Code of the Necromancer

by Deck Davis

  “Whatever it is, my grandfather will give it you. Just…please…just name it.”

  “I’m sorry,” said the man, with his back to him. “Time is fleeting, and Studs left our work unfinished. I have to go now; I’m already late.”

  “You’ll let me go?”

  “I’ll let you find peace, but I can’t let you go.”

  The man took something from inside his coat. He turned around, and he was holding a dagger with a jagged blade.

  Jakub could almost feel Trout’s fear as the man advanced on him.

  When the man cut the blade across Trout’s throat, Jakub flinched as if he’d suffered the cut himself.

  Trout screamed, but his screams turned into a gurgle, and then the vision darkened, and the Last Rites faded away.

  66

  “I’m going to be sick,” said Witas.

  Jakub felt fury course through him now. Screw his mental training; screw everything Irvine had taught him about staying calm. There was only anger now, and he realized that he needed it; anger would get him through his blight, force him through his pain and to the end of this.

  “Then be sick, and pull yourself together,” he said.

  “How can you be so calm?”

  “Believe me, I’m the opposite of calm.”

  “You, Ian, the other necros…you’re all the same. Death means nothing to you, does it?”

  “Death is everything to us,” said Jakub. “Right now, Trout’s death is what we have. It’s a way we can end this.”

  “What? More necromancy?”

  “I can’t bring him back, but I can take him to the academy. If we can get him to the academy before his essence fades, instructor Irvine can watch his Rites. This is the proof we needed.”

  “We’ve got a city full of guards looking for us. You think it’s going to be possible to wander through Dispolis with a mutilated corpse?”

  “I might have the solution,” said Archibald.

  “Shove your solutions up your arse,” said Witas.

  “Go on,” said Jakub.

  Archibald straightened up. “An artificer doesn’t hone his craft for years without knowing artificery when he sees it. The suitcase – does it seem strange to you?”

  “I can smell mana. It’s artificed?”

  “Much like the bag you carry around with you. Though I suspect the case has been artificed to hold a lot more.”

  Jakub kneeled by the suitcase and put his hand into it, and he found that his hand sank deep into it until his whole forearm and half his bicep were inside.

  “We can carry him out in the case,” he said. “Witas, do you know any carriage drivers who’ll keep their mouths shut?”

  “All drivers keep their mouth shut, Jakub. It’s part of the job; they spend their nights ferrying nobles and guards around while they have their illicit romances and get up to shady stuff.”

  “If we put Trout in the case and get to a wagon without being seen, we can get to the academy.”

  “Wow, you’re cold. Stuff him in a case, are you serious? He’s not a coat.”

  “Sentimentality won’t bring Trout back,” said Jakub. “Sometimes there’s no place for it.”

  “Maybe it won’t, but sentimentality is what he deserves. A bit of respect.”

  “Listen, Witas. Funerals, undertakers, the way they dress up corpses, make them look nice. The poems we read at funerals, the wreaths we send; they’re for the people still alive. It’s so they can grieve, maybe feel better, maybe so they don’t feel guilty. That won’t help Trout now, and if we tread around him like his corpse is precious, all it’s gonna do is get us into trouble.”

  Witas said nothing for a few seconds.

  “Fine – we put him in the case. But getting through Dispolis and to a carriage - that’s still a tough ask.”

  “I can’t see anything else.”

  “We could always just leave,” said Witas. “You and me. Without having to lug a case around or get to where they park the carriages, we can get out of Dispolis easier. I know other routes through the Rats’ Palace, ones that’ll take us out of the city.”

  “So, we just run? Look at him; whoever did this is still out there. You think it won’t happen again?”

  “Damn it. A guy who deal with corpses lecturing me on morals. You dragged me far enough into your shit, Jakub. I’m out.”

  “Again; you were the one who knocked on my door and asked for my help. If anyone’s got sore muscles from all the dragging, it’s you.”

  “It’s too risky.”

  Jakub didn’t see fear in Witas’s eyes. Instead, he felt like he had come upon an understanding of him, something deeper.

  He remembered what Witas had told him about Ria, and how the academy wouldn’t resurrect her and how Ian had resurrected him.

  “This is because you don’t want to see your brother, isn’t it?”

  “All brothers fall out. I just don’t want to spend my life in one of the Queen’s lovely dungeons.”

  “You’re worried about seeing Ian. You’re worried that…that you might have to stop being mad at him for bringing you back, and admit that if you were in his shoes, you’d have done the same thing.”

  “You listen to my story and you think you know me?”

  “You’re a mystery, Witas. I don’t know you. But you’re better than this. I saw how upset you were when you saw the pickpocket. If you don’t help me finish this, you’ll carry it around with you.”

  Witas breathed out. It was a long trailing breath, and it was as if he breathed out all his tension, his fear, his anger.

  “I know Ian,” he said. “And I know the academy. Watching this kid’s Last Rites won’t be enough. They’ll say it’s just some killer doing dark shit, and something for the guardship to sort out. You know them too, Jakub. Do they get involved in things like this?”

  “I’ve never seen anything like this before, but I guess I know what you mean. The academy doesn’t use resources on things unless they have to. We need something else.”

  Witas nodded. “The mana box – do you still have the key?”

  Jakub tapped his bag.

  “Okay,” said Witas. “We get to the box. The necromancer might have stuff in there that could tie all this together. It doesn’t have to be much, just something. Plans, letters, a gods-damned diary, I don’t know, but something. With that, and with the Last Rites, we can make them listen.”

  “Fine. So, we go empty the box, and then we get to a carriage.”

  “And that, my friend,” leaves us with the biggest problem of all; we have the entire Dispolis guardship hunting us.”

  “I have a plan for that,” said Jakub. “First, tie Archie up. I don’t want him free to run to the Royal Mile and grab a guard.”

  67

  An hour later, they had gone from Archie’s shop, leaving the old artificer tied up in the basement. Before they left, Jakub had outlined his plan for getting through Dispolis unseen.

  “The rogue’s blood draught is still working in me,” he said. “It’ll help me sneak better. As long as I don’t call attention to myself, if I stay away from the streets and don’t go running up to a guard and tell him who I am, I should go unnoticed.”

  “I’m a pretty recognizable figure around here,” said Witas. “I’d like to say it’s my good looks, but mostly it’s the work I did with the guardship on their murders. Not to mention that I’ve had a few fights in the Boarhead tavern. Words gets around.”

  “Well, when people see you, they won’t see the Black Cleric.”

  “You know a spell to magically alter my face? Doesn’t sound like it’s in a necromancer’s spell book.”

  “It’s not a spell. Here,” said Jakub. He passed Witas the vagrant blade. “Remember when we first met and I looked different?”

  “The sword did that?”

  “Just hold it for a few seconds and see.”

  Witas gripped the blade. Soon, his face began to change; wrinkles cut into his skin, making him look
even more world-worn than before. His clothes changed, but given Witas’s appalling lack of attention to how he dressed, the effect on his shirt and trousers wasn’t a great deal different.

  His hair grew longer, greasier, and his beard became patchy. To complete the transformation, a ripe smell drifted from him.

  “You know,” said Jakub, “When I first looted this thing, I thought it was junk. A waste of artificery. Now, I feel like it’s the best sword I’ve ever seen.”

  And so, Witas the vagrant led Jakub through Dispolis, taking every deserted alleyway and side street he knew of. As a vagrant, Witas didn’t attract much attention from the people they passed, and Jakub knew why; it was a sad truth that when you were on the bottom rung of the ladder, people just stepped over you without noticing.

  The last part of his plan was the easiest; he addressed the three birds flapping around him. They were all thrushes - one grey, one black, one brown.

  I need you to spread out. Fly far enough away from me that it doesn’t look suspicious.

  His birds hovered upwards, each rising and making an arc away from him until they were twenty-five feet above. At that height they just looked like birds and definitely not like reanimated corpses.

  With the rogue blood draught in him, Jakub just had to stay in the shadows as they walked; he hugged walls and he sought out any darkness cast by towering buildings.

  Finally, they reached an alleyway that looked out onto the northern part of the Royal Mile. Opposite them, across the Royal Mile, was a wooden building with only three walls. Inside were banks of boxes, each with a current of mana running around their edges.

  “This is it?” he said.

  Witas nodded. “Only mana box storage place in the city.”

  Jakub eyed the Royal Mile and the hundreds of people walking along it. Lovers, shoppers, families, even guards.

  Just a few days earlier he’d walked along it himself, felt himself become lost in the crowd. Now he was separated from them all; a wanted man, still unsure of his long-term future, but with something he desperately needed to finish.

  “You ready?” he said.

  Witas nodded. He held up the key. “Shouldn’t take long.”

  “I’ll stay here with the suitcase. Empty the mana box, but don’t waste time looking at what’s inside. Just get back here and we’ll go through it later. You might not be the Black Cleric anymore, but I’m guessing a vagrant opening a mana box could still attract a little attention.”

  “The parade’s starting on the south of Dispolis, and the guards who aren’t posted on that are going to be looking for me and you. If there was ever a day when vagrants, thieves, pickpockets could scurry around without getting collared, this is it.”

  “Okay, I’ll be watching. Quick as you can.”

  “You’re getting pretty demanding, you know that?”

  “Good luck. Don’t screw around.”

  68

  As Witas started to cross through the throng of shoppers that made up the Royal Mile, Jakub looked around for his birds.

  Black was perched on a chimney edge, Grey kept hovering as if he still couldn’t believe he’d recovered the use of flight and didn’t want to waste it, while Brown was sitting on a gutter, letting the gutter water run over his legs. Plumper than Black or Grey, Brown seemed to keep a watchful eye on his brothers.

  It looked that way, anyway. Then again, Mancerno had told him his resurrected creates would be mindless, so maybe Jakub was humanising them.

  He kept them all in view.

  Watch the edge of the alleyway, he commanded. Warn me if anyone comes, no matter how it is.

  Confident that nobody could see him because of his blood draught and happy that his birds would stop anyone sneaking up on him, he watched Witas.

  Witas played the part of vagrant differently to Jakub. While the thick throng of passers-by walked either left to right or visa-versa, Witas cut straight through them. If anyone didn’t stop to let him pass, he pushed them and growled, “get outta tha fuckin’ way.”

  It was a novel interpretation of character, but it seemed to be working. He got a few dirty looks, but nobody stared for long, and nobody thought it was strange. It was like they expected the attitude from him.

  Jakub heard a bird make a chirping sound behind him. When he turned, he saw a man taking long strides in his direction, with brown robes flapping behind him.

  Pressed against the wall, protected by the blood draught’s stealth, Jakub knew the man couldn’t see him, yet he was walking with purpose.

  What does he want?

  The suitcase. He was eyeing the suitcase.

  At that distance, not being able to see Jakub, the man probably thought it was unattended.

  Jakub kept his back to the man but stepped out of the shadow now, just enough that the man saw the case wasn’t unguarded.

  “You,” said the man. “Where did you get that case?”

  Jakub knew that voice.

  “Henwright?”

  It was him. It was instructor Henwright, only he looked different now. Stressed out, sure, but also a little older. Maye he was sick.

  He wasn’t wearing his usual instructor clothes, either; instead, he wore a button up shirt with a bow-tie, and he wore black leather gloves on his hands.

  “Jakub. What a pleasure it is to bump into you. I must say, boy, you look like you’ve been through it a little. Dispolis not treating you well?”

  The bastard was trying to act like he hadn’t done anything wrong. Jakub would have loved to smash his teeth down his throat, but the last thing he wanted was a scene.

  Act normal, he told himself. Just until we’re away from the Royal Mile. Then I can smash his teeth.

  He breathed in, cooling his anger.

  “It’s been up and down since I lost my career and my home. Don’t worry about it,” he said.

  “A sorry, sorry business,” said Henwright.

  “Yeah; you said that back at the academy.”

  “Hate to be a bother,” said Henwright. “I suppose money must be tight at the moment, but, well, this is a coincidence. That suitcase, young one; it’s mine. I’d recognise it anywhere. It was…it was stolen from me, you see. I came to Dispolis to catch a wagon ride to visit my sister, and some bloody street rat – no offence – stole it.”

  “This is yours?”

  “It’s artificed, isn’t it? I suppose they’ve already sold everything that was inside it, but the case is valuable. Hate to be a bother, but I’ll need it back.”

  That sold it. Henwright was guilty as hell.

  Even if the fairest judge in the land looked on Henwright’s letter and everything that followed it as a bunch of coincidences, he couldn’t deny this second piece of evidence; the suitcase he’d found below Archibald’s shop belonged to Henwright.

  You rotten, murderous bastard.

  It was obviously a heap of bullshit. In all the years he’d been at the academy, Jakub had never seen Henwright take a trip during term time. Visiting his sister? Yeah, right.

  Looking at the suitcase, a truth bore through his mind.

  Henwright must have used it to bring Trout here.

  “I have to be going,” said Henwright. He took out his money pouch. It was tied to the inside of his robe by a metal link that smelled faintly of mana. He picked out two silver coins. “Here. As a thanks for returning it to me.”

  “You’ve gone white, instructor,” said Jakub. “This case must have been special to you.”

  “The strangest objects can hold sentimental value, can’t they?”

  “They can hold other things, too.”

  “I’ll just be taking that back,” said Henwright.

  Henwright reached out for the case. As he stretched his hand out, Jakub was ready, and he was quicker.

  He drew his blade and pressed the tip against Henwright’s throat. “No letters that you need delivering today, instructor?”

  “Jakub, what is this? Have you gone mad?”

  “I
couldn’t deliver your letter; it was stolen from me. It ended up with its intended recipient though, and a poor pickpocket suffered for it. What did the letter say, Henwright? ‘Here’s a student for you to cut up’?”

  “I don’t know what you are-”

  “This case is pretty special. Artificed to hold much more than you’d expect, but to be light at the same time. Easy to carry. Was Trout still alive when you carried him in it? What happened, did you knock him out? Use a sleeping draught?”

  “Irvine will hear about this. You’ve lost your mind, boy.”

  Keeping the blade steady, Jakub used his right hand to unclip a clasp on the case. He let it open an inch; enough for Henwright to see Trout’s body.

  “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I lost my mind, and I’m imagining Trout dead, tortured, flayed. Are you going to keep on denying it?”

  Henwright tried to move back, but Jakub stepped with him, keeping the sword against his skin.

  He wasn’t sure what to do with him yet; part of him wanted to run his blade through his neck and watch him bleed out, but that wouldn’t help anything.

  “If you calm down, we can talk,” said Henwright.

  Behind him, way over at the end of the alleyway, Jakub’s birds chirped.

  Henwright put his hand on the sword hilt and gently pushed it down. “Easy does it. You wouldn’t hurt an instructor.”

  The birds chirped louder.

  Jakub tightened his grip and put the sword back against Henwright’s neck.

  His pulse pounded now; he didn’t know what to do with Henwright, and he didn’t know how Witas was getting on.

  As Henwright tried to move backward again, as the birds chirped louder and Jakub’s pulse raced, a figure burst toward them.

  It was a boy; small, quick, his face dirty and his clothes torn.

  The boy grabbed the suitcase and then without a second of hesitation, he darted into the middle of the Royal Mile, threading through the passers-by.

  But the case was still open from where Jakub had shown Henwright. Now, with the boy running with it, the case flew open completely.

  A dead, naked, bloody mage boy fell out and landed on the cobblestones, slapping down like a piece of meat.