Books & Bone

by Victoria Corva

It took Ree a moment to get her lungs working again. Smythe flashed her a wide-eyed look and immediately ran to the front of the cage and started chatting to Evanert again. ‘Did you know that I’m an apprentice summoner myself? I learned in a phenomenally short amount of time —’

  The necromancer groaned.

  ‘I’m a rather excellent scholar, you know — but I’m sure I have nothing on your level of experience. Would you, perhaps, consider explaining your working so that I might take notes? I have an ingenius system for notation —’

  ‘Lazerin, if you would.’

  The long-faced man in the chair set aside his books and strode languidly over to them. Smythe bumped into Ree as he backed hastily up.

  Aside from physical features, there was nothing of Larry in this man. His movements were lazy with confidence, his expression a sneer rather than a vacant gawp.

  Ree reminded herself that he wasn’t Larry, not really. Larry was a body animated by magic. This same body stood before them, but now it was animated by a soul. And judging by the glitter in his dark eyes, not a kind one.

  ‘I want to make this very clear,’ he said. His voice was clipped, his accent upper class. ‘If you interrupt my dear Evanert one more time, I will ensure that your death is as painful as possible.’ He drew a small, curved knife from his belt. ‘I am uniquely gifted in this regard.’

  Ree suppressed a chill shudder at his words. She studied this cruel, confident man. She didn’t like his carefully coiffed hair or his cold smile. Larry might be a centuries-old minion, but there was more to like in his inept, toothy grin than in anything this sharp-eyed man had to offer.

  Smythe beside her, opened his mouth to speak, but Ree seized his arm and he fell silent. She forced herself to meet Lazerin’s smug eyes. ‘You say that like death is inevitable, and only the method is in question.’

  Lazerin’s smile widened. ‘Death is inevitable,’ he assured her. There was a honey to his voice that made Ree’s hair stand on end. ‘Sooner for some than others. Evanert! They don’t realise, fools that they are. Shall we tell them together?’

  Evanert turned on his heel, robes whirling, and stood close to Lazerin, his arm snaking around the other man’s narrow waist. Ree barely had time to register this — and the tender smile Lazerin gave in return — before Evanert was speaking. ‘We owe you, really. Though the King has chosen to hide it from me, it is clear why he is so eager that you return to your time. Our efforts to overthrow and outlast our wise king and his pathetic kingdom surely succeed, and he intends to return you to aid him in undoing that. Well.’ He rested his chin on Lazerin’s shoulder.

  Lazerin bared his teeth. ‘We’ll tell him the magic was not possible, and that the attempt claimed your lives. He can hardly argue with us, since if such magic is possible, only one as powerful as Evanert could even attempt it. So you see,’ and now Lazerin’s eyes glinted with a strange red light ‘death is inevitable, and quite soon.’

  Ree kept a tight grip on the keys in her pocket, so hard that she felt the cuts bite into her palm. Warm blood trickled from her fist.

  ‘Please — there’s no need to make decisions in haste!’ Smythe hurried to the fore of the cage. ‘We’re no threat to you — I’m a historian, and my companion a simple scholar. We’re just eager to get home.’

  ‘The blood on your arm speaks differently,’ said Evanert.

  ‘Been making promises you can’t keep?’ said Lazerin. ‘It’s almost merciful to kill you now.’

  ‘No! I beg you to see sense. We’re in an impossible position and —’ Smythe argued on, but though his pleas never ceased, they fell on deaf ears. Evanert returned to his desk and Lazerin to his book.

  Ree, for her part, crouched at the back of the cage, gripping the keys so tightly that her fingers cramped. She was glad Smythe was begging and bargaining — it would make their captors think they made no attempt to escape — but she needed time and space to think. They would likely only get one chance at this.

  If Evanert intended to ritually sacrifice them — and really, there was no reason why he would pass up the opportunity — then it would take him hours to properly prepare. Sometime in that period, Ree was certain there would be an opportunity to escape. What they would do then … well. They would have to find some way of making it back to their time. In a room surrounded by the world’s most powerful necromancer’s collected knowledge, she hoped they would find a way.

  She gritted her teeth. Of course, if they realised the keys were missing, any hope of escape would be quickly crushed.

  Lulled by Smythe’s near constant fear-babble and the familiar sound of parchment sliding against parchment, Ree struggled to keep sharp. She had been scared and running for so long that her body sagged and her eyelids were heavy and drooping. Every time her head started to nod, she gripped the keys so tightly that they cut into her hand, the pain clearing her foggy brain.

  At length, and with no signal to their prisoners beyond a quirked eyebrow from Lazerin, Evanert and Lazerin left the library, ascending the staircase and closing the door behind them.

  Smythe’s pleas died; he spun around, wide-eyed, as Ree sprang to her feet. ‘You have a plan?’

  Not much of one, Ree thought, but she flashed him a grim smile. ‘Always.’

  He frowned at her through his glasses, uncertain.

  Ree worked at the lock, fumbling with the key ring as she tried key after key with shaking hands. The keys slipped in her blood-slicked grip and it was difficult to maneuver them into the lock from the other side. It required her full attention, and yet she couldn’t stop her eyes from flickering back to the door their captors had vanished through.

  ‘A little to the left, Ree — no, that was too left! Try again, but gently, gently …’

  Ree gritted her teeth and tried to shut Smythe out just as the key clicked into place. Heart-pounding, she turned it in the lock. The door swung open with a rusty creak.

  ‘We did it! Oh, jolly well done!’ Smythe pat her on the shoulder. Ree winced and started on an acid reply, but Smythe looked so grey and relieved that the words died in her mouth.

  ‘There’s a lot left to do,’ she said instead.

  ‘Well, you know, no reason not to be pleased about what we’ve already achieved,’ said Smythe. ‘We’re one whole stage freer than we were ten minutes ago, and if they, uh.’ He gulped. ‘If they come back and kill us, at least it won’t be in a cage.’

  Ree thought that was hollow comfort, but Smythe gave her a look of such determination that she could almost agree with him. Quietly, she took his hand in hers. His hands were colder now, from stone and damp and necromancy, but his touch gave her no less of a shock and her eyes leapt to his. There was a look in his face of growing clarity, as if clouds parted in his eyes. His other hand started to lift; Ree turned and pulled him toward the Lich’s desk. She dropped his hand, lungs suddenly thin, and smoothed the pages of the open book on the reading stand on his desk. ‘What do you make of this?’ she asked, her voice much steadier than her pulse.

  Smythe hovered at her shoulder. ‘A ritual.’ He peered closer, and now she could feel his warmth at her back. ‘A sacrifice ritual, I think, as you theorised. Sorry, could I just —? If you don’t mind …’ He eased past her and starting running his finger along the lines of Old Antherian script, mouthing the words.

  Ree mentally shook herself. They needed to find a book on temporal magic, something they might be able to use to get out of there. Now that she knew such magic was possible, there was surely a book or scroll somewhere discussing its practice or at least its theory. How else had the Lich discovered it?

  She started toward the bookshelves, then stopped herself, thinking hard. If she were a rival to the king and two people claiming to be from the future appeared before him, she would learn everything she could about the magic that had brought them there. She went back to the desk and examined the books stacked to the side while Smythe continued to read and mutter to himself. She tried not to let him distract her; the
re was quite enough to deal with without her getting breathless over an upworlder.

  She ran her fingertips across the spines. The books nearest the bottom of the pile were in a language she could not read: whether it was from another country or a version of Old Antherian too ancient for her understanding, she couldn’t tell. The others … Kragvverak’s Rituals, Chimarvidium, Immortal Soul … Her fingers hovered over Chimarvidium, since Chimar referered to the original practitioners of the Craft and arvid referred to an increment of time. She carefully extracted the book and studied the introduction and contents, trying not to let her tense grip damage the aged leather cover.

  The link between soul and the aether planes … in which case scrying can transcend temporal bounds … displacement provides tethers for realignment ...

  ‘Smythe?’

  ‘Mm?’ Smythe looked up from the book he’d been scanning.

  She stepped aside and gestured at the book. ‘Tell me what I’m reading here.’ Her voice shook; she touched a hand to her throat, hope making her grotesquely vulnerable.

  Smythe took over the book, his eyes flying across page after page as he flicked through it with impressive speed. ‘Unless I am very much mistaken — and I am the youngest ever Third Rank historian at the Grand University — this is a book theorising rituals and spells to manipulate objects in time.’

  ‘Objects,’ Ree repeated. She needed to hear him say it; she could barely bring herself to ask.

  He looked up, eyes bright behind the glare of his spectacles. ‘Objects with souls. Objects like us,’ he said. His gaze dropped to the book. ‘Although, unless I am much mistaken, we’re going to need help.’

  An important aspect of scrying, for example, is the focus, or anchor. A lock of hair, a favoured brooch, an item of sentimental value, even a blood relative or close friend. This forms the connection required to scry and is rarely questioned further.

  Many aspects of magic use this connection. Curses often require it. Healers can utilise it. Why has nobody asked what else could be done with this connection?

  ~from Envisioning the Future of Magic by Elden Mannelyn

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  THE SCRYWELL

  ‘Ree?’

  Ree tore her eyes from the stairwell to look at Smythe. He’d almost completed the set-up for the ritual: a ceramic bowl of water was in the middle of a pentagram of dried blood with various plants, herbs, and organs at the points, all procured from the Lich’s collection.

  Ree’s gaze started to drift back to the stairwell.

  ‘Ree, I know you’re frightened but you must focus. I can’t really — I don’t have the connection to her that you do. And we’re quite unlikely to manage this without her.’

  Ree licked sandpaper lips. Though Smythe had worked quickly, it was hard to ignore that Evanert and Lazerin might return at any moment. It pecked at her, a painful, persistent reminder that they were not safe, and would never be safe until they made it back to their own time. But there was something else nagging at her, something she found it even harder to face. ‘Smythe — I’ve never practiced the Craft. I don’t know if I can do this.’ I don’t know if I want to, she thought. How proud her father would be if she returned home baptised by the touch of death? And when she was so close to finally achieving her dream of practicing therianthropy.

  Smythe hesitated a moment, then touched her shoulder. ‘You won’t,’ he said. ‘It’ll be my magic, passing through my body. It’s only that, as Tymmeric Demonseed theorised in his treatise —’ he stopped when he saw the look on Ree’s face and dropped his hand, looking sheepish. ‘Ah, well — I’ll need a focus,’ he said. ‘And the best link we have here is you.’ He rubbed his chin. ‘Are you ready?’

  Ree took a deep breath and nodded. They needed to get home, and quickly. This wasn’t something she could run away from.

  ‘All right. Would it be all right if I took your hand?’ His grip was firm, professional. He was sure of himself, Ree realised. When it came to necromancy, no matter how obscure, he was confident.

  Maybe he had been destined for the crypt. He certainly made a better necromancer than he did a historian.

  Smythe took Ree to stand in the centre of the pentagram, before the ceramic bowl. ‘It’ll require blood,’ he said.

  Ree tensed and nodded. She wasn’t sure why it made her so nervous; her mother had sacrificed Ree’s blood for Morrin’s favour for years when she was a child, but the difference between her mother’s priestcraft and necromancy seemed suddenly vast.

  Smythe lifted her hand, smoothing out her palm. ‘Scars,’ he murmured, eyes lifting to hers in surprise. ‘Have you sacrificed before?’

  Ree looked down and said nothing.

  In Smythe’s other hand was an ornate, sharp-edged knife. He put it gently against Ree’s hand, giving her the chance to protest. Ree closed her eyes and turned her head. Then came the quick bite, the line of fire, and then Smythe was squeezing her hand in his and letting the blood drip into the ceramic bowl, the blood spreading and clouding in the water.

  ‘You must focus,’ he said, and he sounded excited now. He kept Ree’s hand in his, but his eyes were on the bowl, and his other hand stretched toward it. He started to mutter an incantation; the air flexed with power. A mix of emotions flitted through Ree: relief that the magic was so clearly Smythe’s, discomfort at being involved in what was surely experimental magic.

  She needed to focus. She stared at the water, trying her best to call out with her mind — a strange sensation, the antithesis to the mind wards her father had taught her. The water clouded darker and darker, though she did not feed it any more blood. And then it rippled, and a familiar angular face appeared, surrounded by the sanguine clouds.

  ‘I am really very curious as to why you are scrying me right now. I’m in the middle of some extremely delicate experiments and do not appreciate whatever hedgemagic tricks you’re playing. How did you even get through my wards?’ Her sneer barely hid the wild twitch of her eyes; she was surprised, and in Ree’s experience, Usther didn’t handle surprises well.

  ‘Usther.’ Ree’s voice was tight. ‘I need you to listen very carefully. We’re desperately in need of your help.’

  Usther rolled her eyes. ‘Of course you are.’

  Ree haltingly explained what had happened: the Lich sending them back in time, the Old King, and meeting the Lich’s past incarnation. Smythe interjected with technical explanations and theories whenever Usther got quizzical for specifics, but she mostly listened without comment.

  ‘So you’re saying that I’m scrying to you across time.’

  Smythe nodded eagerly. ‘Yes! As I said, it supports the theory that —’

  Usther waved a hand, glaring severely. ‘I’m scrying to you across time. Hundreds of years separate us.’

  Ree inclined her head, choosing to keep to herself that it was Smythe who was scrying, not Usther. She could see the older girl working herself up into a power frenzy — which was exactly what they needed right now.

  Smythe leaned over the Scrywell. ‘I’ve done our part of the ritual to bring us back — or at least, I certainly hope it will work, obviously nothing of this sort has ever been done before. Although Fthgorrgh the Putrid did attempt to anchor our plane to the spirit plane in what was arguably a very similar —’

  ‘Smythe. Shut up, would you? I’m thinking. What’s the rest of the ritual?’

  ‘Well, Fthgorrgh —’

  ‘Not Fthgorrgh, cretin! The ritual to bring you back!’

  Ree slid her hand from Smythe’s. ‘I’ll keep watch.’

  ‘Yes, of course! Excellent idea. Usther, the ritual, as written in Chimarvidium, requires first a circle of Qaranthian, modified as I will specify —’

  Ree stepped carefully from the pentagram and spell diagram, knowing better than to scuff any of the lines. Smythe continued to chatter at Usther, whose usual ire seemed largely consumed in enthusiasm. In that moment, they were attempting a magic that had never been done before:
Ree could hardly blame them for allowing themselves some excitement at that. But for Ree, there was only the growing pressure in her chest and a kind of sickly crackle in her head as she waited for Evanert to sweep into the room and kill them where they stood.

  In their cages, they had been safe. They were sacrifices to be dealt with in the manner and time of Evanert’s choosing. But now they were a real threat; not only free and unhindered but using Evanert’s own resources to engineer their return to their timeline. While Evanert would surely prefer to ritually sacrifice them and use their bodies in his own craft, he would be foolish not to kill them quickly now.

  A pulse of energy blasted Ree from her feet and rattled books from shelves. She hit the ground hard, the acrid smell of herbs and craft burning her nostrils. ‘Smythe?’ She rolled to face him.

  ‘It worked!’ Smythe picked himself off the floor, hair windswept and glasses askew. He laughed and punched the air. ‘Yes! Now try the incantation, exactly as I read it to you —’

  ‘I don’t need you to handhold me through the process!’ Usther’s voice came through the Scrywell, louder now. Light spilled from it, but heavy, like a liquid; it flowed across the floor to lap at the edges of the spell circle.

  Boom! Another pulse: this time Ree was braced for it and barely staggered. Books fell from the shelves; a mirror fell from the desk and shattered on the floor. Though the echoes faded, Ree’s chest still vibrated with the force of it. She ran to the edge of the circle. ‘You’re going to bring them running back to us!’

  Smythe didn’t turn his head. ‘And now the blood sacrifice —’

  ‘You don’t need to tell me twice, moron, I heard you the first time!’

  ‘SMYTHE!’ Ree hovered at the edge of the circle, wary of wading into a ritual this far in. She’d never seen anything like this; the air was so thick with magic that it felt like she was wading through mud.

  Smythe glanced at her, then looked back and stared, his expression contorting in horror. ‘Evanert!’