The Necromancer's Rogue

by Icy Sedgwick

  “Welcome to my home, sir,” said Monte. He opened the gate into the small front yard, its hinges protesting at the movement with a whine. Night-scented stock and jasmine bloomed in the borders on either side of the brick path, with evening ivy clinging to the walls of the cottage around the front door. A candle burned in the front window.

  “Your garden is delightful,” replied Mr Gondavere. The note of genuine surprise irritated Monte. Just because he lived in the Underground City didn’t mean he had to live in a hovel.

  “It’s all the work of my Myrtle,” said Monte.

  He opened the front door, but Mr Gondavere paused on the path, halfway up the yard.

  “I shall refrain from coming in, Monte. I see a gate into the graveyard – I shall avail myself of the peace and quiet I shall find in there, and call back for you in a few hours. I have been searching for some weeks now, so I daresay allowing you time to rest will not make much difference.”

  “Are you sure? You don’t want to meet the missus?”

  “Perhaps when I come back to call for you.” Mr Gondavere gave that dreadful smile then followed a narrow, slightly overgrown path to the gate into the graveyard. It swung open on silent hinges, and within moments he was swallowed up by the darkness beyond.

  Monte passed through the doorway into the front room, where a set of steps led upwards to the bedroom above and a low doorway led through into the back parlour and kitchen. An indoor privy lay to his right, just off the front room. Of all the things in his home, the privy was his proudest achievement. Only two other houses in Canalsditch boasted indoor sanitation.

  Myrtle sat in the rocking chair by the fire, her knitting in her lap and her head resting on her shoulder. Gentle snores rumbled in her throat. The firelight softened the angles and planes of her face, and she reminded him of the pretty young slip of a girl he’d fallen in love with at the Grainger wake twelve years ago.

  Monte smiled and picked up the blanket from the floor. He laid it across her knees, tucking it around her, and tiptoed across the room to the stairs. He climbed them two at a time, careful to avoid the fourth and eighth steps with their telltale creaks, and lay down on the freshly made bed. He fell asleep before he realised he’d still had nothing to eat.

  * * *

  Monte awoke to a dark room, the candle burned down to a stub in the holder beside him. He cursed in the gloom – candles weren’t cheap. Thinking of money reminded him of the gold coin in his pocket, and he pulled it out, running his fingers over the images in relief on both sides. Myrtle would be pleased to see it.

  Voices drifted up the stairs into the small room in the eaves. A woman – Myrtle. She was laughing. Monte frowned. Myrtle never laughed, unless it was at him. A man’s voice – Mr Gondavere. He laughed too, a sound much like a saw dragged across rusted metal. Monte shuddered.

  He hauled himself off the bed and made his way downstairs. Myrtle still sat in the rocking chair by the fire, with the blanket now neatly folded and lying on the table. Mr Gondavere sat in Monte’s chair on the other side of the fire, his hands wrapped around a pewter mug.

  “Ah Monte, you’re awake! You all right now, love?” asked Myrtle.

  “I’m feeling a lot better now, yes,” replied Monte.

  “Good, good. There’s some stew in the pot, if you’re hungry.” Myrtle smiled at him. Her face had fewer lines and her eyes carried a twinkle Monte had lost hope of seeing again, though he knew the twinkle wasn’t for his benefit. It was for him. Monte returned her smile, though he knew it never reached his eyes. Suspicion of Myrtle’s lusty intentions bleached any mirth from his expression.

  Monte made his way through into the kitchen. A pot bubbled on the stove and Monte filled a bowl with the ladle. There was no meat in the broth, only vegetables, but it was hot and fresh, and Monte couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten. He sat alone at the table in the back parlour and shovelled the stew into his mouth.

  More laughter erupted in the front room, though the voices were too muffled to make out any words. Tears sprang to Monte’s eyes and he sniffed back his feelings. He’d wanted to make Myrtle smile with his gold coin, to earn her laughter, and maybe even approval. She’d barely spoken to him for the past six months, though Monte still didn’t know why. He’d put a roof over her house, and given her that garden outside. Was it because he was still just a grave digger? Did Myrtle want more than that for herself? Monte choked back his stew. He’d tried so hard, and now here was Mr Gondavere, a total stranger with a mouth full of razors, and she was laughing and joking with him in the front room. What had he said to her?

  He finished the stew and rinsed out his bowl in the sink. He left it to dry on the draining board. His heart hung low and heavy in his chest, and he stepped through into the front room.

  “Mr Gondavere’s been telling me all about your new job, Monte.” Myrtle gestured for him to sit down, but with Mr Gondavere in his chair, he had to make do with a stool by the small table.

  “Has he now?”

  “Indeed he has. Who’d have thought it, my Monte the assistant to an ’istorian! I’m ever so proud of you, love.”

  “You are?”

  “I have been telling your charming wife how indispensable I have found your services, particularly considering the very short time in which I have known you,” said Mr Gondavere.

  “Right.” Monte eyed Mr Gondavere as a mouse might eye a cat that has become suddenly friendly and welcoming. What else had Mr Gondavere told her?

  “He says you’re to go away again for a bit, but I should expect you back in a couple of days,” said Myrtle.

  Monte nodded, unsure of what to say.

  “I’ll miss having you around the house, but he’s given me your earnings so I can have a nice spread ready for you when you come back. A proper feast to celebrate your new job.” Myrtle stood up and a heavy purse jangled from her belt. Monte grimaced. He knew he wouldn’t see a penny of his earnings. His fist closed around the gold coin in his pocket. At least he’d been right. Myrtle didn’t want to be married to a grave digger.

  “I am sure you will have a lot to celebrate, my good woman.” Mr Gondavere pushed himself to his feet.

  Monte stood up as well, not wanting to be the only one left sitting.

  “Anyway, you’d best be off, you’ve got a lot of work to do.” Myrtle bustled across the room. Standing on her tip-toes, she planted a kiss on his cheek, and cupped his face in her hand. “Come back safe, yeah?”

  Monte nodded, and Myrtle disappeared into the back parlour. Mr Gondavere straightened his coat and gestured to the door.

  “Shall we?”

  Monte pulled on his coat and followed Mr Gondavere outside.

  “You have a very charming wife, Monte. I am not surprised you wanted to return to share your good news.”

  “She’s a delight, all right,” replied Monte. His glare burned holes into Mr Gondavere’s back.

  “And you will have even more good news to share with her soon.”

  “Why?”

  “I have a feeling we’ll be returning with the Heart of the City.” Mr Gondavere turned and smiled at Monte, but for once, Monte couldn’t smile back. He had a very bad feeling about everything.

  20

  Chapter 20

  Eufame and Vyolet pored over old books and maps in the archives. Vyolet couldn’t read much of the text, written in Archaic Wolfkin or a strange form of the Common Tongue she didn’t recognise. Eufame managed to find a handful of Shadowkin texts for her to translate. Vyolet tried to take an interest in the ancient history and culture of her people, but the authors were so dry. Even exciting folklore became dull and monotonous.

  “Eufame, why do the Wolfkin have Shadowkin books?” she asked, eager for a break from a particularly boring book about early Shadowkin settlements.

  “I expect they wanted to preserve the knowledge. Without knowing much about Shadowkin, anything else would just be guesswork,” replied Eufame.

  Mara sat down beside Vyolet
. She pointed to the books and formed a Shadow Speak reply.

  “There is a long history between your people and mine. Much trade in the past. Often your books for our protection.”

  “You protected us?”

  “As best we could, but you learned ways to protect yourselves.”

  Vyolet translated the replies for Eufame. The necromancer closed her book and added it to the pile she’d designated as ‘Useless for this purpose’.

  “What happened?”

  “The three races existed well in the Underground City and it was as harmonious as it could be,” said Mara. “But then the City Above was founded and the Shadowkin could not venture outside into the daylight as it hurt their eyes. The new humans Above did not trust the Shadowkin and did not make space for them at their council. The Shadowkin remained in the darkness, forever on the outside.”

  “But why didn’t they just live in the Underground City?” asked Vyolet.

  “The humans took their lead from those Above. The wealthy merchants stopped trading with the Shadowkin, and soon the rest of the City followed suit.”

  Vyolet frowned. “What happened to the Wolfkin?”

  “Humans could not understand us and they feared our power and knowledge. They used their superior skills of manipulation to legislate us into our current position.”

  “Wolfkin are massively underestimated, Vyolet,” added Eufame. “It made far more sense for me to employ Wolfkin than humans.”

  “So why did you choose Jyx? He’s a human, but you get on all right with him.”

  “Not all humans are bad. He has faults aplenty, his impatience particularly, but he could be great, if he allows himself to be guided in the right direction. I have high hopes for him. He performed so spectacularly in the role I created for him – perhaps too well.” Eufame grimaced and Vyolet wondered exactly how much destruction Jyx’s escapade at the House had created.

  Mara gestured for Vyolet to continue reading, and Vyolet returned to her book. She flipped through the pages, skipping the old tales and folklore. Surely if information about an earlier ruined city existed, it would be in the archaeology books.

  Vyolet didn’t understand much of the terminology, but at least the archaeology books had illustrations. She recognised many of the locations in the woodcuts, or engravings in more recent books, and she read an entire chapter about the founding of the temple. None of the chapels were officially dedicated to their existing patron deities, and all of them belonged to earlier figures, long forgotten by the humans. At one stage, the Lords and Ladies of Death had a chapel of their own in a crypt beneath the temple, but it was abandoned when they fell out of favour. The next few sentences caught her eye.

  “The crypt still exists, although its associations with the mystery cult belonging to the Lords and Ladies of Death meant that no new deity groups wanted to dedicate the space to their own needs. Its entrance lies on the far side of the temple, in the north-east corner, although the entrance has since been hidden by new construction work. It is believed that the crypt also marks an entrance into the catacombs below the Shrine of Beseda, far to the east.”

  Vyolet grinned. Hidden crypts? Secret entrances? Catacombs? Surely this had to be what everyone was looking for. She pushed the book across the table at Eufame. The necromancer frowned.

  “I can’t read this, Vyolet.”

  “No, but I can.” Vyolet read the passage aloud.

  “That has to be the place we’re looking for. I knew there were catacombs, but I didn’t know where they were – they’re supposed to be part of the old ruins,” said Eufame.

  “Should we go and take a look?”

  “Yes, and as luck would have it, Jyx’s family is lodged near the temple. Vyolet, I need you to find him and let him know where we’re going. He’s part of this now, and I think he should be with us when we go below.”

  Eufame wrote the address on Vyolet’s hand, the quill scratching her grey skin. Mara took her back down to the jetty they’d used when they first arrived at the archives. The Wolfkin drew a sigil in the air, and the flickering lamps dimmed until they were little more than blinking lights in the darkness. Thick black shadows lay across the still water of the canal.

  “Thank you, Mara. I hope I’ll see you again sometime,” said Vyolet.

  “I hope so too. We have a lot to teach each other,” replied Mara.

  The Wolfkin hugged Vyolet then climbed back up the steps away from the platform. Vyolet shivered, alone at last. There was no Fortis to talk to her in the silence and no Jyx to hold her hand in the shadows. More importantly, there was no Eufame to back her up if anyone tried to follow her.

  She took a deep breath and melted into the shadows beside the canal. She slipped along the tunnel, skipping through the thick shadow soup above the water. Once or twice she got too close to the lamps and her skin became visible in the dim glow. Her toes dipped in the water and she cursed beneath her breath, moving away from the lights and into the darkest shadows in the middle of the canal.

  It was more difficult at the far end, where the tunnel opened out, and she raced across the main canal in a thin sliver of shadow cast by a tall pole. She only paused for breath when she reached the solid dock on the far side.

  She gave herself a few moments then resumed skipping through the shadows to cover the ground back to the warehouse district. She drew closer to the docks and made her jumps smaller to avoid detection by the guards and dock workers. She spotted two tall hooded figures at the bottom of a street and her heart leapt. Vyolet ran towards them, streaking across open spaces between the shadows to reach Validus and Fortis.

  Vyolet had almost reached them when one of the figures turned towards her. A skeletal face glowed in dim light from a gas lamp and emptiness burned in the eye sockets. Vyolet pulled up short and dived into the shadow cast by the two figures.

  Dreadguards didn’t normally venture into the Underground City. Were they looking for her, or Jyx? Eufame?

  Vyolet’s blood ran cold and she pressed herself against the wall. Death rattles emanated from inside the hoods of the two figures, although she couldn’t make out what they said to one another. They must have tailed her and Eufame this far, but they couldn’t know where the Wolfkin archives were if they were still here in the Warehouse District. Could they see her? Could they peer into shadows?

  “Well, well, what do we have here?” The cruel voice to her left made her jump and Vyolet turned to find herself face to face with a squat man wearing goggles and a DWS sash. The second Dreadguard turned to look in her direction.

  Vyolet pushed herself away from the wall and dived into the nearest shadow. She made her way up the street towards the City, darting through the shadows where the City was at its thinnest. Older Shadowkin could venture into a shadow on one side of the City and come out of another shadow in a different district, and Vyolet wished she knew how to accomplish such a feat. As it was, she couldn’t use shadows as doorways, only corridors, each one connected to the last.

  “I can still see you!” The voice of the DWS agent rang out behind her. Vyolet sneaked a glance over her shoulder. The squat man waddled up the street, though the Dreadguards remained in the ring of light from the gas lamp. Their empty eyes stared up the street at her, and their lack of movement scared Vyolet more than the DWS agent’s pursuit.

  The agent’s goggles removed her advantage of stealth through the shadows, leaving only her advantage of speed. She threw herself into a side street and set off at a run, sprinting along the street. Tenements lined the alley and clean sheets and clothing hung from wires that ran above her head. She ran through the shadows cast by the washing. The curses of the DWS agent made her turn around. Sheets tangled around him, obscuring his face.

  Thankful for laundry day, Vyolet took a right and ran up another side alley. A stitch niggled in her side, and she longed to stop to catch her breath. The cries of the DWS agent far behind her spurred her on, and she only resolved to stop when she knew she’d lost him. She co
uldn’t think about the Dreadguards and what they might do. Did they run? Could they see into the shadows? Maybe they were made from the shadows, the same as she was.

  Vyolet zigzagged through the Warehouse District, spicing up her route by taking left turns instead of right, occasionally heading back down towards the canal and then back up towards the City. She hoped the DWS agent would assume she’d simply gone straight for the City. His cries grew fainter until she could no longer hear him at all.

  She slipped around the corner, streaking from one shadow to another, and slammed into the back of something thick and black, so dark it hurt her eyes to look at it. She looked up into a hood and a death rattle bubbled within its shadows. A skeletal hand grasped her wrist before she could turn and run in the opposite direction. The icy fingers froze her skin and she screamed. She slapped at the freezing white hand, prying at the fingertips, but it burned her to touch them.

  “Let me go!”

  She beat the cloaked arm of the Dreadguard, and it lifted her off the ground. It brought her face towards the black depths of the hood. She kicked at thin air, squealing from the pain in her shoulder as she twisted from its grasp. A patch of shadow lay across the wall to her right, and if she could just reach it, she might be able to slip away.

  “‘Ere! You let ’er go! She’s mine!” The DWS agent appeared on the corner. The second Dreadguard moved towards him, gliding across the cobbles with outstretched hands. The agent ducked under the hands and made a grab for Vyolet’s ankle. His fingers grasped the edge of her boot and he pulled. The Dreadguard swatted at the agent, releasing its grip long enough for Vyolet to kick out with one foot, dislodging the agent’s goggles, and twist herself. She dropped into the shadow.