Necromancer Falling: Book Two of The Mukhtaar Chronicles

by Nat Russo

  Send him away? Who the hell is this guy?

  Something glinted near Aelron’s waist. Aelron was holding a dull, chipped dagger the size of a large hunting knife behind Kagan’s back.

  Nicolas prepared to summon another penitent. But as he reached for ambient necropotency, there was little of it around. Enough to pull off a few simple tricks, maybe, but summoning a penitent was out of the question. He’d have to grant Kagan permission to cast if he needed to. Neither of them would be able to accomplish much, but combined they may be able to incapacitate Aelron.

  “It’s telling me to kill him,” Aelron said. “Do you know that? Does that loosen your dead tongue, old man?”

  Who is he talking about?

  Aelron was bouncing something in his other hand. That damned coin again.

  A confusing series of images erupted from the necromantic link, but Nicolas couldn’t make anything out of them. All they shared in common was an overall sense of urgency. But Kagan wouldn’t be fearful of Aelron, even if he knew about the dagger at his back. The blade would mark him up a bit, sure, but it wouldn’t destroy him.

  Aelron tossed the coin and flipped it onto his left wrist, which was holding the dagger at the back of Kagan’s neck.

  “See?” Aelron said. “The same thing. Over and over and over. I can’t fight this much longer!”

  A wave of necropotency emanated from Kagan, and he flew up and forward as if a bomb had exploded behind him.

  Why the hell did he do that?

  Aelron flipped the dagger into his hand blade-first, then launched it over his shoulder without looking.

  The dagger dug into the dwarf tree next to Nicolas’s face, pinning the hood of his robe, until the guard let it burrow no farther. Nicolas tried to step forward, but his robe was cut from thick cloth, and the dagger was firmly planted.

  “You sneak like an adda carrying a desert nomad’s belongings,” Aelron said. “You’ll be tempted to use magic. A word of advice…don’t.”

  There wasn’t a lot of time. Nicolas had to do something before Aelron closed the distance between them. A physical confrontation was out of the question. It was clear Aelron was a fighter. And a good one at that.

  Nicolas caught himself weaving a net of necropotency until he remembered the incident with the wagon. If he cast the net at Aelron, it would rebound back onto him. He’d accomplish nothing.

  There was nothing he could do but try to talk Aelron down.

  “I don’t know what’s going on with you,” Nicolas said, “but I know it doesn’t have to be like this.”

  Aelron flipped the coin.

  “Festering adda-ki!” Aelron yelled. “Twenty-seven tosses in a row!”

  Aelron closed the coin in a tight fist and pounded it against his forehead several times, scrunching his face as if he were in pain. He opened his eyes and flipped it again.

  When he slapped the coin onto his left wrist, his breath was ragged.

  A moment later, Aelron chuckled.

  “I tried, friend,” Aelron said. “I really did. I swear it on my honor. But the multiverse wants you dead for some reason. Any idea why?”

  “All I know is there’s some grade-A freaky shit going on here as usual. It wouldn’t surprise me to find out something is manipulating that coin of yours.”

  Sweat beaded on Aelron’s forehead. He paced. When he spoke, his voice broke, choking back a sob.

  “You were going to carry that old man back there,” Aelron said. “Why’d you have to do that? Why couldn’t you be the man I’d envisioned? A man like Kagan, or worse.”

  Aelron pulled the dagger from the tree and held the blade to Nicolas’s throat. His arm trembled, and Nicolas felt a drop of moisture form where the dagger touched.

  “It doesn’t have to be like this,” Nicolas said.

  As the blade’s pressure increased against Nicolas’s throat, Aelron yelled a guttural cry and pulled away.

  “No,” Aelron said. “Damn it all!”

  Kaitlyn walked out from among the dwarf trees and Nicolas’s stomach did a somersault.

  “It’s okay, Aelron,” Kaitlyn said. “You don’t need it.”

  “I don’t want to,” Aelron said. “I have to.”

  “I know. I’ve…seen.”

  “Something worse will happen.”

  Kaitlyn shrugged. “Maybe. But if it does, it has nothing to do with that coin.”

  What was she talking about? How could she know what Aelron wanted or didn’t want to do?

  “I’ve gone against it in the past,” Aelron says. “It never ends well. Something bad always happens.”

  “And how many times have you listened only to have something bad happen anyway?” Kaitlyn asked.

  Aelron turned his gaze from the balled fist holding the coin to Kaitlyn.

  “Yes, I’ve seen,” Kaitlyn said. “That coin doesn’t control anything. Whatever is going to happen is going to happen.”

  Aelron shook his fist.

  “This coin has saved my life in ways you wouldn’t believe,” Aelron said. “It kept me from entering a building that collapsed less than five minutes later. It told me to set a trap at my door that killed a man who was sent to assassinate me that same night. It led me to you, Nicolas. And in no uncertain terms, it’s told me one singular thing about you from the moment we met. Kill him! Don’t let him get any farther! And if you don’t believe me, I’ll show you.”

  Aelron opened his fist and tossed the coin. When he saw the result, he laughed.

  “Adda-ki,” Aelron said. “For the twenty-ninth time. Let me translate that for you. Adda-ki means kill the archmage. Tell me, how is it possible for a fair coin to land the same way twenty-nine times in a row? It isn’t. That’s how.”

  Aelron raised the dagger to Nicolas’s throat.

  “No,” Kaitlyn said. “Please.”

  A change came over Aelron’s face, like the look a person gets when they’ve made a decision they can’t be talked out of.

  Nicolas tensed. If he was going to try something, it would have to be soon.

  Kaitlyn gave him a look that was clear; Not yet.

  Aelron flipped the dagger until he held it by the blade.

  “They told me it was impractical to learn how to throw these,” Aelron said. He tossed the dagger to his right, where it stuck in a tree next to Kagan, about ten feet away. “The secret’s in the weight. I prefer mine handle-heavy. The extra weight takes some getting used to, though.”

  Aelron retrieved the dagger and tucked it into his cloak. He held the coin up for Kaitlyn to see. The moonlight reflected off it, creating silvery patches of light that danced from the ground to the surrounding trees as he spun it between his fingers.

  “Do you have any idea how much this weighs?” Aelron asked, brandishing the coin in front of Kaitlyn’s face. “Even when it’s in another room, I feel it. Pressing down on me like the boot of a sadistic father.”

  Aelron stared down at the coin in his hand.

  And I thought I had daddy issues.

  “I understand what it’s like,” Kaitlyn said. She stepped forward, took Aelron’s hand in hers, and looked at the coin it held. “The pressure builds and builds until you’re certain the world will come crashing down around you if you don’t give in. And by the time you finally flip that coin, you don’t even care which side it lands on. You just want it over and done with.”

  Aelron looked up from the coin and into her eyes.

  “You’re not alone in this,” Kaitlyn said.

  “You have a coin of your own?” Aelron asked.

  “I’ve worked with people who have the same…weight bearing down on them constantly. I’ve watched them get better. You don’t have to live like this.”

  Aelron started to draw his hand back, but Kaitlyn held firm.

  “Can I take a closer look?” Kaitlyn asked.

  Aelron seemed reluctant at first, but he nodded. Kaitlyn took the coin and closed her hand around it.

  “I think I know how th
is works,” Kaitlin said. “A coin only has two sides. Tell me, Aelron, do you think we should camp for the night or keep going?”

  Aelron’s breathing grew heavy and he reached for Kaitlyn’s hand, but she drew away.

  “No,” she said. “You don’t need this. You just need to answer the question. I promise nothing bad will happen. We’ll do whatever you suggest. What do you think we should do?”

  “You don’t understand,” Aelron said. “If I don’t—”

  “Camp or keep going,” Kaitlyn repeated as she stepped back.

  Aelron turned away from Kaitlyn, and she gave Nicolas the same look. She clearly thought she could talk Aelron down, but Nicolas could see him clenching and unclenching his fists, over and over.

  Nearly a minute passed before Aelron looked down and closed his eyes.

  “Camp,” Aelron said. “We’re all tired. We need rest.”

  Aelron opened his eyes and looked around the small copse of trees, like he was expecting some unseen enemy to attack.

  “This doesn’t feel right,” Aelron said.

  Kaitlyn took his hand, placed the coin in his palm, and closed his fingers around it.

  “You don’t need this,” Kaitlyn said.

  With a yell, Aelron flung the coin out into the darkness.

  “I hope you’re right,” Aelron said as he walked past Kaitlyn. “I hope I didn’t just kill us all.”

  Contrary to what Nicolas expected, Kaitlyn seemed shocked. Isn’t that what she’d planned?

  Nicolas stepped away from the dwarf tree as Kagan rose from the ground and took a step toward Aelron.

  Nicolas told him to stand down. Aelron had made his decision, and something told Nicolas he wouldn’t go back on it. Besides, he could have killed Nicolas the first time he threw that dagger, but he didn’t.

  “What changed your mind?” Kaitlin asked. “I know it wasn’t what I just said. That wouldn’t have been enough for you to just throw it away like garbage.”

  Aelron stared into Nicolas’s eyes, expression blank once more.

  “It lied to me,” Aelron said. “On the side of the road, where we met. It lied. It led me to believe you would be the source of great evil in this world. Well I know evil. You’re not evil.”

  “I’m glad we had this little come to Jesus meeting and you saw the light and everything,” Nicolas said, “but I can’t have you traveling with people I love if you’re gonna snap.”

  Aelron looked at Kaitlyn, who nodded in response.

  “And what is this all about?” Nicolas asked, staring at Kaitlyn. “You’ve been talking like you know him better than you know me.”

  “I can’t explain it,” Kaitlyn said. “After he drank from my water skin, I started…knowing things about him. You need to hear what he has to say.”

  Kaitlyn had shared her water when Aelron’s skin ran dry. Could this be what the cichlos were terrified of? Had she somehow imbued the water skin with magic?

  “Do you remember what you were thinking the last time you held that water skin?” Nicolas asked.

  “You were a babe when our father sent me away,” Aelron said.

  The water skin could wait. Did he hear what he thought he heard?

  “Are you saying you’re…my brother?” Nicolas asked.

  “Aelron Ardirian,” Aelron said. “Your elder brother. Kagan’s firstborn.”

  Nicolas rubbed his forehead. If that were true… “That means, you should be archmage. Not me.”

  Aelron smiled, but there was a sadness to his eyes. “Therein lies my particular tale of woe. I don’t have magic. A fact our father didn’t handle very well. I was five years old when he sent us to live with the Shandarian Rangers because of it. At least, that’s what the rangers told me. Our father didn’t grant me the luxury of an explanation before sending us away.”

  “Us?” Nicolas asked. “I was told I was taken directly from the Pinnacle to…” Maybe best to keep that close to my chest for now. “To where I’m from.”

  “I was talking about our mother.”

  Nicolas’s legs stiffened, and for a few moments his heart raced. He’d spent so much time dealing with everything—getting pulled to Erindor against his will, saving a world from a despotic religious leader who turned out to be his father—that he’d spent no time at all wondering about his mother. How could he have gone through all of this and never tried harder to find out? What kind of person was he?

  “Where is she?” Nicolas asked. “Who is she?”

  Aelron turned away. Nicolas must have touched a sore spot.

  “I need to know,” Nicolas said. “I just…need to know.”

  Aelron rubbed the back of his neck for a few moments, then faced Nicolas.

  “I haven’t told this story in…decades,” Aelron said. “Our mother was the daughter of a Shandarian ambassador. She wasn’t a magus, but she traveled to the Pinnacle with our grandfather once, and that’s where she met our father. She joined me at the Elysian Fortress, but we weren’t allowed to see each other because of my training. She wasn’t supposed to be there at all, actually—women can’t be spending time around a bunch of celibate men, you know—but they took her in as a courtesy to Kagan.”

  “What’s the Elysian Fortress?” Kaitlyn asked.

  “The mother house of the rangers,” Aelron said. “North. In the Great Algidian Peaks. By rights, I should have returned to the Pinnacle twenty years ago, but we were cut off by the yellow dome.”

  “Is she still there?” Nicolas asked.

  Aelron’s face contorted. Nicolas knew the answer before he spoke.

  “About a year after we arrived, she took ill,” Aelron said. “They say they don’t know what sickness it was. I’ll spare you the details my brother rangers didn’t spare me.”

  The pain was brutal and unexpected. Nicolas’s heart ached the way it had when his dad died. His adoptive father. Not this shambling ex-tyrant zombie standing next to him.

  The hope that his mother lived disintegrated. He’d never get to know her. More sin to lay at Kagan’s feet. He was beginning to think he’d only scratched the surface of that man’s depravity.

  “What do you have to say for yourself?” Nicolas asked Kagan, who had sauntered up between them. “Is any of this true?”

  “Every word,” Kagan said. “Most every word, at least.”

  “And which part did he get wrong?”

  “I didn’t send them away because my son would never be a magus. I sent them away because I knew what I was about to do, and I didn’t want them here when I did it. Something my mentor said…well, I inferred it wouldn’t be safe. At the very least, the result would be unpredictable. I didn’t want them around to reap the suffering I would sow. So I sent them to a place I knew the Barathosians couldn’t touch.”

  “You’re saying it was an act of kindness?” Nicolas asked.

  “You were supposed to go with them too, Nicolas,” Kagan said. “But when I sent for you, it was too late. You were already gone.”

  It was too much. The sociopath traveling with them turns out to be his brother. Their mother was sent away to be safe only to die alone. He’d never know her.

  Kaitlyn put her hand on his arm.

  “I’m twenty-one years old and I just learned my mother died thirty-nine years ago,” Nicolas said. “Any idea how freaky that feels?”

  Toridyn came up from behind Kaitlyn, holding and petting Toby.

  “What’s all the commotion?” Toridyn asked.

  A cold breeze blew through the copse of trees, carrying with it the scent of a distant rain.

  “Why would you say you’re twenty-one?” Aelron asked. “That’s not possible.”

  Nicolas considered telling the story. But brother or no, he didn’t know this person.

  “My mentor once told me time doesn’t always behave,” Nicolas said. “Let’s leave it at that for now. Until we know each other better. But you don’t look any more middle-aged than I do. How do you manage it?”

  Aelron sh
ook his head. “When I discovered who you are, and I saw that you looked no older than I do, I started hoping you would have the answer to that question. It was another reason the rangers cast me out. I was too different for them.”

  Nicolas nodded.

  Wait. Mentor.

  What was it Kagan had said? Something about having a mentor around the time the barrier went up? Mujahid never mentioned anything about that!

  “Tell me about this mentor of yours.” Nicolas said.

  “Kindly old man,” Kagan said. “He’d come across the ocean with the Barathosians. Once he discovered how open to his knowledge I was, he decided to stay. He was surprised I’d discovered so much about vitapotency on my own, so he helped me perfect the rest. His name was Azazel. I knew much, but I had been going about it all wrong. And…”

  Nicolas waited for words that never came. “Any day now.”

  Kagan remained frozen in place. Nicolas turned inward to the necromantic link, but every message he inserted vanished like water down a drain. He nudged Kagan with his elbow and the dead man looked up.

  “I was about to tell you,” Kagan said, “that you were supposed to go with them. But when I sent for you, it was too late. You were already gone.”

  Nicolas narrowed his eyes. “You said that already.”

  “I did?”

  Great. My penitent has dementia now.

  “You were talking about Azazel one minute, then you froze like Han Solo in carbonite the next.”

  “You realize he has no idea what you’re talking about, right?” Kaitlyn said.

  “Azazel?” Kagan said. “That’s a name I haven’t heard in…”

  Kagan froze again.

  “Can somebody tell me why my penitent has Alzheimer’s?” Nicolas said.

  “You were supposed to go with them,” Kagan said. “But—”

  “When you sent for me, I was already gone,” Nicolas said.

  “You knew?”

  “Oh hell no.”

  What in blazes was going on with Kagan? Confusing images. Freezing at the name of…

  Wait a minute.

  “Azazel,” Nicolas said. “Isn’t that a demon’s name, Kait?”