She staggered into the doorframe as all around, books tumbled from shelves and dust rained from the ceiling. With bruises lining her arm, she pressed on for the balcony stairs — the only escape she could see.
When she got to the stairs, she turned, biting her lip. Where was Smythe?
He’d been meant to slip out of the room as soon as he got the Lich’s attention. He should be climbing the stairs with her right now. Another boom shook the crypt.
Ree gripped the banister with white-knuckled hands, a hundred options running through her mind. Should she go back and help him, should she — but then he was tumbling into the library, blood on his hands and all down his linen shirt. For a terrible moment, Ree thought he’d been stabbed, but then he caught her eye and grinned.
He followed her out of the library and into one of the abandoned rooms down the corridor. Ree closed the door with trembling hands.
‘What happened in there?’ She didn’t like the way her voice quavered, but Smythe seemed not to notice. If anything, he looked pleased.
Drenched in blood, he beamed at her. ‘It was quite phenomenal. I wasn’t sure that — but of course, it worked! I mean, there were a few variables that I couldn’t … but the theory was sound!’
‘Smythe,’ Ree said his name uncertainly. He looked very unlike himself — his cheeks too hollow, his eyes too shadowed, and blood smeared on his face, in his hair, and at the edges of his glasses.
Smythe stopped, blinked, and nodded, as if to himself. ‘Oh, of course — silly of me, of course you wouldn’t — I summoned the souls of the bodies he was using.’
A cold knot was forming in Ree’s stomach. ‘There must have been hundreds.’
‘Oh, certainly, and of all ages, too. It was quite the piece of work and of course, I couldn’t create my own spell diagram so I had to use what was already — it was not the most smooth of summonings. But, as you saw ... well.’ He crossed his arms, looking smug.
He looked like a necromancer, she thought, but that wasn’t true. A necromancer would be robed in sensible black, their hair pinned up and away from their face. Smythe in his blood-soaked linens with his tumble of curls, looked like something quite different. Like a butcher. Like a madman.
None of it made any sense. She tried, desperately, to understand. ‘But how did you summon so many at once? I thought all necromancers have limits —’
‘Oh, well souls are not quite so tiring, I’m told. And I am quite tired,’ he said, but he didn’t look tired. He looked happy. He looked … invigorated.
Ree tried to think. How many minions could Usther hold at once? How many could her father?
‘He must have a strong will indeed,’ Andomerys had told her, when Smythe was lying cold and pale on her healer’s table, fighting the Lich’s death curse.
Ree thought of a hundred souls summoned to their dismembered, stitched-up flesh, and screaming.
Smythe’s smile was faltering. ‘Uh. Ree? Sorry but — did I say something wrong?’
His skin had a tinge of grey to it that would probably never leave. He was almost as grey as she was — the mark of necromancy. Of nearness to death.
Another boom shook the crypt. Ree’s heart was a stone in her chest. ‘Do you think it’s looking for us?’
The smugness had left Smythe completely now. ‘Hard to see how he wouldn’t. We did ruin his ritual and run off with his favourite book, poor fellow.’
The fear that had gripped him when faced with the Lich was gone. That only made Ree more tense: now she would have to fear for both of them.
Ree pressed the heel of her palm to her forehead. ‘It never used to be like this.’
‘Sorry?’
Ree closed her eyes. ‘The Lich. If it got stirred up — if an adventurer attacked it, or a stupid upworlder acolyte confronted it, the whole crypt could feel it. But it would always settle down. It would always —’ she cast about for a word ‘— forget. It would always forget.’
Smythe shrugged helplessly. ‘Well, maybe it will! Pardon me for saying so, but we don’t have all the information. Perhaps he does this all the time just to keep himself —’
But Ree shushed him with a look as the hairs on her arms rose. She seized Smythe’s wrist and yanked him to her side, pressing against the wall just as the door swung open beside them. Ree struggled to breathe as the Lich glided in a few steps to observe the room. The door had opened in a way that eclipsed them from view. She couldn’t help but stare in horror at the back of its head as one second passed, then another.
Don’t go further in, she prayed. Please Morrin, don’t let him turn this way.
Its power filled the room, rolling out from it in thick waves, filling Ree’s body with lethargy. Beside her, Smythe barely stifled a yawn.
Please, Morrin.
The Lich turned away from them and glided back out of the room. The door creaked shut behind it.
Ree gasped in a breath.
Smythe blinked, mouth opening and closing.
Ree gathered her wits. ‘It must have been working on this project for weeks — ever since it cursed you —’
‘Sorry but — can we really know that?’
‘Yes!’ Ree pressed her hand to her forehead and started to pace the room. ‘This is a big, big project. And the only thing that has changed in the last several weeks — the only thing that might have woken it up is when we crossed its path. The Lich doesn’t do this, Smythe! It’s followed the same pattern every day of my life, occasionally killing anyone stupid enough to get in its way.’ She said ‘stupid’ bitterly. ‘We need to get it back to its usual state. We need to know what was different about meeting us.’
Smythe’s brow furrowed. ‘But Ree —’
Ree stopped her pacing and threw her head back, hands clenching and unclenching in frustration. ‘Ahh, what did we do? I walked into its path and —’
‘Excuse me, Ree?’
‘Then you walked in —’
Smythe touched her elbow and Ree jumped. ‘I know what’s different,’ he said firmly.
‘What?’
Smythe’s eyes wavered as they locked with hers. ‘Well, it’s — it’s quite obvious, isn’t it? We lived.’
Ree spun away from him, her mind going numb as she tried to process his words. Another thought occurred to her. She went cold. ‘Smythe — where’s Larry?’
I wish I knew the future of my art. I wish I could prove that it will live on. The world will be duller and tamer without it.
~from the journal of Wylandriah Witch-feather
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
WHAT BELONGS TO THE DEAD
Ree pressed her hands to her temples, throwing her mind back. Larry had been trailing them at a distance for most of their time in the Lich’s wing, but he’d been with them when they searched the library. Had they lost him? Had the Lich taken him?
The crypt shook with another pulse of the Lich’s magic. Ree shivered at the feel of it. They’d interrupted the Lich’s ritual in an attempt to keep to the town safe, but somehow it seemed more dangerous than ever.
Larry had been in the library, hadn’t he? She had a strong memory of him grunting and almost whimpering during their time there. It wasn’t like Larry to wander off — once he’d caught the scent of something living, he would follow until he latched on to something else.
‘Uh — Ree?’
Ree turned to meet Smythe’s worried look. He wrung his hands, his shoulders hunched. ‘If this Lich fellow wants us — well, you know, dead — how can we possibly stop him?’
‘I don’t know if it does want us dead.’ How had she not noticed Larry wandering off? And why had he done it? Or had something happened to him — had he fallen into a pit, perhaps, or been waylaid by other undead?
No, she remembered now. They’d followed the Lich through into the other room, and Larry had vanished.
‘He didn’t want to follow the Lich,’ Ree said aloud.
‘Uh — sorry?’
Ree chewed her lip as it
all came together in her mind. ‘Think about it — Larry’s the oldest minion in living memory, but he’s near perfectly preserved. He doesn’t decay any more than he did before he was raised. Nobody knows who his master is, or why he’s left to wander around. He can’t be killed, not even with an arrow between his eyes — a magic more powerful than anyone’s ever heard of.’
She could see realisation spark in his eyes. ‘Larry is the Lich’s minion,’ he whispered.
‘That’s how we got away.’ Ree held his gaze. ‘Do you remember? The Lich was cursing you when Larry came into the room. It immediately left off to confront him.’
‘I always thought — I don’t know, that Larry had distracted him, perhaps?’
Ree shook her head. ‘What’s distracting about an undead to a Lich living in a crypt brimming with them? We were too slow and too preoccupied to think about it. It was this particular minion. Its minion.’ She remembered again Larry sitting upright, a red glow in his eyes as the arrow wound between his eyes sealed. ‘Maybe a special minion. Maybe a magic he hasn’t been able to repeat.’
Smythe’s eyes wavered on Ree’s face. ‘But … oh, festering rats.’ His voice was soft. ‘The last time he saw Larry, he was with us. He must be jolly angry! It looks like — it must appear —’
‘It looks like we stole his minion.’ The words hovered in the air between them. Smythe looked even paler, under his grey-tinged skin. For herself, she hated to utter the words. The Lich had been a fixture of her world for as long as she could remember — a monster, yes, but also a protector. The most powerful, most dangerous, and most reliable aspect of life in the crypt. And now it considered her its enemy.
‘And — and so he was creating that slimy fiend to take him back?’
In spite of the tension she felt, Ree’s lips quirked at Smythe’s description of the Lich’s creature. ‘We need to find Larry,’ she said.
But finding one lonely minion in an unknown wing of the crypt was no small task, made worse by the Lich’s agitation. Ree peered around every corner, her entire body tensed, certain that the Lich would swoop down on them at any moment.
The emptiness of the Lich’s wing pressed on her. The wide, echoing corridors, the empty alcoves and shattered sarcophagi, the audible shush of her feet on dusty stone, with Smythe tapping after her. Ree had explored the crypt for years, and always there were hands trailing in her robes, eyes watching listlessly from corners, the creak and clack of ancient guardians standing with weapons ready. She might live in a crypt, but it was alive, or at least undead. It reacted to her presence, it moved and changed. But in the Lich’s wing, there was only static, only silence, only emptiness. A true death, not the familiar undeath.
They peeked into destroyed rooms, roamed down long, cold corridors, and still found no sign of Larry. ‘Perhaps he went back to town?’ Smythe asked, pulling at his lips. Ree could see the hope in his eyes: return to the central mausoleum and forget about the Lich, its creature, its vengeance.
Ree thought about Larry’s disappearance at the library — it must have been the moment he’d seen the Lich. ‘If he’s headed back to town, he can’t have gotten far. You’ve seen how he shambles.’
Smythe nodded, shoulders hunched.
‘We’ll turn around. With any luck, we’ll catch him before he makes it out of the wing.’
‘Luck.’ Smythe wrung his hands and Ree felt a pang.
I don’t want this either, she wanted to say. I want to go home and dive into my studies and forget all about this.
But ignoring something didn’t make it go away any more than shunning necromancers stopped the dead from rising. The world was what it was, and they needed to face that.
They made their way back toward town — or what Ree hoped was toward town. She was hopelessly lost without a map, and had been turned around too many times during their flight to properly navigate. Every time Ree felt a prickle against her skin, every time she felt the air stir, she would pull Smythe aside and wait, breath caught in her throat, until she was certain the Lich had passed. As they walked down hallway after stone hallway, she began to doubt that they would find him. Larry had proven a mystery more than once now. Perhaps he was able to move much faster than they had ever seen. Perhaps he knew secret paths out of the Lich’s wing. Or perhaps he had never headed back to town at all.
She could feel Smythe’s eyes on her, though he hastily dropped his gaze whenever she looked around. Ever since she’d spied on him in the embalming room weeks ago, she’d always had a plan, always had all the answers. This was her crypt, her home, her world. She knew it better than anyone else. The first to be born here, the first to grow up here. The first to map it and document its secrets. But this trip had quickly shown up her weaknesses.
Maybe her father was right. Maybe learning necromancy was the only thing she could do to protect herself.
It had protected Smythe, back in the ritual room. But her heart railed against the idea. It was a silver bridle designed to tame her, to make her less when she had always known that she could be more.
When they heard panicked gargling, Ree’s pulse leapt. She raced ahead of Smythe, only to skid to a stop at the edge of a wide crevasse.
Smythe caught up. He doubled over, panting and resting his elbows on his knees. ‘Oh, poor chap! You really do have a hard time of it sometimes, don’t you?’
Larry moaned and waved his arms at them from where he stood, neck-deep in the crevasse. His mouth sagged and his eyes rolled in what was clearly minion-ly panic.
Ree scrubbed at her face and looked around. The air was still; there were no lengthening shadows, no whisper of trailing robes. It appeared that they had beaten the Lich to Larry.
If it was even looking for him. But Ree tried not to think about what it would mean if she was wrong about this. ‘Smythe, you take that arm, I’ll take this one. On three.’
Together, they hauled Larry up, his legs kicking. She had her hood up, so all he could do was mouth at the thick cloth guarding her neck, but Smythe yelped a few times before they set him on his feet.
She took a moment to study the minion while he gawped at them. He looked no different than he had before the Lich — just as grey-green and putrid, his decay held in check only by the magic that animated him. There was no red spark in his eyes, as there had been when he’d revived from the arrow wound. He was … Larry. Slack-jawed and watery-eyed, swaying where he stood. A simple minion: masterless, purposeless.
‘It’s jolly good to see you.’ Smythe clapped him on the shoulder. Larry started to teeter, but Smythe steadied him just in time. Smythe glanced at Ree. ‘We’ve, um … well, let’s just say it’s good to see a friendly face.’ He frowned. ‘Although you’ve never really looked friendly, exactly, but I think that’s —’
Larry swung around and tottered away from them.
‘Larry!’ Ree’s voice was stern, but the minion was undeterred. He stumbled across the narrowest part of the crevasse, trapped his foot, and started howling.
‘It’s quite all right!’ Smythe gave Larry’s shoulder a squeeze, then grimaced and wiped the flaking skin off on his trousers. ‘Hold still, there’s a good chap, and I’ll just —’ The moment he pulled Larry’s foot free the minion was off again, lurching as quickly as his spindly legs would carry him. Smythe hared after him, shouting, ‘Jolly fast for a dead man, isn’t he?’
Ree closed her eyes a moment, breathing in the musty smell of stone and earth. Eyes still closed, she pinned her hood to her hair. She ran her hands down the front of her robes, smoothing away the creases and dirt in its long skirt. She could hear Smythe shouting after Larry, and Larry’s frantic gargling, hear their footsteps mingling in an off-beat mix of shushing and tapping.
Larry and the Lich were linked. With Larry’s sudden desire to flee, she was more sure of it than ever. That meant they needed him.
And however frantic he might be, he wasn’t fast. He could outrun Smythe, but he couldn’t outrun her.
Ree streaked after
Larry, her robes whipping about her legs, the air dragging at her hood. Her stride was long and easy, her feet light as she sprang from step to step. Smythe’s head turned as she passed him, his mouth hanging open, and for a moment Ree felt a laugh well up inside her. In spite of the Lich, in spite of everything, she could still run. She could outrun every undead in the entire crypt if she had to.
Larry lurched frantically ahead of her, making wet panting sounds. She had never seen him move so fast, his torso bobbling atop his wildly pumping legs.
Ree passed him and then cut him off. She braced herself and he bowled into her. She gritted her teeth and shoved him back. He toppled.
‘Larry.’ She stood over him, wiping the sweat from her brow. He gargled and flopped around on the floor, eyes rolling in his head. ‘Look, I’m sorry.’ She gripped his arm and helped him to his feet, half-wondering, as she always did, why she bothered talking to a creature that surely couldn’t understand.
Larry got to his feet and continued to gargle, eyes rolling here and there, resting everywhere but on Ree. She frowned.
‘Here! I’m here.’ Smythe stumbled to a stop and doubled over, panting as he leaned on his knees. ‘You —’ He paused, gasping for air. ‘You’re fast — faster than I thought.’ His eyes flicked to Larry. He started to say something, then subsided into a flurry of coughs. ‘Pardon me for asking, but — how did you get so fast? Was it like the darksight ritual?’
‘Practice,’ said Ree, who had been chased by greater undead every few days since she was old enough to leave the house on her own. Her attention was not on Smythe, but on Larry. The minion was twitching, eyes still looking everywhere but at Ree or Smythe. He didn’t move to chew on them, as he did in moments of quiet, or lollop around them as he did when excited. He just quivered on the spot.
‘You really do know it, don’t you?’ she whispered. ‘The Lich.’ Larry twitched away from her, oddly silent, but Ree could not have been more stunned if he’d spoken. Larry was the most empty-headed of minions: the least initiative, the slowest response time. She had always considered it part of his masterless existence, but now she had to wonder. He’d already proved himself more powerful than even the greatest undead, able to regenerate even a broken brain. And now, Ree asked herself: just how much did Wandering Larry, joke of Tombtown, actually understand?
Books & Bone Page 20
