the more I feel right about this, Siek. What can it hurt?”

  “It is never good to channel energy into an orb of power. This has been understood from the dawn of understanding.”

  “I’ll release the power at the first sign of trouble.”

  Lamil looked Nicolas up and down. He seemed to be struggling against some inner conflict. But he pointed toward the orb. “You may try it, but I will restrict your flow of power with a shield.”

  Nicolas started walking back toward the orb. “Fine. I just have to try.”

  When they reached the orb, Nicolas took a deep breath and cleared his mind. Something was squeezing his well of power—probably Lamil’s shield. He created a pathway to the arrow—guide, he corrected himself—and allowed the smallest amount of power to trickle along the surface of the orb.

  Nothing happened. He repeated the process for good measure, but again nothing happened.

  “It’s going to take more power, that’s all,” he said.

  “Nicolas….”

  “Please. Trust me. I didn’t used to think it was possible to walk from one world to another. Maybe there are some things you think are impossible that are actually possible?”

  Lamil drew his shoulders up.

  “I can feel it,” Nicolas said. “Just let me use more power.”

  Lamil looked down and the squeezing sensation stopped. Power flowed into the guide and out onto the surface of the orb. When it encircled the orb, a vicious wave of nausea passed over Nicolas. He gritted his teeth, attempting to ride the wave, but it grew stronger. He was about to release the power, thinking Lamil may be right, when the spinning came to an abrupt stop.

  He knelt and started feeling the floor with both hands.

  “What is it?” Lamil said. “What did the arrow tell you?”

  “Guide,” Nicolas said and smiled. “When I arrived here on that first day, I was led by an undead cichlos. He made it so I could breathe under water. Can you do that for me?”

  “I can.”

  “Then get ready to take a swim, Siek. The guide is leading me straight down through the floor of Aquonome.”

  Nicolas and the siek descended for nearly an hour. The bone-crushing pressure of the lake would have killed him without the magic of the undead cichlos, and the water was frigid and pitch black. Necropotency allowed him to see, and the temperature was bearable as long as he held power, but the power made him feel every individual drop of water against his body, like tiny beads.

  Through the murk, a great yellow wall, pulsating with inner light, rose from below and to the west, turning inward on itself in a gentle curve. It disappeared beneath them, creating a straight line where yellow met nothing, leaving the wall on one side and a void on the other.

  The great barrier, Nicolas projected to Lamil. It isn’t a dome at all. It’s a sphere.

  It would appear so.

  The Cichlos didn’t know?

  There is no reason for us to travel this deep. There is no food for us here.

  The closer they approached, the more power flowed into Nicolas’s well. The source of necropotency was so massive, it was as if every living thing on the planet had died in one place. But it wasn’t just necropotency. There was another power. A power he’d never felt before. The hum of energy was deafening, even through the water.

  A cacophony of voices entered his mind and he lifted his hands to the side of his head, trying to block them out.

  He who walks between worlds, said a female voice.

  Who are you? Nicolas said.

  We cannot leave here until you bring down the sky, the female said. Our sacrifice protects the children. I…must go.

  The guide in his mind’s eye winked out of existence. He had come within feet of the lake floor and could see the barrier plunging into the ground next to him. The ground where the barrier penetrated shook, and the lake bed vibrated like rocks on an archaeologist’s sifter. He was close enough to touch the barrier if he chose, but he was sure it would kill him if he did.

  One thought haunted him—if the guide led him here, it could mean only one thing; Zubuxo was on the other side of the barrier…or perhaps inside of it. But there had been more than one voice talking to him, and one of them was a woman.

  He drew power from the barrier and his thoughts came into sharp focus.

  It was obvious to him why the archmage took the Orb of Arin. It contained Arin’s power, just like Zubuxo’s orb contained Zubuxo’s power. The archmage would need its power, the power of the god of life, to construct a barrier of this magnitude from life magic.

  Even the earthquakes made sense. The barrier was moving and vibrating continent-sized chunks of land
beneath the surface of the planet.

  The cause of the diminishing power of the gods as well as their absence was clear to see. The truth was the gods were never gone. They were here all along, inside the barrier. And as far as he could tell, they sacrificed themselves for the sake of children.

  The unborn, he corrected himself. But what does that mean?

  He didn’t know. But as they began the ascent to Aquonome, he understood something else.

  He understood how to get back home.

  Nicolas didn’t care if the high priest liked it. He just needed the man to do it.

  The high priest had been reluctant to call the elders together, but Lamil asked Nicolas to stay behind while he persuaded the high priest to relent. After more than an hour of waiting, they emerged from the high priest’s quarters.

  “I concur that what you discovered is disturbing,” the high priest said. “But what you ask is not easy to grant. You ask me to grant aid to the people who stranded us here. The people who hunt us like animals.”

  “Sabba,” Nicolas said, “I can only imagine how you feel. I know the atrocities they committed against you and I respect your judgment. But I can’t do this alone. And if I don’t succeed, you’ll never see Terilya again. The fate of everyone in Aquonome hinges on the success or failure of my mission.”

  “Tell him the rest, Nicolas,” Lamil said.

  Nicolas looked back at Lamil with uncertainty. This was going to get someone’s attention.

  “The throne of Zubuxo is empty, Sabba,” Nicolas said.

  The priests surrounding the high priest gasped and argued among themselves.

  “This is blasphemous,” one of the priests said.

  The high priest waved his hand at the angry cichlos and faced Lamil. “Is this true?”