Chapter 3 - Drowned whispers

They were traveling for a few hours in the impenetrable darkness.

‘What is this thing?’ she asked, intrigued.

‘I understand that you’re comfortable with the coolness?’ he smiled.

‘You might say that. What I’m comfortable with is the fact that I’m not being blinded by the sun. In the same time I’m quite alert, given the fact that I really don’t know where we’re actually heading’.

‘I appreciate the honesty, beautiful one! I didn’t expect this of you.’

‘You might consider giving me an answer, instead of your benevolent remarks.’

‘Oh, yes! The thing which allows us to travel under the sun, with no damage to our eyes, is an artificial darkness I have made up from the ashes of your fallen comrades. I simply took the vital parts for the chants: hearts, lungs, eyes…’

‘Yes, thank you for your recipe! I am sure it is quite delicious… But, please, spare me the raw description, will you!’

‘Well, if that’s what best satisfied your curiosity…’ he grinned at her, contentuously. ‘If the simple words of “dark veil” spell don’t seem to trigger any response from you, I thought I’d give you the ingredients too! I didn’t want it to be too… bland!’

The wind was blowing faintly and a sudden stench caught in their nostrils.

«The battlefield? My God, how did we get here so fast? »

«Don’t you think you should be a little thankful and therefore more trusting? », he answered inside her own thoughts.

‘Don’t you think you are a little too intimate, Necromancer? Haven’t you heard of the term “privacy” before?’

‘Given the situation? Never at all!’

The smell was becoming sickening. There was nothing that could stop the nausea, catching up with her, once again.

She tried to cover up her nostrils and keep her mouth shut… but there was nothing in her wardrobe that allowed her to sacrifice it. Her clothes were, almost all of them, cut to shreds, the other night. Oh, and what a night that was! But never mind that, keep your focus on avoiding this smell… if ever possible. «Why doesn’t he do something? »

‘…Necromancer?! The dead are my dealings, remember? This is the sign of a good harvest. However, since you insist on my helping… here you go! Put it on your face.’ he smiled fiendishly, giving her a scarf.

‘I don’t suppose you could see much in this black hole you’ve gotten us into’ she remarked. ‘So much better! Uh, mint. You start to act like a normal being! Leaving aside the fact that you needed to invade my thoughts to act, in the first place, that is.’

‘That was meant as a compliment? Ha! Mortals…’

She considered his remark. While he was blessed with the possibility of an eternal life… «No, no, no; better to be mortal, than to battle forever with your inner ghosts… Besides, you are a weakling if you start thinking like this! » ‘So… how did you begin your career as…’

‘A Necromancer? I was five years old… and an Arcanist mage.’

‘What? An Arcanist?’

‘Hard to find a trail there, is it? They were planning a birthday surprise for me. At the age of five, I was already able to move objects with my mind. I was one of the gifted ones, you see. Funny. In each stage of history, all races bless their gifted youths with overwhelming presents. It is as if they would like to thank these children for being what they are. Too bad some of them turn out to be disasters…’

‘You were one?’

‘Not only a disaster: I was labeled an abomination, after the unfortunate event. I started as a mage: pure, clean… human. And I ended up being what you behold today.’

‘Is it just me, or you really despise being the thing you are?’

‘To come back to my storytelling…’ he said, displeased ‘I was five years old. The one I loved most as mage and protector wanted to show me how strong I was, as a present… and the others agreed.’

‘Wait, I don’t understand.’

‘That’s because you don’t wait. You know, I think you would be uninteresting if you would not possess this fiery personality. You’re too hurried even in your thinking…’

‘We were talking about you, now…’

‘Yes, we were. And next time, please, feel free to interrupt me when I’m not talking.’

‘That’s nonsense!’

‘You’re already thinking straight’ mimicking a small wink. ‘This power was to become even greater and so I would have been taken among the peers of the Arcanist masters. Yes, I know what you are thinking. I was too young. For a mage, at the age of fifteen, you can become an arch mage, if you are equipped with the wits and powers.

I was taken into a small grove. We made our way through the enchanted trees, which answered to my masters’ commands and we came to a large and beautiful tree. In it lay a sacred chamber, constructed by our elders, in order to train but also protect ourselves from any eventual sieges. The sun was shining but only a few rays were piercing the thick layers of the beautiful, green leaves. A door opened in its body and only the two of us entered. The others waited outside.’

‘You start to sound like a druid’

‘You’ve met druids? Funny, I was starting to regard your life as a boring one, based only on slaughter and destruction.’

‘You might say that… A druid told me once of their customs and their way of life, while he was dying at my side. We were allies in an unwanted adventure.’

‘Perhaps you’ll share your story as well.’

‘Don’t think so. As soon as I’m capable of finding my way back to my guild, you’ll be nothing more but an ill memory.’

‘Is that so? I must say, I didn’t expect anything else from you.’

‘Then why are you doing this? Helping me…’

‘To demonstrate the difference between you and me: you are a cruel sadistic bitch, I am a nobleman by nature, respecting life, while you respect nothing. Moreover, please, do not try to take me down, once again. It would be futile, you realize! Where were we? Ah, yes! We were in the womb of this tree and my master started to mumble an incantation.

“Now, I want you to concentrate. You’re going to save us from drowning, using your psychic abilities.”

I could sense something was wrong with this chamber, but I did not know what.

“How do you want me to do that?” I asked.

“Simple! Just focus your thinking around us, like a shield and the water will not drown us. I must remind you: this chamber will be flooded in just a few moments and we’ll surely die from the water’s force and weight, if you don’t concentrate.”

I looked up and I suddenly felt dizzy. The thing was enormous. The ceiling was so tall that I could not see where it ended. It just blackened into a cold void, upwards.

“Ready? Here goes nothing…”

“WAIT!”

In an instant, I felt my clothes wet…

“CONCENTRATE!” I felt my master’s thoughts shout into my mind.

“It’s too sudden, too much altogether, MAKE IT STOP!”

“We’ll die! FOCUS, damn it!”

‘Nevertheless, the waves were already splashing with incredible force and speed. At once, the room was filled by it. I knew it, I felt it. My master was torn apart by a wild current and I was lying helpless in front of him, sealed in my own protective cocoon. Unconsciously, I had formed this bubble around me; to protect me from the eventual harm, but the fear… the terror froze my ability to protect him. I could see nothing, but I felt his body (rather what was left of it) everywhere.

‘The water backed down. I gathered with my mind all of his parts and tried to glue them up, hoping that something mystical will save him, but Arcanists are mortals, unlike Necromancers. I wanted to fix him, as if he was a damaged toy. All of my tries were in vain. The others entered the room.

“You left him die”, shouted one of them. “You WILL pay for this… dearly!”

“IT WASN’T MY FAULT!” I shouted in anger and pain.

‘Nothing held a meaning anymore. I loved my master more than anyone else ever did. I believe he knew that. I was his favorite pupil and from the moment he saw me, he adopted me. My parents were cruel to my brother and myself so he discharged them of their parental duty, with the help of our elders. He said from the beginning that I had “potential”. He knew I would become a great wizard.

‘Days later, as the processions were coming close to an end, I had figured a way to make my master live once again. I could sense the mystic calls growing into my mind, but I lacked the powder. Even today, in order to perform my spells and curses, I need dust, for my calls. Only that I don’t use purified dust, as mages do…’

‘Let me guess… Dead bodies?’

‘Right, but not quite; bones. This is much cheaper and more accessible than arcane dust. They must sacrifice time, patience and resources, in order to produce their dust. I only need bones from the dead.’

‘Wait, I thought Necromancers don’t need…’

‘I’m not your ordinary Necromancer, my beautiful pet!’

‘Call me pet once more and we’ll start another fight soon enough. I don’t care if I can’t see much beyond this haze, but I’ll rip your head off!’

‘The same you did last time? Please, promise me this: if I stop calling you ‘pet’, will you stop being irrational?’

‘We might come to a deal.’

‘As I have just said, I lacked the means of doing my rituals. Something odd struck me and peculiar formulas formed into my mind. I loved my master so much, that I wanted to bring him back, at any cost! As I lay in my cell, a rat was eating my unfinished food. I provoked a heart bursting to that wretched thing and I was feeling quite good.’

‘To a rat? My god, I don’t know if I am to laugh or to be disgusted…’

‘Do as you wish! Its heart exploded and it fell dead at my feet. After a while, as I was searching my words for an incantation, I saw the dead thing before my eyes.

“What if…” and I started to peel off its hair and skin, while it hanged in mid air. The flesh from its bones dropped at my command and as I was holding it in the air, I had a sudden shock. I was desecrating the corpse… No matter it was that of a lesser creature. I was looking at its organs, its guts thrown in a circle (I had unconsciously done that) around it and now I was peeling the last remnants from its bones. “No time, now” I thought. I started to smash the bones with an imaginary maul. Once the task was done, I gathered the dust into my pocket and provoked the floor-stones to crumble, with the help of my maul. I was free from my cell, but I fell into another one, below me.’

‘Hilarious…’

‘You might say that, given the fact that you don’t know the effect of enchanted bars. They can rip your hands off, if you touch them. You can’t break free if you think rudimentary, like one such as you does.’

‘Go ahead with your storytelling and leave my methods alone.’

‘I destroyed the bars from the empty, warded cell. The procession was ending and the elders were taking the remnants of my master into the grove. I followed and realized that the cemetery was under the big tree. Weird things happen to you, when you are on the verge of mental illness and destruction. The chamber where I had been put to the test was the gateway to the tombs themselves. That was what seemed so peculiar to me when we both entered, my master and myself.

“Ironic! But, after all, this could be fun!” I thought.

They went deeper and deeper until they reached their destination. I did not go with them. I was not willing to risk it. Instead, I waited patiently. The burial was simple and he was being lodged into a wall, along other Arcanist masters. The convoy came up, finally. I waited above them, floating in one of my airy bubbles. The enormous door was shut, the elders gone. Coming down to the floor, I imagined the way that the masters went, in order to bury my beloved parent. I followed the windy trail of sound that their footsteps left behind.’

‘Windy trail of sound? Now, this time you sound like a nut-crack! How can you hear a windy trail of sound? It sounds like… He-who-watches-the-birds-fly-and-humps-in-the-same-time!’

‘True… Nevertheless, I managed to make a map inside my mind. And with the help of that map, I found his tomb.’

‘I thought you had a thick floor and a naughty tree to keep you from your prize.’

‘Right again, beloved. But you see, I wasn’t one of the mage students, anymore. It considered me part of the air that filled up his cemetery and tall chambers. The elders were turning off its wards every time a ceremony or a burial was performed. After all, that was their fatal mistake…’

‘You mean…’ not finishing her thought, standing thunderstruck.

‘Why do you find it so hard to believe, Assassin? You hold nothing dear in your life, not even your Masters! I do not think that you fully understand: they wanted to see me dead, I prevailed. Survival. That’s all there is to it, after all. Simple. I cut to shreds the floor and followed the path that was designed into my mind.

“So many tombs… I wonder what would happen if I would raise each and every dead one…”

‘You were thinking like a Necromancer from that moment…’ she pleaded.

‘Ahuh! Moreover, guess what! I was a necromancer from the moment I resurrected my master.’