by Deck Davis
“And you said he was showing off his coins?”
“He was playing with us. Using up the time of the Last Rites so we wouldn’t learn anything.”
Kortho smiled. “Then he isn’t as clever as he thinks he is. I might know this man.”
“What?”
“Coin collectors are a funny breed. There aren’t many of them, and they are obsessive in their hobby. I was once assigned to resurrect an old warlock in the Gaspen Isles. Everything went as it should, and I travelled back to the academy with the loot I had found on my mission. Among that loot was a coin shaped like a lion’s head.”
Jakub’s heart raced. “He showed us that coin!”
“Yes, and I’m the one who sold it to him. When I looted it, I knew I’d found something valuable. I went to a coin collector’s exhibition, and they were like hyenas fighting over a carcass when they saw my coin. They almost came to blows trying to outbid each other. Eventually I sold it for 700 gold. That’s right- 700. You can pick your jaw up off the floor.”
“You sold it to him?”
Kortho nodded. “I’ll always remember him. After all, the man was seven feet tall. Not someone you would forget. But his name…what was his name?”
Remember, willed Jakub. I need it.
Kortho shook his head. “Damn it. All the times I used to joke about your mind palace and how obsessively you followed Irvine’s instructions on it…I wish I had one of my own, now.”
“You don’t remember?”
“I’m sorry, Jakub.”
Another dead end. Jakub felt empty now. He could sense more of the arachnids in the distance, he could see their forms in his peripheral vision and he knew they were waiting for him to glance at them so they could take his thoughts. He couldn’t stay here much longer.
Not only that, but the haze had reached Kortho’s waist now.
How long did Kortho have in Greyland before he passed on? Minutes?
“Kortho, we don’t have time. Forget everything; I need to say something to you.”
“Wait,” said Kortho. He held a clawed hand in the air. “The receipt. The man made me sign the coin to him in a deed, and I kept a receipt of the sale. His name will be on it.”
“Where is it?”
“At my house, of course. Winifred will know where it is. Tell her to look in my study, in my desk.”
“I’ll go to her.”
“Tell her something for me,” said Kortho. “I know this might be awkward; but tell her…tell her that she was everything.”
The words were a punch to the gut. A shower of ice spread through Jakub now, and the message finally reached him, firing in his mind, the knowledge that this was the end.
The last time he’d ever see Kortho, the liguana who had saved him from his family, who’d given him a life.
And for the third time ever in his life, Jakub felt his tears overwhelm him.
Kortho grabbed him and pulled him close, and Jakub didn’t resist.
This wasn’t what a necromancer should do, he knew that. But he was human, too.
They hugged for a minute, and finally Kortho pushed him away. The haze had reached his chest now.
“Go,” said Kortho. “I don’t want you to watch me fade. Go to Winifred, she’ll be happy to see you. We have no sons or daughters to call in on her, no grandchildren. Regrets, Jakub. As much as our kind deal in death we don’t experience it until our time is up. If you ever wonder what death feels like, it’s this – regret.”
Jakub felt Ludwig nuzzle against his leg, and he sensed the arachnids gathering in the distance, and he could see the haze spreading further up Kortho’s body.
With that, Jakub touched Ludwig’s head.
“Take me back,” he said.
38
He found himself back in the chamber in the Rats’ Palace, soaking wet and with a horrible taste in his mouth.
Witas was kneeling beside the dead necromancer and rifling through her pockets. When he saw Jakub appear next to him, he jumped.
“Woah. A little warning,” he said, and then he looked at Jakub’s face. “Are you…okay?”
Jakub didn’t want to tell him about the Greylands and Kortho. He’d never been the kind of guy to go spilling his emotions to anyone. Besides, Kortho wouldn’t have wanted that.
‘We can either be sentimental, or you can get my help one last time.’ That was what he’d said.
Jakub knew that Kortho wasn’t just talking through decades of de-sensitization; he was a practical man. He always said, ‘my feelings belong at home with Winifred. Outside of that, feelings don’t help.’
Jakub could either waste his time feeling guilt and anger, or he could remember his mental training with Irvine and he could push all that back, shove it into the part of his mind where he kept all the other stuff that he didn’t have the energy for.
“I saw a friend in the Greylands,” he told Witas. “It’s a long story, but I can get us the name of Mr. Coin.”
“Mr. Coin?”
“He needs a nickname until we know his real one.”
“He sounds more like a…Baron Moneyfingers? Barons are usually real bastards. Forget it - we’ll work on it,” said Witas. “What’s it like down there?”
“The Greylands?”
“It’s the ultimate question, ain’t it - what’s it like when you die? Sure, we all know there’s a stop gap, and then we move onto one of the Seven, but none of us have lived and breathed it. It must be pretty special to do that.”
“I never thought of it like that. Necromancy always been a job, one I study and practice for.”
“Just a job. And they say romance and poetry are dying. Jakub, you’ve got thousands of poems written by guys who’ve never set foot in the Greylands. They wrote pages and pages describing how they imagined it would feel, what they’d have lost, what they’d see, and they used their empathy to put that in words. You, on the other hand, have been to the land beyond more than once, yet you might as well have gone to the bakery for a pie.”
“If you want to think of death as a poem, go ahead. The bards never mention when someone pisses themselves, they don’t mention how death rattles sound. Death isn’t a lyric, and death isn’t the place we call the Greylands. Death is a hole; it’s that little place in the real world where someone you know used to be, but they’ve gone.”
He stopped talking then, because what he said surprised even himself. That kind of thing wasn’t in any of the necromancy texts. In fact, it went against the basic necromancy credo; treat death as something that is there, but don’t fear or revere it.
“What did you see down there, Jakub? You seem different.”
“I’m not going back for a while, put it that way.”
Witas patted his back. “Thanks for doing it. Let’s get this son of a whore’s name.”
“One sec,” said Jakub.
He searched the dead necromancer. He checked her robe and all of her pockets, and he took off her boots and looked inside those. When he was done, it wasn’t the greatest looting he’d ever done, but at least it was something.
*Loot Received!*
1 Key
Robes of Repel Rain
**Uncommon**
Leather Boots
**Common**
Eight teeth
He couldn’t take his eyes off the teeth. Some were pure white, others a little stained, but all of them were human.
“Monsters,” said Witas. “Eight people…”
“Eight teeth don’t mean eight people.”
“It does when they’re the same kind tooth.”
“You don’t know that. They don’t look all the same to me, and people have more than one of each kind.”
“I’m telling you,” said Witas. “Cast your Last Rites rights on them.”
“It doesn’t work like that. I need their brains; that’s where their memory is, even when they die. A tooth doesn’t hold anything.”
“Is there nothing Irvine could do with it?”
&
nbsp; “There’s not much necromancy you can do with what amounts to a hardened clump of minerals.”
“You sound like an alchemist. If you’re gonna break the human body down like that,” said Witas, “you could say we’re all just walking mish-mashes of carbon and calcium. You really know how to suck the romance out of everything don’t you? Even your own miracle of life?”
“It’s the necromancer’s calling card,” said Jakub. “But I found something else on her that didn’t come from somebody’s mouth.”
He held the key up. Rather than a regular door key, this was a tube with a metal end that flattened at the end and spread out into four triangles.
“That’s a mana-box key,” said Witas. “There’s a few of them in the city; you pay rent and you get your own secure box. Those things are fool, mage, and thief proof; no amount of roguery will get a mana box to spread its legs.”
“We just found the key to her secret box? This is massive.”
“A woman who keeps her victims teeth in her pockets...I don’t want to know what she considers a secret. But first we’ve gotta find the box.”
“That’s the plan,” said Jakub. “We’ll find the box, and then go and see about the other guy’s name. What about after that?”
“The academy. We take everything to them.”
“Not the guardship?”
“Listen; the guardship call me in to help on their corpses, but they never once asked me how it worked, or watched me use my spells,” said Witas, “A lot of folk, they don’t want to see what you can do. They’re either scared of it, jealous, or they’ve been reading too much of Bendeldrick’s bullshit.”
“So, murders, people targeting academy kids, creeps keeping their victims’ teeth…”
“If people see a problem that they can’t comprehend, they’re going to act like they don’t care. It saves them having to admit they just can’t work it out. You want the guardship to help you? Then go report a guy who has been cutting whores in a brothel, or someone getting stabbed over a game of Cat Crowns. But if you want anyone to care about all of this, go to your academy.”
“And you’re going to come with me?”
“Ian and I haven’t seen each other in a decade. I plan on keeping it that way.”
“Seriously? Not even for this?”
“I’ve got my own stuff to do. Believe it or not, I need money, and there are easier ways than hanging around with you.”
“Let’s remind ourselves who knocked on who’s door and then ate half their breakfast,” said Jakub.
“I’ll help you find the box, but if you’re leaving Dispolis, you can go on your own.”
39
“So, here’s the thing. My mum always problems come in a crowd,” said Witas. “I don’t think she meant a crazy necromancer bitch resurrecting a bunch of rats, but here we are. Now, we’ve got the rest of the problem gang to deal with.”
“What’s that?”
“Getting out of here. The necromancer must have messed with the red dragons, painted them on where they aren’t supposed to be.”
“We can just follow them back, can’t we?”
“We took a few twists and turns getting here, and I don’t like the idea of following the dragons again.”
“I know what to do,” said Jakub.
He cast Summon Bound. Waves of light formed a circle by his feet, churning around and around. Witas stepped away from them, as if it was a whirlpool ready to suck him in.
*Necromancy EXP Gained!*
[IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII ]
Damn it. So close to a level up. Just one more point.
Before he could think about what spell to cast to earn that last experience point, Ludwig leapt out of the portal. He landed on all fours, snapping his head left, right, then turning around to take in his surroundings, his tail whipping like a flag in the wind.
“Jakub, I didn’t think I’d see you so soon,” he said.
“We need you, Lud.”
“We? Who’s this? Wait…Witas? Is that you?” said Ludwig.
“You know each other?”
Witas nodded. “We met eight years ago. Though it’ll have felt like 64 to you, won’t it? Time flows differently down there.”
“Wait a second,” said Jakub. “You two met in the Greylands? What were you doing there?”
“It’s a long story. It’s the reason I’m a black cleric, actually.”
“So, what was all the stuff about me not appreciating what I’ve seen, and all the crap about poetry? You didn’t tell me you’d been to the Greylands.”
“I didn’t say that I hadn’t, either,” said Witas. “I was trying to get you to open your eyes and start appreciating things.”
“What happened? How’d you get there?”
“What, a man has to relay his life story to you? You need to let some things be. I’ve met your dog, alright? That’s enough sharing for today.”
“You’ve been to the Greylands,” said Jakub, “and you don’t serve the divine, like any other cleric would. I’ve put a hell of a lot of trust in you up to now. I agreed to come and look at the body to earn a little cash, and then I ended up fighting a necromancer in the sewers.”
“You came because I told you who the corpse was, and you lost it. Don’t pretend you were doing me a favour.”
“It’s cards on the table time, Witas. There are people snatching students, instructors setting them up. You have a link to the academy through your brother, and you’ve died once, and you never told me.”
“I’d have thought a necromancer could tell,” said Witas.
“You’ve must have been resurrected. And if that’s true, then you’re alive like everyone else. I wouldn’t have a clue.”
“Alive like everyone else…except I used up my last chance. You only get one resurrection, don’t you?”
“It’s a chance not many get,” said Jakub. “A full resurrection costs so much essence…there’s only one way you’d get it. Instructor Irvine must have used his position to influence it.”
“You’re more perceptive than I thought.”
“Then tell me what happened. Tell me how you died, and maybe we can move on.”
“What if I don’t give a damn about what you do when we get out of here?”
“Witas, I saw you with the pickpocket. For some reason, you’re feeling this whole thing like a knife in the gut. You want to know who’s doing this, and you know the guardship are too incompetent. You need me to help.”
“Fine,” said Witas. He unravelled his scarf from his neck and showed his skin underneath for the first time. It was marred by a ring of red that went all the way around.
“When the resurrect you, you come back with the injuries you died with, right?” he said.
Jakub nodded. There was no need to guess what had happened here. The marks on Witas’s neck were from a rope.
He didn’t know what to say. Luckily, Witas spoke first.
“I know what you’re gonna say; you’re a necromancer, so you hate the idea of a life wasted. Ian did, anyway. But let me tell you what happened, and you can save your judgment.”
“Fair enough,” said Jakub, and listened as Witas told his story.
40
When Witas was eleven he was a student at the Queen’s academy, attending it at the same time as his younger brother – Instructor Irvine.
It wasn’t so weird for a student to have a sibling in the academy, since magic proclivity was usually passed by blood, so brothers and sisters would share a degree of it.
What was strange, though, was that Ian Irvine was in the same class as Witas, who was three years his senior. The other students used this information and pounced on it, constantly remining Witas that his little brother was a better student.
“It’s just the way the apples fall,” Kortho told Witas. “Some get bigger and bigger, but some lose their lustre quickly. In the end, they all end up the same. Don’t take it personally, lad.”
Witas tried not to. He applied h
imself to his classes as best he could, but he always kept an eye on Ian, who wasn’t studying necromancy back then. Witas couldn’t help but watch how his brother knew the all the answers in class and always mastered his spells quicker than anyone else.
After a few months, Kortho arranged a private meeting with him.
“You aren’t studying, Witas,” he said. “You aren’t even going to class. I asked instructor Fennlip, and he hasn’t had an assignment from you in months. Not only that, but Fennlip witnessed you fighting with another student, and they saw you break his nose. That’s the third face you’ve bloodied this year.”
Kortho was quiet then, but so was Witas. He knew when someone was trying to create an uncomfortable silence, but he loved silence.
“Nothing to say?” asked Kortho.
Witas shook his head. He felt like if he opened his mouth, all his bitterness about Ian, the academy, the other students would pour out.
“I’m a necromancy instructor, Witas,” said Kortho. “I was assigned to you solely to monitor your behaviour and try to correct it; that is why we have these chats. When you refuse to improve, or to even try, you leave us with no choice. With the economy the way it is, a place at the academy is a precious, precious gift, and we cannot waste the gold on an unwanted education.”
“You’re kicking me out?”
“So, he has a tongue after all. It’s a shame you have waited to use it. Yes, Witas. I’m afraid that Quartermaster Tomkins is packing up your things now, to save you the embarrassment of facing the students in your dorm.”
“Fuck that. I’ll face them,” said Witas.
Witas went back home to live with his parents on their farm. His mother hugged him on arrival, but his father gave him the cold shoulder, and would speak more to the pigs and sheep than to his son.
He got apprenticed to an alchemist and tried to put all his effort into it, but it was tough. All that time, he could feel the magic in him, it was like a tense energy that he just couldn’t shift no matter how much he worked.