‘There is a strange energy about you,’ said the King. He looked at them expectantly.
Ree answered him, his gaze seeming to pull the words from her. ‘We were sent here by a powerful Lich.’
‘From where?’
From when would be a better question, but Ree kept this to herself.
‘From Tombtown,’ said Smythe, stumbling over the Old Antherian words. ‘In the Fourth year of the Seventh Era.’
Ree bit back a retort, wishing there was some way to take back those words. You couldn’t just give a necromancer knowledge like that. You couldn’t predict what they would do with it.
The King levelled his gaze at Smythe. Ree wondered that he could stand it — the King’s gaze had a palpable power, as if he were mind-snaring without trying — but Smythe lifted his chin, excitement written into the tight line of his shoulders.
‘It is a crime to lie to the King.’ The King stood up, and as he stood a wave of power rolled over them, cold and tight. A necromancer beyond doubt. ‘But if you tell the truth, there is much here to be learned. Wylandriah.’
Much to be learned here. Ree could feel the world crumbling around her. Much to be learned here — because the walls were newly bricked, the tomb was a throne room, and the Old King was alive and well.
Because this was a world where therianthropy was more than a fairytale.
‘Sire.’ She heard Wylandriah stand behind her.
‘Bring Evanert before me. Persuade him if necessary.’
Ree tried to draw breath into thin lungs. This was Fourth Era Tombtown — before it was a crypt, before any of the dead she knew had ever died, let alone been buried.
It made sense of so much she had wondered in her time exploring the crypt. Why there were areas that looked more designed for the living than the dead. Stray accounts in old histories and journals that suggested a city here, a civilisation. When the founders of Tombtown had settled the crypt, it had been in the belief that they would make it into a civilisation. They’d had no notion that there were long lost precursors who’d done just the same.
‘At your command, sire,’ said Wylandriah.
Power gathered behind Ree, of an alien feel. It felt wild and fluid, with an electric crackle. As Ree turned, she watched blue light spiral around Wylandriah. She held a rune-marked hawkskin to the sky. Then Wylandriah was shrinking, sucked into the skin as if she were made of water and light, and then the light cleared and a hawk with blue-tipped feathers trod the air. Ree’s heart seized to look at it, the magic that was everything she had ever hoped for, real and here. Then hawk-Wylandriah gave a high-pitched cry and flew out of the throne room with a few strokes of her long-feathered wings.
‘You are surprised,’ said the King.
Ree tried to swallow, but her mouth was suddenly dry. ‘It was unexpected.’ She didn’t want to tell a man with so much power over her that Wylandriah held the key to her heart’s desire.
The King’s gaze bored into her. Ree kept her eyes lowered.
They waited in silence. Ree’s thoughts raced. Smythe fidgeted beside her, clearly struggling to contain himself from asking questions.
He knew how to behave around royalty. Perhaps he had met Kings before, in the world above. Did historians garner those honours? Or was there more to Smythe than she knew? He was barely able to keep quiet under threat of death among necromancers, but before this King, he was a model of restraint. It seemed ingrained in him.
Then Wylandriah was back, landing behind them in a swirl of light and robes. She folded the hawkskin into her pocket. ‘He comes, sire.’ She knelt and bowed her head.
Footsteps echoed in the hall outside, and then two men entered the throne room. The first was an older necromancer in sanguine robes, his skin already stretched and pale from what could be a century of the Craft. He moved with an icy presence, chin raised and eyes flinty. There was no give in him, not even for the king of this place. And behind him was a reedy man in simple clothes — a servant, perhaps, though there was a faint mark of the Craft in the hollowness of his cheeks and the grey tinge to his skin.
‘For what do you disturb my studies, Your Majesty?’ The necromancer wrinkled his nose as he considered them. His voice was nasally and thin, unpleasantly close to a whine.
Smythe gripped her arm, staring at the newcomers. ‘Is that — does he —’
‘Smythe?’
Smythe’s nostrils flared as he breathed out. ‘Does that man look familiar to you?’
Ree looked at the necromancer in his velvet robes. ‘A necromancer from several centuries ago. How would I know him?’
‘Not him. Ree — look at the man behind him.’
Ree frowned. The man behind him was reedy and thin, with sallow skin and a slightly wild look about his eyes. Why she would be any more likely to recognise him than the necromancer, she had no idea.
But now that she was looking, there was something about his face. Something she couldn’t quite place. He was familiar, but … off. Were his features sharper? Was his hair different? And as Smythe’s grip on her arm tightened, she could visualise it. The same features, but on clammy, flaking skin. The same hair, but a patchy fuzz. The eyes yellow and rolling, the mouth hanging open.
‘No.’ She shook her head, then shook it again. She felt a strange lurch in her stomach, like someone had tugged out the rug beneath her feet.
‘He’s looking rather better, don’t you think?’ Smythe said weakly.
‘Larry,’ said Ree. Her eyes moved to the necromancer. ‘Does that make him …?’
‘If this is true, I must study them!’ said the necromancer. He looked right at Ree, and Ree could see it too, see the years and the magic withering him away. ‘Lizeria. Wylandriah. Take them to my laboratory.’ He stroked his chin. His eyes glinted. ‘There is more than one way to determine the veracity of their claims.’
In spite of the mystery surrounding it and the danger it presents to denizens, the Lich has historically been seen as a protector or guardian. In 6E48, it ended a battle between rival necromancers that threatened to destroy the central mausoleum, killing both. In 6E70, it drove back invading witch hunters sent by the Semnian church. In 6E81, it ousted an enormous group of adventurers that had taken several practitioners prisoner.
The council continues to urge vigilance and caution, urging denizens to learn its routes and avoid it at all costs.
None of its ‘rescues’ were without denizen casualties.
~from A History of Tombtown by Emberlon the Disloyal
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
WHAT DOES IT MATTER?
Evanert.
The most powerful necromancer of her time and probably of his. Ree stood with iron bones and icy skin, staring down the man that would become the Lich and wondering what she could do to stop him.
Smythe shifted beside her. She wondered if he, too, was testing the strength of Lizeria’s terrible gut-bonds. He was a necromancer — new, but powerful. Maybe he would be able to disable Lizeria’s spell.
She gritted her teeth. It was an idea too ridiculous for hope.
Evanert swept from the room, the man who would become Larry striding after him. Ree and Smythe were left alone with Lizeria, Wylandriah, and the King whose crypt Ree had grown up in.
‘Sire?’ Wylandriah’s tone was questioning.
The King lifted a hand. ‘As Evanert desires. This is too unique an opportunity to be missed.’
As one, the women rose. ‘As you will,’ said Wylandriah.
Lizeria yanked at the gut bonds; Ree gasped as the bonds burned against her skin. ‘With pleasure, sire,’ she said with a grin.
And then they were being dragged back out the doors, stumbling after Lizeria, too stung by her magic to resist. Wylandriah, eyes dark and gleaming under the blue paint, kept guard behind them.
Smythe leaned over to Ree. ‘So, what’s your plan?’
Ree hissed as Lizeria gave her rope a sharp tug. She glanced at Smythe, looking at her with expectant eyes, and felt
the tight pinch of panic. ‘There’s no plan. I’m as trapped as you are.’
Lizeria almost skipped ahead of them, each sudden lunge forward sending an accompanying burst of pain.
‘You mean you can’t break the bonds?’
Ree wanted so badly to snap at him then. To say: ‘Do you really think I would still be wearing them if I could?’ But she couldn’t let her temper get the better of her — not in a situation as dire and strange as this. She narrowed her eyes and looked away, hoping that, intelligent as he was meant to be, he would read that as ‘I’m not the necromancer here.’
She wished Usther had gone with them. Usther might not be at the Lich’s level of magic, but she was as sly and manipulative as any necromancer, and if she’d ever been stupid enough to let them get caught like this, she would surely be able to get them out again. When Veritas had set a rope like this around Ree’s neck, Usther had not hesitated to break the spell.
She wished she had learned the Craft, or taught herself therianthropy, or learned anything useful in her life beyond the ability to run away. You couldn’t run when you were already trapped.
Lizeria and Wylandriah led them back to the Lich’s wing, across his library, to the room where, in the present day, he had built his flesh monster. Cold stone floors, sharp grey walls, and three stone slabs — beds? — regimented against the wall. One was stained brown with old blood.
Lizeria muttered a word and the intestines unwound from their wrists to coil neatly around her waist like a belt. ‘This will be your little playroom.’ She clapped her hands together and tilted her head to one side. ‘Stone and blood and shades of dead past. Won’t that be delightful? And then Evanert will join you for the real fun.’
‘Miss Lizeria,’ said Smythe. He spread trembling hands. ‘I can’t help but feel there’s been some terrible mistake —’
‘Ooh, I hope so. I love a good mistake. Such tragedy — most entertaining!’
‘I’m sure there’s something to be done,’ Smythe ploughed on. ‘And there must be a lot we could learn — we could teach each other, you see. If we just sat down and talked.’
Lizeria grinned. ‘Oh, I’m sure Evanert will learn plenty from you. He’s a talented practitioner — a bit dreary and pompous, but inventive.’ Her eyes gleamed.
Smythe continued to petition the necromancer, but Ree’s eyes were on Wylandriah, in her bright robes and her face paint. The therianthrope stood stiffly at the door, gazing not at them but at a wall, as if thinking hard.
Ree approached her and her head snapped up.
‘Not a step further,’ Wylandriah warned. Her mouth formed into a snarl; her canines seemed a little longer than was normal, her eyes a little wilder.
Ree raised her hands, palm-out. ‘I’m not going to attack you.’
Wylandriah’s eyes flashed behind the blue paint. ‘It wouldn’t go well for you if you did. But no … you have little of a predator about you. What do you want?’
Ree’s heart thumped in her chest. She wanted her to teach her. She wanted to sit down and hear everything about Wylandriah’s life, from her own lips. She wanted to feel the strangely charged and liquid feel of her magic again. She wanted Wylandriah to touch her head and tell her that she’d been right, that she’d been right all along, and that she would be great one day.
But though Wylandriah was her hero, she was not her friend or her ally. She was the enemy, serving a King who sought to use them for his own gain. Though it caused her almost physical pain to turn that tumble of words away, there were more pressing concerns.
She licked her lips, choosing her words carefully. ‘You need to get your King to speak to us before Evanert does.’
Wylandriah crossed her arms. Her nostrils flared. ‘Oh? And what makes you think you can dictate to the King of the world below?’
Ree considered, knowing this might be her only chance to convince the therianthrope. From the moment they’d arrived, it was clear that they were powerless here. They had no allies and no real knowledge to help them. They didn’t even understand the magic that had sent them here. But there was one key thing; something she’d been clinging to ever since these two women had brought them into what would become the Old King’s Tomb. ‘Because in my time, hundreds of years from now, your King is dead, but Evanert is still alive.’
Wylandriah’s eyes narrowed, and Ree held her breath. It was her one hope, the tiniest scrap of a chance. Necromancers were competitive, were always competitive, even when voluntarily living together, like in Tombtown, or this strange civilisation in the past. There had been something in the King’s voice when he’d summoned Evanert that made Ree think their relationship was less than certain — and Evanert had not been at all deferential, in spite of the constant obsequeiance of Lizeria and Wylandriah.
Meanwhile, Smythe petitioned Lizeria. ‘We have to — see here, we’re separated by hundreds of years of history! Surely as a practitioner, as — as a scholar! Surely you can see the value in an exchange of ideas?’
Lizeria clapped. ‘Wylandriah, look at this one — he just keeps talking! An inexhaustible source of words! And he goes a funny colour when you talk about him. Do you think Evanert will let me have him when he’s done? I’ve always wanted a chatty minion.’
Wylandriah shrugged her sharp shoulders. Ree waited with baited breath for her to reply, to say something, but she only weighed Ree with her eyes for a moment before she turned and strode from the room.
Lizeria winked at a distinctly green-looking Smythe and flounced after her. The door swung shut behind her and there was the heavy thud of a bolt falling into place, followed by a pulse of icy air.
Smythe slumped, sinking onto one of the stone beds. ‘I might be mistaken, but it appears she’s cursed that door.’ He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes.
Ree’s eyes flickered from him, to the door, and back. He looked very thin, his bony shoulders raised in tension, his cheeks hollow and shadowed. She closed her eyes, battling with herself. There was so much going on, so much she needed to think about. But when she opened her eyes, Smythe looked just as shrunken and fragile.
She breathed out through her nose. ‘We’ll find a way back.’ She perched on the edge of the stone bed beside him. Though there was a human-sized gap between them, it still felt uncomfortably close.
Smythe shrugged, eyes on the floor. She thought for a moment he would say something — he was always saying something — but the silence stretched, thinner and thinner, echoing in the airless stone chamber until Ree felt compelled to speak.
‘It’s amazing magic,’ she said. She gestured around the stone room. ‘To be here, hundreds of years ago. I’ve never heard of anything like it, outside of stories.’ She couldn’t bring herself to mention Wylandriah. She watched him; he barely inclined his head, lips pressed thin. ‘It must be especially exciting for you — to see history, to live in it. Isn’t that a historian’s dream?’
He stared at the floor. Ree started to feel his silence pressing down on her — like a physical presence, like a curse. How long had it been since she’d been alone without the sound of Smythe’s amiable chatter? It had annoyed her, but in its absence was a vacuum, sucking the air from her lungs. She was trying to think of something else to say — anything to feed the hungry silence — when Smythe pulled his arms tight across his chest.
‘What does it matter?’
Ree’s eyebrows pinched. ‘What?’
Smythe breathed out through his nose. ‘I’ve been thinking about it and — what does it matter, to see all of this, to learn all of this, when no-one will ever know? I can’t write a paper and send it to the Grand University. I can’t show it to the Dean, I can’t shove it under the noses of the historical society. I can’t —’ He cut himself off, jaw tightening. ‘If we’re trapped here, whatever we do, whatever we learn — it means nothing.’
Ree stared at him, torn between unease and sympathy. She couldn’t remember him ever looking like this, or speaking this way. She couldn’t rem
ember him bitter, but it fit him like a familiar cloak. She wondered how many times he had thought about the Dean of the Grand University, or the historical society, or any of those other scholars in the world above.
‘I’m Chandrian Smythe, Third Rank historian and foremost burial scholar in the southern kingdoms.’ He’d said it so many times, and all she’d seen was pride and a sort of belligerent formality. Now she wondered about those practiced words — the way he held up his achievements like a shield the moment he met someone.
‘You can’t think that way,’ she said at length. ‘Smythe — you can do things for yourself.’
He met her eyes. ‘Would you? Would — would you bother with therianthropy, if your father didn’t want to force you into necromancy? Would you bother, if he would never see it?’
Ree tried to respond, then found she didn’t know what to say.
Smythe shook his head. ‘It only matters if someone else knows about it.’
‘I’ll know about it.’ She touched his hand with two fingertips, catching his eyes with hers. ‘Smythe. I’m here, and I’ll know.’
Smythe broke into a tired smile. ‘Yes, but you’re much cleverer than I am.’ His hand curled almost imperceptibly around hers, and Ree froze. ‘Much harder to impress.’
Were they closer than they’d been? She didn’t see how they could be, but Smythe was taking up her entire field of vision and she couldn’t look away. She almost asked, ‘You want to impress me?’ but she couldn’t seem to untangle her tongue.
The door opened. Ree sprang to her feet, Smythe a beat behind her. Wylandriah stepped to one side, eyes unreadable beneath the strip of blue paint. Ree gathered her scattered thoughts and drew air into her lungs. ‘Wylandriah. Did you —’
‘His Dark Majesty, King of the Undercity and the lands above.’ Wylandriah’s words were crisp, neatly cutting Ree’s voice away.
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