Necromancer Awakening (35 page)

But that would never happen. Because today he would die.

It can’t end like this.

His body ached the way he imagined an old man would ache. Thoughts of Kaitlyn made the pain bearable, though. He could practically feel the warmth of her body against his skin, and how soft her hands were. He let himself get lost in the memory of her face; the way the right side of her mouth curled up in a crooked smile. Serenity radiated through him like the warmth of the sun and he was at peace.

Do you remain ignorant?
Lamil’s voice rang like a bell in his mind.

Kaitlyn’s face disappeared, but the peace remained.

“I have no idea how Jurn messes with my penitents. Mujahid said that wasn’t possible. He was wrong, obviously.”

Or perhaps just testing you, as I do.

“I don’t know. I see my reflection and don’t recognize my own face anymore.”
I feel so…old.

That is natural, Nicolas. Your spirit has lived many lifetimes, and the wisdom it has gained is far beyond your physical age.

But why does my body feel like this?

Your mind is no longer ignorant. Your spirit is now much older than your body so your body grows confused. It will adjust with time. And you will learn…other ways to care for the body.

Nicolas jerked his head back in realization. The siek was standing across the dome. He had done it.

Yes, you have. You are ignorant no more. You have found your cet.

“Kaitlyn.”

“She is a deeper part of you than you know,” Lamil said. “She is both the source of your strength and of your peace. And
far
more than that, if my instinct serves me.”

Nicolas squinted at him.
You know something about my future.

“Does this surprise you?” Lamil smiled.

Nicolas couldn’t help smiling in return. He stretched and yawned.

“I wish it were that simple, though,” Lamil said. “Prophecy is the least understood concept in our religion.”

“I’ve always thought prophecy was more about the past than the future.”

“You are not far from mastery,” Lamil said. “And I do not use those words lightly. But remember that the future is not determined. You change it with every decision you make and every action you take.”

“Not sure I have many decisions left.”

“I will not go back on what I told you yesterday. You will face Jurn, and he will be free to kill you.”

“You’d let one of your students die?”

Lamil looked Nicolas up and down. “Other priests live years between visits to the halls of power, sometimes decades. Yet you have mastered two symbols in a matter of months. The futures of many, cichlos and human alike, depend on your survival. But if you’re asking me if I would allow Jurn to kill you in open combat…my answer is yes. And you already know why.”

Lamil was right, though Nicolas didn’t want to admit it.

Necromancy was dangerous. If the wrong people attained mastery the results could be catastrophic…to the dead as well as the living. Lamil was the gatekeeper of the priesthood for the cichlos people—The People—and he would never allow the wrong person to wield its power. If Nicolas was a casualty of that principle, Lamil would consider it a blessing to have weeded out an incompetent priest.

Nicolas faced the Orb of Zubuxo. “I’ve been thinking about how your people used the Orb of Arin to travel.”

“I warned you against hope.”

“What about this one?”

Lamil approached the orb and Nicolas followed him.

“If this orb does allow travel, it would take the traveler to a place they’d rather not be,” Lamil said. “A place where the dead stand on a vast plain before Zubuxo’s throne and await purification. There’s only one way back from the Plane of Death, and that is to be summoned by a priest.”

Nicolas’s hopes sank. Lamil had spoken of the Plane of Death in his lessons; the endless field of souls, the giant throne, the gate to the Plane of Peace.

“The only way you will return home is to fulfill your purpose here,” Lamil said.

“I don’t even know where to begin, Siek.”

“Could you summon the dead on your home world?”

“Does waking a sleeping beagle count?”

Lamil faced the orb. “Let the future worry about the future. You would do well to concentrate on your present instead. Time remains for you to prepare. I suggest you do so.”

Lamil left toward the training dome.

Nicolas followed the siek in a surreal daze, knowing this could be his last walk through the Temple of Zubuxo.

Nicolas meditated at the center of the training dome as Toridyn and the other students lined up in three formations. He was serene. His love for Kaitlyn played some part in his necromantic power, and that brought him a measure of peace. Trying to keep her out of his mind had been the wrong thing to do. It was a mistake he wouldn’t make again.

Are you prepared?

Nicolas recognized Lamil’s telepathic voice.

As much as I’ll ever be.

“Students,” Lamil said. “Against the dome wall.”

There was a flurry of activity as the formations backed against the dome. Jurn approached the siek with two undead penitents, each carrying large, curved swords at their hips, but wearing no armor. Jurn barked an order and the penitents took up guarding positions at the entrance to the dome.

Nicolas knew Jurn was trying to intimidate him. It was the secret weapon of bullies everywhere, just like dad had told him.

“You will restrict yourselves to arcane combat,” Lamil said as he placed a hand on Jurn’s arm. “Lay down your weapon.”

Jurn retrieved a small dagger. Its blade glinted blue as he laid it on the floor between them with its black jeweled hilt facing Lamil.

“Nicolas, do you have a weapon?” Lamil said.

“No,” Nicolas said.

“It is each combatant’s right to search the other for weaponry. Do wish to search Jurn, or are you satisfied with his honor?”

“He’s ok,” Nicolas said. “We’re both priests.”

Lamil nodded, and Jurn made a noise that sounded like a laugh.

“Jurn,” Lamil said. “Do you wish to search Nicolas, or are you satisfied with his honor?”

“The human has no honor,” Jurn said. “I invoke my right.”

Lamil harrumphed, but allowed the search to proceed.

Jurn was rough. Every time he’d touch Nicolas he’d hit him with the back of a closed fist, or squeeze a muscle until Nicolas winced. Lamil either didn’t notice or didn’t care.

It didn’t matter. He had found his cet, and he didn’t know how or why, but Kaitlyn lived at its center. He focused on her face and let the serenity radiate through him. He was aware of Lamil repeating his instructions and Jurn taunting him again. But words no longer mattered. Jurn no longer mattered. Neither the past nor the future mattered any longer. There was only now. There was only his cet. There was only Kaitlyn.

Nicolas shifted his focus back to the training dome.

“You may begin,” Lamil said.

Nicolas saw everything as if time had slowed.

He had control over an armed human penitent and had begun summoning a cichlos before Jurn had a chance to move. He sent his first penitent straight at Jurn, raising its long sword in an attack position.

The namocea left him weakened. Mujahid had been right. Summoning without a corpse was no easy task. He couldn’t let his weakened state destroy his focus.

Jurn’s new penitent met Nicolas’s half way, and the two undead warriors clashed in battle, the steel ringing of swords reverberating through the dome as the fight swung back and forth. Jurn’s penitent got the upper hand and split the human penitent’s torso from shoulder to hip.

Nicolas’s necromantic link vanished and his penitent crumbled to the ground.

As Jurn’s second penitent materialized behind Nicolas, an energy beam shot through Nicolas’s torso.

Nicolas looked down and saw a spectral beam of light connecting Jurn to his newest penitent. So he
wasn’t
going crazy yesterday. There
had
been a beam coming from Jurn.

The deeper Nicolas retreated into his cet, the more visible the beam became. Three more emanated from Jurn, each one ending at a different penitent.

Nicolas concentrated on the beam passing through him. It pulsed with necropotency.

A skeletal hand the size of his head slammed into his chest and tossed him backwards, breaking his concentration.

As he flew into the air, Jurn fired a sphere of necropotency toward him.

Nicolas reacted instinctively. He channeled energy into the skull symbol and hurled it at a point between him and the oncoming sphere.

A penitent materialized and absorbed the full blast of the sphere, exploding and sending jagged bone fragments flying in every direction.

As Nicolas landed hard on his back, he summoned a penitent and directed it toward Jurn.

The air rushed from his lungs, as it had done in the cell when Mujahid kicked him, and Mujahid’s last words echoed in his mind.

It’s all about the energy.

The beam that had been passing through him hovered above his face, and realization dawned as if the beam itself had shed light on Mujahid’s meaning.

Mujahid wasn’t talking about the lake. He was talking about necromancy. It’s all about the energy!

He willed the beam to feed the well of power in his mind, treating it like any other power source, and the necropotency poured into him.

The beam vanished and Jurn growled.

Jurn’s penitent disappeared, leaving no bones behind.

He’d done it. He’d done something Mujahid told him was impossible.

Jurn roared, but Nicolas remained at peace. He no longer feared the sadistic albino. Instead, he saw Jurn as an object of pity—a cautionary tale he would never forget.

He repeated the process with the next beam of energy, and the penitent at the other end disappeared.

Something began to pull at his necromantic link. The beam extending to his own penitent was curving, creating an arc that moved toward Jurn at its apex. As the arc grew more pronounced it grew weaker. It would snap if he didn’t do something about it.

Nicolas released energy along the surface of the necromantic link, coating it in a protective barrier of energy. Jurn’s pull grew stronger, so he modified the spell he was casting. The protective barrier became slick, as if coated in oil.

Jurn lost his grip on the link, and the rebounding burst of energy threw him backwards into the air. He crashed into the dome wall behind him.

Nicolas ordered his penitent to attack, and the skeletal warrior charged. Jurn was lying in a heap on the floor, recovering from the whiplash of energy as the warrior reached him. The penitent shouted a battle cry and lifted its hands as if preparing to rip Jurn apart.

“Stop,” Nicolas said. The word wasn’t necessary, but Nicolas wanted Jurn to hear him. The penitent lowered his arms and took a few steps back.

Nicolas knelt next to the albino who had become the bane of his existence.

“Are you gonna stop acting like an asshole?” Nicolas said. “Or does that friendly skeleton over there have to stomp a mud hole in you?”

Jurn grunted and looked away.

“Siek,” Nicolas said. “Should I walk away?” He hoped with all his strength that Lamil would say yes.

Lamil looked from Nicolas to Jurn. “The rules of engagement are specific, and you are both honor-bound to fulfill them. Withdraw at your own peril, Nicolas.”

Jurn’s remaining penitent leaped toward Nicolas from the entrance of the dome.

Nicolas reached out with his mind and banished the skeleton, drawing the beam of energy into his well. Now that he understood the process, it was effortless.

“Jurn,” Nicolas said. “You can end this. We can both walk away.”

“You have no honor,” Jurn said.

Another penitent materialized in front of Nicolas, and he banished it without hesitation. As Jurn’s power waned, his own well filled from Jurn’s absorbed penitents.

Jurn couldn’t sustain this much longer. Even with a siborum he’d run out of power soon.

Nicolas sensed a penitent materializing behind him and he faced it. He banished it before it had a chance to attack.

Without turning back, he said “I’m done with this, Jurn. The next words out of your mouth better be
I surrender
.”

“I’m better than you, human,” Jurn said. “You don’t even have the honor to kill me.”

Nicolas didn’t want to kill Jurn. He didn’t want to kill anyone. Why couldn’t Jurn see reason? The fight was over.

The students along the wall drew back in surprise, as if they’d seen something horrible.

“No!” Toridyn yelled.

Pain exploded between Nicolas’s shoulder blades as something sharp dug into his back. He sank to his knees and reached for the source of the pain and felt the hilt of a dagger.

The black jeweled dagger was right where Jurn had left it, on the floor near Lamil. He must have had a hidden one.

Toridyn and Lamil ran toward him.

A group of students converged on Jurn, dragging him towards the wall. They weren’t being gentle about it either.