by Deck Davis
Not only had Kortho saved Jakub from his family years ago, then later spoke against the other instructors to persuade them to let him graduate, but he was going to help today, too. Kortho’s testimony about their assignment, coupled with Jakub keeping a clear head, should be enough to get him through this.
He just needed to concentrate in the inquiry when they asked him questions, to have nothing on his mind except what they asked him.
“Lud, if the world had your optimism…it’d be a little too nice, actually. Okay, ask me again. Do it in Irvine’s voice.”
“Novice Russo, can you explain why…”
Jakub missed the rest of Ludwig’s sentence, because there was activity at the bottom of the Path of Returning. Two mana wagons pulled up by the gates, one hurtling forward so quickly that when it stopped, the driver on the front flew off and hit the ground.
“Mana wagons?” said Jakub. “The academy would never pay for that.”
“Something’s happened. Warlocks, three of them. See?”
Warlocks. Jakub’s ex-girlfriend, Abbie, was a warlock, and she gone on her first field assignment the same time as him.
He’d broken things off with her before they left, going by the academy credence of duty above self, duty above love, duty above all. He knew that was bullshit now after his first assignment, and he was beginning to regret ending it with her.
It was a funny thing, when two sides of your own head spun their own stories. One side saying your decision made sense, the other calling it absolutely gods-damned stupid. His brain’s self-protection instinct was strong enough to try and convince him that finishing a relationship with a beautiful, clever, tough-as-hell warlock girl was a good idea.
He’d tried to believe it, but he was learning that mistakes tend to creep up on a person inch by inch, like weeds across a lawn. It wasn’t like he didn’t have a heart; he still cared about her.
“Can we go and see Abbie?” said Ludwig. “For a minute? A second?”
“I can’t have her on my mind today, Lud. The inquiry is in less than an hour. I haven’t seen her in weeks and if I see her today, she’s all I’m gonna think about.”
It was one thing saying the words, another believing them. The clue to how he really felt was apparent in how he couldn’t seem to tear his attention away from the gates, where the warlocks were rushing through and toward the academy.
A part of his brain told him to forget Abbie, but another told him that was impossible. He wanted to turn away, but he couldn’t bring himself not to look.
The truth was that as much as he’d dreaded doing it, breaking things off with Abbie had been the easy part. What came after was a series of regrets that flared whenever he saw her.
Did I do the right thing?
She’s so nice, she took the breakup so well. Have I made a giant mistake?
He’d glance look long enough to catch sight of her. Just to see her blonde hair, see how she looked in her warlock armor. A tiny peek, and then he’d forget about her.
Wait. The warlocks were really running now, and one of them had a body slung over his shoulder.
Jakub recognized him as Mason D’Angelt, a master Warlock. He wasn’t a full academy instructor, because he refused to teach classes, and he had a reputation for enjoying some of the more unsavory aspects of Dispolis, the nearby capital city of the Red Eye Queendom. That wasn’t a good example for the academy to set.
But warlocks were difficult to find, ones who attained mastery even more so, and Mason had a contractor’s agreement with the academy where he’d let some of their novices go on field assignments with him.
Now, Mason was sprinting over the Path of Returning with a body over his shoulder. It was a woman, her body completely limp, so much so that every time Mason took a step, her head smashed into his back muscles.
“Jakub,” said Ludwig, “That’s-”
He didn’t need Ludwig to tell him; he’d already seen who it was.
3
Two more warlocks – an instructor and a novice – and the mana wagon drivers followed Mason up the Path of Returning. One driver limped and had a bruised eye from being flung off the wagon, and the other driver looked worried.
Jakub joined up with them, struggling to keep pace.
“What happened?”
“We need to get the girl to the necromancers,” said instructor Gascon. He was a warlock too, but he was the opposite of Mason; where Mason was all muscle and brawn and seemed to use his warlock powers to search for trouble, Instructor Gascon was a slight man who you’d usually find in the Grand Library, always searching for another aspect of his craft that he hadn’t discovered yet.
“I’m a necromancer,” said Jakub.
“Can you resurrect a person, novice?”
“Get out of our way, Jakub,” said Bendie, a novice warlock.
While Jakub’s chest ached from the sprint, Bendie had caught them up with ease and even Instructor Gascon, thirty years Jakub’s senior, seemed fine. That came down to their conditioning, he guessed. While necromancers only needed basic physical fitness, warlocks trained to get themselves in peak shape.
He pushed the fatigue back and forced himself to keep up. He had to know what had happened.
Whatever Abbie’s first assignment had been, it must have been dangerous for two novices and two masters to go together.
Abbie had paid the price for it, and Jakub couldn’t look at her head smashing against Mason’s back without a flare of fear lighting in him. What the hell has happened to her?
His thoughts stoked the fears and added a helping of guilt; this wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t ended things.
Not only was the thought wrong, since Abbie had gone out on a field assignment - and instructors generally didn’t base their assignments on a student’s love life – but it was selfish, too. What, did he think that everything in the universe happened as a result of his own actions?
It was the same flawed flow of thoughts that used to make him do things like avoid stepping on cracks in the stone in the belief that the universe was watching him, and that by these stupid acts he could avoid terrible things happening.
“Tell me what happened,” he said, his lungs aching as he kept up with their speed. Ludwig bounded along next to him.
Instructor Gascon stopped running now. Thankful, Jakub stopped too.
“Novice Marsh needs a necromancer, and a master at that,” said Gascon.
“She’s dead?”
“I would have thought you would have learned not to use such absolute terms, novice. Did you know Abbie?”
“We were... friends.”
“Then I am sure she will be happy to see you after her resurrection.”
4
Not only did worrying about Abbie knock his preparation for his inquiry out of his head, but Mason D’Angelt and instructor Gascon had taken Abbie to the resurrection chambers and banned anyone below the rank of master from entering. Even the lower-rung necromancers couldn’t go in.
He guessed most guys, seeing their ex-girlfriend dead, would have barely been able to function. Then again, most guys hadn’t spent the last ten years of their life studying death, and most guys hadn’t undergone the same de-sensitization training as Jakub.
As well as that, Gascon was right; death didn’t need to be absolute. It was something of a job requirement that he understood and agreed with that.
Without being able to go into the chambers, though, he couldn’t see what was happening, and that meant he had nothing to do but let his worry and questions crash in his mind.
Not only that, but Instructor Irvine, Madam Lolo, and Instructor Henwright were supposed to be in charge of his inquiry, and all three of them were called in to perform Abbie’s resurrection.
Jakub waited in the necromancy wing of the academy. This was the brightest wing of the whole building, with every wall painted pastel green, yellow, and blue. Banners and bunting were hanging across the gothic arches, and where the rest of the acade
my had stained glass murals depicting scenes of the academy’s past, the glass on the necromancy wing showed scenes of spring lambs and new-born babies. Dogs bounding over fields, shepherds dozing in the sun while they watched their flock.
Necromancers had a hang-up about that kind of thing. Out of all the arts practiced in the academy, necromancy had a reputation for being the most morbid. Irvine, the head of necromancy in the academy, had made it his mission to set that straight.
“Can we go to the canteen?” said Ludwig.
“So you can get some attention from the other students?”
“Just for a few minutes.”
“Attention and people are the last thing I need right now.”
Jakub tried his best to avoid the other academy students while he waited for the instructors. He’d never been friends with them at the best of times, but his stomach was wrapping itself into knots now, and he’d be even worse company than usual.
The students passed by in groups of four and five. A couple of them, novice necromancers, had bound creatures with them – Novice Temple had his monkey, and Helena had her serpent. Four trainee warlocks hurried passed, each with their summoned demons.
In that way, the warlock and necromancy disciplines intersected. They could both summon creatures to them and bind them. But where a necromancer’s bound creature was from the Greylands and thus couldn’t be touched physically, the warlocks’ demons were real. All too real.
Jakub couldn’t help listening to their gossip.
“They took her into the chambers, but I heard that they don’t know whether to bring her back or not.”
“Why wouldn’t they?”
“Her injuries.”
“Doesn’t the resurrection heal them?”
“You come back with whatever injuries you died with.”
Now he felt like he was going to vomit. For the instructors to debate bringing Abbie back from the dead, her injuries must have been horrific.
He retreated to his mind-palace and, with perfect recall, he re-watched Mason carrying Abbie to the academy.
She’d still had all her limbs, and there was no sign of serious stab wounds or anything like that. What could have possibly happened to her that mean the instructors might not bring her back.
He stood up and paced in the hallway. What was it?
I didn’t see her face.
He needed to see her. He got up.
“Don’t try and see her,” said Ludwig. “They already said you can’t.”
“If they bring her back and she hears that I didn’t go and wait there, she’s going to think I don’t care.”
“As long as you’re there when she wakes up, that’s all that matters. Irvine and Lolo and Henwright are performing the resurrection; don’t annoy them by trying to get in again.”
“Damn it,” he said, sitting back down.
Two hours later, Instructor Irvine and Madam Lolo walked down the corridor, their faces grim.
“Is she okay?” said Jakub.
Madam Lolo, who usually had a smile and friendly word for Jakub, walked straight by him and into the necromancy hall, leaving a perfume scent lingering behind her.
Instructor Irvine stopped. He was nothing like the other instructors in the academy, preferring to wear checkered shirts and denim trousers to the standard robes, which he always said were impractical as hell.
“Get into a fight in the field,” he’d say. “And see how long you last with a roll of cloth trailing at your feet. You might as well wear a bride’s wedding dress.”
While he didn’t care about academy-issue dress, he stuck to the rules they preached everywhere else. Irvine was all about rules, rules, rules, and that was why Jakub was worried about him more than Lolo and Henwright.
Jakub had broken field codes in his assignment. He’d made mistakes. Sure, he’d done it to survive, but Irvine was going to haul him over hot coals for it.
But they weren’t in the inquiry room yet, and Jakub couldn’t resist asking Irvine something.
“Is Abbie okay?”
“You have better things to focus on now, novice. We have questions for you.”
“I just need to know if the resurrection worked. That’s why you’re late, right?”
Irvine gave him a smile. Jakub thought back, and he was sure it was the first smile the instructor had ever given him. Strange that he’d do it today, of all days, when Jakub’s future at the academy was in his hands.
“You have yourself to think about, Jakub. I know an inquiry is never a pleasant experience; just tell the truth, and you can do no more. When instructor Henwright arrives, we will begin.”
Why was Irvine being so nice? Had he decided to go easy on Jakub, given the hell he’d been through in the Killeshi lands?
Maybe he knew about his and Abbie’s relationship, and he was taking pity on him. Academy romances weren’t banned as long as you were sensible, and maybe Irvine had a heart, after all.
Irvine walked into the room, leaving Jakub alone outside, unsure about Abbie and about his own future.
It was selfish as hell to think about himself. How could he even focus on getting through their questions? Was he going to be able to explain failing his first field assignment in such spectacular fashion?
Screw explaining things. Only one thought kept hammering in his brain now; even if they had performed a resurrection on Abbie, there was a problem – they didn’t always work.
Instructor Irvine had completely avoided his question, hadn’t he? What did that mean?
Even Master Kortho, one of the strongest and most respected of necromancers, had failed a resurrection once. He’d tried to bring back Quartermaster Tomkins’s son and he’d failed, and Kortho had carried that failure with him as a weight.
Where was Kortho now? He was supposed to be here, supposed to speak up for Jakub.
Footsteps sounded down the hallway, but it wasn’t Kortho. It was instructor Henwright, and he walked by and then into the necromancy hall without a word.
Minutes later, a voice sounded behind the door.
“You may enter, novice. We will begin your inquiry.”
5
The three instructors were sitting behind a raised podium which had cloth bearing the academy emblem draped over the middle.
There was Instructor Irvine, Henwright, and Madam Lolo. Two of them wore their official necromancial robes, the kind only worn for graduations or disciplinary inquiries, while Irvine was in his casuals.
He knew that one of these people had voted against him graduating as a necromancer, one had voted in his favor, while another had sat on the fence until Kortho had talked them around.
If he had to guess, he’d say that Lolo voted for him, Irvine said no, and Henwright was the one who couldn’t make up his mind.
Kortho had changed minds back then, and he’d change them again today. Just this one, last time, Jakub would let his old mentor save the day. After that, he was going to prove he could do things on his own.
He was strong enough to do that, wasn’t he? Maybe, maybe not. All the things Kortho had done for Jakub; saved him from his flesh-eating family, urged the academy to take him as a pupil rather than send him to a workhouse, let Jakub spend the holidays at his own house with he and his wife, rather than in an empty academy like the rest of the students who didn’t have families to go to.
He’d need Kortho’s help again this one time. After that, after he got through the inquiry, Jakub would work harder than before, study more, plan more, make sure he was never in this position again. Ten years from now, he’d be the best necromancer in the Red Eye Queendom.
If he could just get through this.
“Take a seat,” said Irvine, “and we will begin.”
His tone was cold now, back to how it usually was. Gone was the man who’d smiled at Jakub outside the hall.
Last night before he fell asleep, Jakub had imagined his inquiry. What it’d be like to stand here, how he’d act. In his head, he sat confidently, he
met their stares, his tone was firm and he had an answer for everything.
Why was it that when you thought about things at night, you always over-estimated your own abilities?
It was one thing committing to something in your head, another doing it when the time came. Because here and now, as much as he knew he couldn’t show it, he felt doubt creeping in.
“Shouldn’t we wait for Kortho?” said Jakub.
“Master Kortho has retired.”
“Retired? He wouldn’t; he said he would be here.”
“Master Kortho has suffered a lot, as you know. It is his wish that he not attend the academy anymore.”
“He needs to rest, poor man,” said Lolo. “His house in Racken Hills is the best place for him now.”
“He said he would be here.”
“This is your inquiry, novice,” said Irvine. “Should I check your bumhole to see if Kortho has his hand up there? Ventriloquist acts bring in a lot of gold, I’m told.”
Wow. So much for the smiling, nice Irvine.
“Instructor,” said Lolo.
“Kortho failed in his duty, as did the boy. I find it insolent that he begins with questions about absent ex-masters. There is honor in retirement boy, and sometimes it is one last favor to a master who would otherwise have left in disgrace. This is your inquiry, and we do not expect anyone else in attendance.”
“You forced him to retire, didn’t you?”
“Perhaps it is better to forget about Master Kortho for now, young one” said Henwright.
He felt their eyes on him now. Three sets, one of them accusatory, the other stern, the third pair, Madam Lolo’s, almost showing pity for him.
Kortho wasn’t coming. Jakub needed him; Kortho was the eldest, most respect necromancer in the academy, and his words carried weight.
Without him…
He need to pull himself together. The truth would still carry him through this, even if without hearing Kortho’s testimony they were sure to punish him. They’d pull him from field duty for a while, maybe make him assist in necromancy classes with ungraduated students.