Dirge for a Necromancer (11 page)

Raettonus went on teaching his lessons as though nothing were happening. Indeed, to him it was just as though nothing were. By the time a year had passed, his students had gotten measurably better at summoning elements. Maeleht had his best luck summoning stone, while Dohrleht’s talent seemed to be in wind. Neither one was a natural at magic, to Raettonus’ disappointment; that meant he had to work that much harder with them. Being a natural at pyromancy, it was difficult for him to deal with the problems they had most times. However, they were getting better, even if Raettonus often found them frustrating to teach. Dohrleht was becoming particularly skilled, while Maeleht was still so troubled by his coughing fits and fainting spells that it was impossible for him to get any decent amount of practice in all at once.

It was a cold winter afternoon when Raettonus decided to teach them more about necromancy.

“Now, it’s important to understand,” he said to them very seriously. “This is going to open up a gate for you that cannot be shut. Once you learn to see ghosts, you cannot un-see them. They will be everywhere. They will look at you and try to beg you to help them, and there will be nothing you can do for them. Every single day for the rest of your lives, you will know where people have died painful, soul-splitting deaths. If you don’t want to learn this, I won’t teach it to you, and we’ll skip straight to the quick resurrections. You don’t have to see ghosts for quick resurrections.”

“What do ghosts look like?” Maeleht asked, leaning forward over the table. Though a year had passed, he had barely grown at all; he was still a pale wisp of a child.

Raettonus shrugged. “Nothing exciting. They just look like people,” he said. “Except they’re translucent, as though all the color were taken out of them. They’ve got a sort of look to their face, as well—a look of complete and utter despondence.”

Maeleht bit his lower lip contemplatively. “Can ghosts hurt you?” he asked. “I mean, I remember you saying before that if you’re holding them they can. But if you don’t do that, don’t grab them with your energy…”

“No, they can’t. Not if you don’t make contact with them first,” Raettonus said. “But there are other, mostly-ethereal things that can.”

“Like the specters in the Center of Souls?” Dohrleht asked. Unlike Maeleht, Dohrleht had done a fair amount of growing in the time Raettonus had been tutoring them. His gimp leg, however, had seemed to shrivel down a bit.

“Yes, like them,” Raettonus said with a nod. “But as far as specters go, they’re scared off by powerful magic. That’s why shamans and mages can walk alone through the Center of Souls and come out the other side unharmed.”

“Unless they meet Guardian Bregdan there,” said Maeleht. “He doesn’t like trespassers. That’s what I’ve heard, anyway. He gores trespassers on his horn, and then he eats them.”

“Raettonus, have you ever met Guardian Bregdan?” asked Dohrleht.

“Yes, I have,” Raettonus answered. “He’s a sour beast, Bregdan. I traveled with him for a while.”

“Really?” asked Maeleht. “You traveled with a guardian? What was it like?”

“Unpleasant. Can we get back to the business at hand, boys?” he responded dryly. “Would you like to be taught to see ghosts?”

A silence pressed down on them as the brothers mulled it over. Raettonus was certain that Dohrleht would give the first answer, and was surprised when Maeleht spoke instead. “Teach me,” said the younger brother. “I want to see them.”

“Me, too,” Dohrleht said, sounding hesitant, as though he were only asking to be taught so that he wouldn’t seem afraid to his brother.

“Well, then,” Raettonus said, rising. “Let’s go find some ghosts. Is there some kind of tomb around here?”

“The first general who served at this citadel is interred on one of the lower floors,” said Dohrleht. “I’m not really sure quite where though.”

“Well, we’ll figure it out,” said Raettonus. “Come on, then. On your feet, both of you.”

Dohrleht got up with the usual amount of trouble his bad leg gave him, while Ebha helped Maeleht to stand. They left the room, with Raettonus walking beside Maeleht and Ebha walking with Dohrleht as he limped along, aided by a crutch. The group made its way downward, down flights of stairs and through long corridors. They stopped often so the centaurs could rest. On one stairwell Maeleht fainted, and Raettonus and Dohrleht had to catch him. He came around fairly quickly and profusely apologized for the trouble he had caused.

At length, they reached the lowest level of the citadel—a dusty, disused floor filled with spider webs and the faint sounds of what Raettonus was certain were rats, though he tried very hard to dissuade himself of that idea. The air down there was cool but stale, and it seemed the level was mostly used for storage. Livestock were kept on the floor above, but after they were butchered, the meat that wasn’t cooked was preserved down on that lowest subterranean floor. There were barrels of alcohol and crates full of vegetables down there too, along with a small armory mostly full of chain mail suits and simple helms with a nose guard and closed-in cheeks.

“No one uses this armory anymore,” Dohrleht said as they walked through it. “The ones upstairs are better stocked, and we don’t have nearly enough soldiers here anyway to make it necessary.”

Tarnished brass relief sculptures were set into most of the walls, almost all of them depicting Harkkan, the goblin god of war, and Kurok, the elven god of warriors. A few showed Kaeriaht, the centaur fire god, or Cykkus, the black-winged death god. Most of the sconces in the walls were without torches, and some had fallen down. Raettonus lit their way with a flame he summoned in one outstretched palm.

They came upon an ornate vault door Dohrleht thought might’ve been the tomb. Raettonus tried the door only to find it locked. “I don’t suppose either of you have a key?” he asked. The boys shook their heads. “Well, I guess I’m going to have to break the lock then. Hm.”

“I can open it,” Ebha said quietly. Raettonus looked her way, and she quickly turned her gaze down.

Raettonus stepped back from the door. “Be my guest,” he said.

She stepped up to the vault door, fishing a pin out of her bodice. Hunching over the lock, she stuck the pin in and maneuvered it around a little. With a hideous creak, the door swung lethargically inward, and Ebha stepped back away from it. “I suppose I should probably ask where you learned to pick locks?” Raettonus said to her, smirking a little. “I should think this is the sort of thing the general might want to know, hm?”

“My previous master taught me, Magician,” Ebha replied in barely a whisper.

Raettonus shoved open the door the rest of the way, and it protested with the rusty screeching of its hinges. A burst of hot, rancid air rushed to meet them, sending Maeleht into a minor coughing fit. Once his attack had been soothed, the party plunged into the dark chamber beyond.

It was a square room of no great size. At the far end, a sarcophagus sat beside the wall. On either side of the sarcophagus, corridors led into another room whose details were obscured by the intense darkness beyond the light of Raettonus’ flame. By the sarcophagus, something was moving back and forth, muttering to itself. It was hard to see the ghost in the flickering firelight, but as they drew closer, Raettonus could see that it was an enormous, broad-chested centaur, with arrows sticking out of his neck and back. “Gods protect us! Someone bring me my sword!” the ghost shouted, noticing them. “My sword! The goblins are all around us! Gods, be quick about it and bring me my sword!”

Maeleht watched Raettonus stare into what must have been only empty air for him before leaning forward. “Raettonus?” he asked timidly. “Is there a ghost here?”

Raettonus nodded. “Indeed there is,” he said.

“Gods, why are you just standing there?” yelled the ghost, rearing up. “The goblins will be on us at any moment! My sword! Bring me my sword! Bring me any sword! Gods above—why won’t anyone bring me a sword?”

“This is probably going to take a while,” Raettonus said. “You should probably sit, the both of you.”

Maeleht and Dohrleht sat on the ground uncertainly, and Raettonus sat cross-legged between them, facing the sarcophagus. The ghost watched them fearfully and begged for a sword but, seeing they wouldn’t answer him, finally gave it up for lost and began to pace back and forth, murmuring about goblins and asking where his sword could be. Ebha stood behind them in the doorway, watching without interest. Raettonus set his hands in his lap, cradling there the flame that was their only light.

“Look straight ahead,” he told the brothers. “And relax yourself. Relax your eyes until every thing goes blurry…”

He set about teaching them to see ghosts the same way Sir Slade had, so many centuries ago, taught him to see ghosts. It was difficult at first, but once you learned how there was no way to become blind to them. After a few hours of instruction and correction and yet more instruction, Maeleht was able to see vague spots of light whenever the ghost moved, and Dohrleht was beginning to be distinctly aware of where the ghost was in the room.

“My eyes are starting to hurt,” complained Maeleht.

Raettonus sighed and stood. “Then I suppose we’ll pick up again tomorrow with this,” he said. The centaurs slowly got up, which caused the ghost to stir again and look in their direction.

“Gods above,” said the ghost. “Won’t someone hand me my sword?” They made their way to the door as the ghost frantically circled in front of his sarcophagus. “Where are you going? Gods, don’t leave me here! The goblins—gods! Sword, give me my sword!”

Chapter Seven

Raettonus parted from the centaurs and Ebha on the third floor, telling them to meet him in the tomb the next day. From there he made his way to the abandoned wing of that same floor where Deggho dek’Kariss had free run. The chamber he entered through was filled with Deggho’s most recent paintings, many of which were of Raettonus himself. A few of the paintings, however, featured beautifully rendered landscapes from all over Zylekkha. Raettonus made his way through the room, toward Deggho’s bedchambers, hoping to find the goblin within. The room was empty, but the sheets were messed up as though Deggho had been sleeping there. Frowning, Raettonus ventured on toward the goblin’s study, hoping to catch him at his painting.

Deggho was working at a large canvas when Raettonus came in. “Magician!” said Deggho, getting to his feet. Raettonus motioned for him to sit as he unceremoniously plopped himself onto Deggho’s couch. Deggho reseated himself. “You haven’t called on me in five weeks. I was beginning to worry. Y-you shouldn’t do that. You know I get lonely down here, and that I worry. You shouldn’t leave me down here, not knowing what happened to you.”

Raettonus nodded toward the easel. “What’re you working on?”

“I’m almost finished with it,” said Deggho, turning the painting around toward Raettonus. “I call it ‘The Tragedy of Guardian Dokkdan’.”

The painting showed the unicorn guardian, Bregdan, running his long, golden horn through the breast of an elven woman while Dokkdan stood idly by. “Yes,” said Raettonus. “It’s tragic, all right. Dokkdan doesn’t quite look that way though. I met him once.”

Deggho bit his lower lip and turned the painting back around. “Doesn’t look right? Oh. Damn,” he muttered. “I’ll fix it, then, I guess… What did I do wrong?”

“The nose—it’s not as long as that. And his cheeks aren’t sunken in like that, either.”

“Oh. I see,” said Deggho, going back to his painting. “How have you been, Magician? You haven’t visited me in five weeks. That was…mean of you.”

Raettonus shrugged. “I’m visiting you now, so what’s the difference?” he said. “Would you rather I not come here at all?”

“No,” Deggho said quickly. “No, never mind. Please, don’t stop coming down here.”

“Well, all right, then,” said Raettonus. “That’s the proper attitude.” He stretched his legs out on the couch and smoothed the bottom of his tunic over his thighs. “Today I was teaching Tykkleht’s boys how to see ghosts, and I happened to be on this floor afterward, so I thought I’d come by.”

“Teaching them to see ghosts?” asked Deggho, furrowing his brow. “That’s something that can be taught?”

Raettonus nodded. “Certainly,” he said. “I mean, some people are born with it, but it’s easy enough to teach.”

“But, wouldn’t you need ghosts for that?” wondered Deggho. He straightened, and his eyes widened. “Does that mean there are ghosts here?”

“Well, not in this room,” said Raettonus. “We were in a tomb deep beneath the fortress.”

“There are tombs down there?” said Deggho, looking panicked. “Tombs? With corpses in them?”

“One would imagine, yes. I mean, they usually don’t fill tombs with goose down pillows.”

“R-right, of course not,” said Deggho. “That’d be silly…but soft. Very soft.” He paused. “So whose tomb is it? I didn’t think anyone was interred here; centaurs usually burn their dead.”

“It was some soldier,” Raettonus said. “Ah—the first general to serve here, I think. He kept rambling about goblins and asking for his sword.”

“Oh!” exclaimed Deggho. “I have a painting of him! I mean, I did a painting of him. Vormekk, that was his name—General Vormekk. The legends say he was a valiant man, but he had a soul made of iron. He rode his men too hard, and when goblins overran the only partially completed citadel he rushed to defend it, only to find he was without his sword. His mutinous soldiers barred the gates on him and watched from the battlements as a hundred Kariss—it had to have been Kariss—tore him to pieces. Afterward, the men were all tried and hanged for treason in Kinok Oron, and Vormekk was heralded as a great folk hero to the centaurs. His story has kind of fallen into obscurity, but I make it my business to know these things. Centaurs like paintings of centaur stories, so I learned a lot of centaur stories.”

“A hundred goblins? Unlikely,” said Raettonus raising one thin eyebrow. “It must’ve been twenty at the most. There’s no other way he could’ve protected the citadel. I mean, unless it was built up enough by that point that he didn’t need to dash out there, in which case he’s an idiot and really deserved to die…hm. This explains why he wouldn’t shut up about that damned sword of his though.”

“It’s rather sad,” said Deggho, mostly ignoring Raettonus’ comments on the story. “He’s been dead for a thousand years, and he’s still here. How does one become a ghost, Magician? Is there some other fate—a better fate—that might await me when I die? Or am I going to become a ghost, haunting this little study?”

“God knows,” said Raettonus. “I don’t know any more about death than anyone. Where I’m from, we believe ghosts are people who died violent deaths, or else people who have such a strong desire to accomplish something that they cannot depart from the plane of the living. But who knows? I had a servant who was dead—I left him in Ti Tunfa when I came here—but he was killed and revived in quick succession, so he never got a peek beyond the veil of death. No one who has seen what Heaven and Hell are like has ever come back to tell us. Not that I’ve ever heard of, at any rate—but I suppose if I haven’t heard of it in all these centuries, it’s safe to say that there simply isn’t anyone who’s truly died and then come back.”

“What do you think hell is like?” asked Deggho wistfully as he looked upward at the ceiling. “I think hell is this room, myself.”

The magician mulled the question. At length he answered, “I guess I don’t really believe there is a hell. I think, perhaps, when you die you just…” His stomach lurched at the thought of Sir Slade’s soul just blinking out of existence after his death. “I don’t know what I believe about hell,” he amended quickly. “I never really thought about it.”

Deggho set down his brush and leaned back in his chair. “You never thought about it? Aren’t you a necromancer?”

“I raise the dead; I’m not required to know or guess about anything beyond getting them to stand up and stop rotting on my rug.”

The goblin looked morosely at the floor. “I don’t even have rugs,” he said. “These stone floors make my feet cold in the morning.”

“Pity, that.” Raettonus yawned and stood up.

“You’re not going already, are you?” asked Deggho, nearly knocking over his easel as he shot to his feet. “You only just got here!”

Raettonus waved to him lazily and walked out the door, leaving the goblin frowning after him.

* * *

Raettonus was dreaming.

It was definitely a dream, because he didn’t seem to have a body, which was something he’d certainly had when he went to sleep.

He was looking down on a desolate, colorless wasteland as an elf with long, white hair crossed it toward an enormous wall made of iron and bone. He carried a bag over his shoulder, and his once beautiful robes were dirtied and torn. The elf paused and turned in Raettonus’ direction, his yellow eyes glinting through the eyeholes of his ancient wooden mask, but Raettonus didn’t think that he’d actually been seen. He didn’t have a body, after all.

After a moment, Kimohr Raulinn turned back toward the gate and resumed his trek. From the top of the iron wall a number of ghastly, gray creatures watched his progress with soulless black eyes. They had no lips, and their sharp teeth were visible, glinting metallically in the colorless twilight. The creatures were something awful, with flat, cruel faces like to those of goblins. Above the gate, clad all in black plate armor, stood Cykkus, his eyes glowing red within his helm as he half-spread his enormous, leathery black wings. He called down in Zykyna, but Raettonus found himself understanding all of it. “Kimohr Raulinn!” cried black-winged Cykkus. “You cannot pass these gates—not with that.”

“I don’t see that you could keep me here,” Kimohr Raulinn called back, readjusting the bag slung over his shoulder. “Open your gates, Cykkus.”

The death god leaned forward, gripping an iron spike that jutted up from the wall. “You can leave if you leave without that bag,” Cykkus said. “But you know that if you try to get through here with that, I have no choice but to stop you.”

“Come now, Cykkus,” said Kimohr Raulinn. “You can’t stop me. Open your gates.”

“If you insist on going down this route, I cannot guarantee that you’ll ever leave here,” Cykkus said. “I don’t want to hurt you, but—”

“If I have to ask a third time for you to open your gates,” called Kimohr Raulinn, “then things are going to get violent.”

Cykkus motioned with one large, gauntleted hand, and the creatures on the walls held up their arms as though they were aiming bows. They drew back their hands as if pulling back bowstrings. “One last time, I implore you,” said Cykkus. “Please—if Zylx means anything to you, or ever meant anything to you, just drop the bag, and we’ll open the gate for you. I really wish no harm on you, Kimohr Raulinn, but I must fight you if you pursue this foolish course of action. Please, in the name of whatever love you ever bore anyone, drop that bag.”

Kimohr Raulinn smiled. “No,” he said. He took a step forward.

Cykkus’ shoulders slumped, and his glowing red eyes seemed to dim a bit into the shadows of his helm. “Loose!” shouted the death god. All at once, there was the sound of bowstrings being let go, and thousands of black arrows, each surrounded by a nebulous aura, sailed through the air toward Kimohr Raulinn.

Raettonus woke with a start.

It was still nighttime, but his stomach ached, and he didn’t think he was going to be able to get back to sleep. With a groan, he sat up and rubbed at his stomach, the dream escaping him like sand through outspread fingers. Deciding a walk might do him good, Raettonus stood and pulled on his tunic. Buckling his belt around his waist, he left his dark, cold room.

The hall outside was dim, with the only lit torches few and far between. Raettonus wandered along the shadowy passage, his skin glowing faintly. At the hall’s end, there were arrow slits, and Raettonus paused to look out them. Farther down the mountain, he saw the Tahlehsons’ campfires burning as they worked on their towers and battering rams. Kaebha Citadel had been getting supplies from ships that had been sailing out of the werewolf city of Myrashekk until a few months before when the Tahlehson host realized this and sank one of the ships. Since then, none dared to come near the citadel. It hadn’t put Tykkleht’s men in a tight spot thus far, but their food supply was getting lower and lower with each passing day. Raettonus suspected the walls would be breached by the time food shortages were a problem, however; the Tahlehsons were camped too far away for the citadel’s defenders to shoot from the walls and were too big an army to assault directly.

Turning away from the arrow slit, Raettonus started down the hall. His boots were soft and barely made a sound on the hard, stone floors, but somewhere nearby he could hear the echo of slow hoof beats as someone—a soldier, Raettonus imagined—made their way leisurely through the citadel. He turned a corner and came upon a balcony that overlooked the floor below, from which the hoof beats were coming. Raettonus paused to see who was about and spotted two centaurs walking side by side beneath him. Hands linked together, they drew near to a sconce, and the light revealed them to be Dohrleht and Daeblau. They were speaking in low voices, but Raettonus didn’t much care what they were saying and moved on.

It was seldom that Raettonus found himself sleeping through a whole night anymore. Suddenly, Raettonus missed Ti Tunfa very much. It had never felt like home to him, that little shack on the Ti Tunfan plains, but at least there he wasn’t molested by gods and constantly having nightmares. No, in Ti Tunfa he had dreamed more in memories—though, when he thought about it, most of his memories weren’t quite a step up from nightmares.

Sometimes—though not lately—he dreamed a scene that was part memory, part blind wish. In those dreams, he braved that strange land of Zylekkha for the first time and made his way into the Center of Souls, which sat where the dense northern forest met the plains. It was a horrible, stony place, filled with ethereal specters that fed on blood and flesh. The whole region sloped inward, so that he stumbled upon the rocky, slanted path. The trees were all withered and dead, and boulders jutted up like fangs from the earth. As he made his way downward, toward the ten pillars nestled in the bottommost point of the Center, Brecan walked beside him, shivering and begging Raettonus to turn back.

He should’ve listened.

Instead, he chided the unicorn and pressed on. When they reached the ring of pillars with the pentagram mosaic at its center, he set up for his spell and bid Brecan stand in the middle of the star with him. That was where the blind wish took over.

In his dreams, the spell went right.

In his dreams, the black cloud of death lifted from his homeland.

In his dreams, he was a hero.

* * *

Somehow, he found himself on the citadel’s deepest floor. He couldn’t remember deciding to go there or the way he had passed to get there. But there he was.

For a moment, Raettonus thought about turning back. His stomach no longer ached, and he thought that he’d probably be able to get back to sleep. The problem was, he wasn’t really sure he wanted to go back to sleep.

The door to Vormekk’s tomb was slightly ajar as Raettonus approached it. He slipped inside, where the air was thick and musty. The ghost was still pacing, begging tearfully for his sword, when Raettonus went to him. He noticed Raettonus watching him and turned sadly. “Gods—can’t you hear me?” cried Vormekk. “Bring me my sword! They’re almost upon me! Please, for the sake of whatever love we ever shared—my sword! I hear them coming!” His eyes grew wide, and he looked fretfully around. “We were brothers in arms! Throw me my sword, at the very least!”