by Amy B. Nixon
“And alchemists, right?” I shot a wild guess. “Because you mentioned elixirs.”
“No, alchemy is just science. There are elixirs mixed with magic, but that’s a different thing.”
I nodded, pretending I wasn’t baffled by all this information. Suddenly, her eyes lit up, erasing all traces of her exhaustion.
“Will you teach me how to skate after dinner? Please? I could really use a break.”
“Sure.” I smiled happily, sensing relief and self-satisfaction for the first time in what seemed like forever. “Let me just overdose with Norwegian salmon first.”
***
As it turned out, teaching Monika how to skate wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be.
The frozen pond we chose didn’t have any railings, unlike skating rinks in the human world, so she had nothing to hold on to but me. Regardless of how many times I kept telling her to keep her body’s weight on her feet, she kept lurching forward or veering to the side. Pulling her up after each fall was as hard as trying to teach her how to maintain her balance.
After a while, I couldn’t even get back up on my own feet.
I lied on the ice, glancing at the starry skies above me, hoping the few other skaters on the other side of the pond wouldn’t decide to run over us. It was beautiful. I never got to see the stars in San Francisco because of the megapolis’ light pollution. I often saw clouds on the island, but tonight the skies were clear, and the stars illuminated the darkness.
Monika panted, dropping beside me and rubbing her knee.
“I think I’m done for today.”
“We’ll have to get you a penguin,” I laughed out the words, trying to catch my breath.
“What’s a penguin?”
“You know, penguins, polar bears, ice skating figure aids. Haven’t you seen them on rinks?”
I couldn’t hear her response, because I felt a pull right in the middle of my spine, like it came from under me. And in the blink of an eye, I was overtaken by an overwhelming string of sensations.
Freezing waters hit me, sinking into every layer of clothing, tearing through my skin like icy blades, reaching for my bones. They penetrated my mouth, my nose, my lungs, leaving me breathless. Pins and needles struck my flesh as I tried to swim my way to the top, only to discover I was swimming under ice.
My heart rate quickened, bashing against my ribcage, joining forces with the waters that were blocking my airways and making me convulse. I smashed my hands, knees and skates against the icecap, trying to reach the surface where air awaited. But I couldn’t break through.
The banging over my eardrums sped up, outrunning the speed of my hits.
Bang, hit and bang, bang, kick and bang, until there was nothing left but the painful pounding on my ears, lashing against the water’s pressure on the outer side of my eardrums.
With one final swing at the ice, my muscles failed me. The beat dropped and died down, leaving the stage, so the water could sweep in its place and invade my lungs one final time.
The world unraveled in pitch darkness.
***
A rush of air hit me. I bent over, hurling my guts out with the same nauseating feeling I had experienced during my Elemental session. This time I actually barfed, vomiting the water from my lungs and the contents of my stomach – gastric juices with bits of partially processed salmon.
“It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay,” Monika’s voice broke through my uneven coughs.
My heart was galloping again, hammering through my body on the inside, while frozen blades pierced me from the outside.
“Aurora!” Monika cried out. “She’ll die again!”
Something grabbed me, but I could barely feel its weight.
Everything was so cold, benumbing and invigorating at the same time. I could feel my body freezing, yet I couldn’t stop shaking. The fine line between being alive and lifeless was an agonizing paradox, standing right in the middle of two forces that collided with each other, fighting for the ultimate control.
“Aurora, please!”
The spasmodic tremors grew stronger, throwing me from one side to the other, and my brain barely registered a familiar voice.
“Ugh, fine. David, warm her up.”
But I couldn’t see the one she ordered to interfere, because the sensations inside my body overpowered everything around me.
Something crawled in my frozen limbs, something deep down stirred my insides and lit my veins on fire. My heart sped up its beating rhythm, fighting to pump more blood into my stream, fighting to replace the one that was boiling, fighting to keep me alive.
I screamed, giving voice to my pain, when the ruthless thrashing against my chest and ears became unbearable, and the fire inside me reached impossible temperatures.
Then I heard another scream, someone else’s, and it sounded different from mine. Frightened, high-pitched, almost screeching.
I turned my head to the side, trying to catch my breath, but my vision was blocked by a fiery wall. The flames were dancing, blazing in the darkness, reaching for the skies.
Another grotesque scream followed.
Everything became dark again.
***
I woke up in a strange room with dimmed lighting. The wooden ceiling was different from my bedroom’s one. I struggled to sit up in someone else’s bed, surrounded by people.
“You’re in the infirmary,” Monika answered my silent question.
Aurora was standing next to her with some guy I had never seen before. An elder woman, dressed like a nurse in white and blue clothing, was on the other side of the bed. Christof Brühl was on her right.
“What happened?”
“You died,” Aurora drawled, examining her perfect pink manicure.
“I-what?”
The nurse shot Aurora an unamused look, then walked away.
“You drowned,” Monika explained, “and I brought you back, but it looked like you got hypothermia and… Well… I guess your fire element broke out.”
“Congratulations, Dustrikke!” Brühl growled beside me. “You asked what happens next time you lose control. You lost it, and gave Larsen here multiple third degree burns.”
With numb limbs, I launched myself in Monika’s direction, but she smiled. “It’s okay, they already regenerated my skin.”
“One-on-one sessions on Thursday, Dustrikke! Don’t be late!”
My mentor also left the room. Aurora gestured to the door for the unfamiliar boy to leave. “And you too, Monika. Go.”
“But…” Monika bit her lip, looking at me.
“I said go,” Aurora repeated. “Last time I checked, you were still a necromancer-in-learning, not a guardian.”
What the hell was a guardian? Did she mean to say guard?
Monika obeyed silently, walking away. My brain finally grasped the meaning of everything.
I had died.
I had been dead, but all I could remember was darkness. Bleak, black, empty darkness. A void between the world of the living and the afterlife. Closing my eyes, I tried to recall something from it, but there was nothing there.
My eyes opened at the sound of a closing door, and saw Aurora, who was the only one still left in the room.
“What the fuck did you do?” I snarled, scanning her bored expression. “The ice under me didn’t crack; it somehow disappeared and then just reappeared! I was trapped under the icecap, and I know you had something to do with it!”
“Something? I had everything to do with it. David is an Elemental, and a good one, unlike you. I told him to melt the water and refreeze it once you were under the surface.”
“You made me drown!” I shrieked in her face.
Aurora scoffed. “Quit acting so scandalized. You’re making it sound like I was expecting something else to happen by trapping you underwater.”
“Just because your uncle runs the place or because it’s full of necromancers, it doesn’t give you the right to murder someone!”
“The island
belongs to me, so it gives me the right to do whatever I want. When I don’t like someone, I get rid of them. Next time I decide I don’t like you, Monika might not be there to bring you back. In fact, it might be weeks or even months until someone finds your decaying corpse. By then you’d be so unrecognizable, they won’t know whose body they’ve found. If you don’t like it, take it up with Administration. I’m sure they can immediately ship you in a container back to America.”
My mouth fell open.
“You can be excused,” she added, waving her fingers unambiguously.
“Bitch, if you think you can scare me into curtsying to you, you’re picking on the wrong girl!”
“Do you even know how to curtsy? It calls for elegance and refined movements, and you simply lack both.”
“Oh, I’m so going to–”
“The only thing you’ll be doing is going to Administration’s office and asking for a transfer to some place far away from Norwegian soil. Unless you want to die again.”
I jumped off the bed, grunting with the grace of a wild animal, and rushed out of the infirmary. It took me a while to find my way around the castle and reach the central wing, but instead of carrying on to Administration’s office on the first floor, I took the stairs and went back to my bedroom.
Monika was there, picking at her nails and fidgeting around the room in circles.
“I hate her!” I shouted, slamming the door behind me. “I fucking hate her! I’ve never wanted to hit someone so badly in my entire life!”
“Learyn, calm down.”
“Calm down? How can I calm down? I died! I was dead! She ordered someone to kill me, and then… Oh, shit, did I really burn you? What happened?”
“I’m fine, the nurse regenerated my tissue. I brought you back to life as soon as we took you out of the water, but…. Well, you were soaking wet with freezing water, and I didn’t think it through before reviving you. You were shaking, and I thought you were dying from hypothermia, but then you started a fire around yourself and… I was just too close to the flames. But it’s no biggie, really. I’m fine now.”
“I’m so sorry! Fuuuck! This place is fucking insane!”
No matter how many times I repeated it, it didn’t make things any saner.
“Are you sure you haven’t done something to provoke Aurora?”
“Whose side are you on, Monika?”
“I’m just asking. I’ve known her for years. Though she can be a bit bossy and annoying sometimes, she doesn’t really commit murder in her spare time.”
I didn’t reply. I couldn’t even get ecstatic over knowing my second element had broken out, because Aurora had just told me to get the hell out of her castle – after she had murdered me.
I had died. I was dead, then brought back to life.
“Fucking insane,” I repeated, and decided to ironically drown my irritation under the shower.
Echoes And Reverberation
There was an afterlife. Freya and Odin welcomed our souls in their heavenly abodes. Our spirits also lived on, because otherwise necromancers wouldn’t be able to evoke them. So, why had I seen nothing but pitch darkness when I died? Where did I go? Was there a purgatory? Had my subconsciousness traveled to some blank wasteland, a dark void, a waiting room of some sort?
All these questions just added to the pile of reasons screaming why I needed to start attending my scheduled evocation exercises. And so I did, on Wednesday afternoon.
Fortunately, this time there wasn’t a body lying on the table positioned in the middle of the small room.
I had seen Patricia Svensson, the female guard who was supposed to lead my evocation exercises, for a millisecond during my first and only one, when I ran away. She was a tiny woman, whose age was similar to Monika’s mom. I couldn’t tell if she was close to a hundred, passed one-hundred-and-fifty, or if she had just hit her two-hundredth birthday. I had learned necromancers couldn’t suffer from illnesses like common colds, chicken pox, the flu and other nasty things, but what about arthritis, dementia, Parkinson’s and other diseases elderly people experienced?
Svensson approached me slowly. Although she wasn’t phlegmatic, I couldn’t help but think how cruel it was for Freya to bless us with a long lifespan, when it meant suffering from old age for longer, compared to humans.
“Miss Dustrikke,” she greeted me with an acidulous smile. “I see you’ve decided to return at last. It took you long enough. Having in mind your actions spurred rumors with disruptive force, I am elated that you’ve finally come to your senses.”
She claimed to be elated, but her caustic tone spoke otherwise.
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Last time you came here, another woman saw you running away. Rumors of your reaction have spread among necromancers born in non-magical families. Now they’re afraid of evocation, and believe it’s a dreadful practice, because apparently, a descendant of the great Dustrikke bloodline believes so. Moreover, your deeds stirred commotion among some older necromancers. The likes, who’ve always preached how we need to turn our back on our own heritage, because the practice of meddling with postmortem stages is inhumane. Now you have given them an instrument to support their foolish claims.”
“I… what?”
She leaned in, placing her palms on the table, and stared directly into my eyes.
“For centuries, necromancy has been blasphemed as the most atrocious aspect of magic. Humans, sorcerers and other creatures see it as a form of grave robbery and foul debauchery. Such old wives’ tales have influenced even necromancers to refrain from practicing evocation. Your family’s name has always been venerated in supernatural communities. And when a Dustrikke openly rejects the idea of evocation, it doesn’t just raise a few eyebrows. It creates chaos.”
FML! I had screwed up again. What was more, I had even succeeded in dragging my family’s name into my mess. Weighted pressure instantly settled in my chest above the Eitrhals necklace’s pendant. I clutched it to alleviate some of the guilt, vexation and disappointment, which fiercely stormed over me.
I used to think being Leah Dust was hard in the human world, but being Learyn Dustrikke and living up to everyone’s expectations proved to be close to impossible.
“Sorry,” I mumbled quietly, “I didn’t know.”
“I’m sure you didn’t. Speaking of which, you must be present in the castle’s auditorium on Friday evening at eight sharp.”
“Present for what?”
“I’ll gather a group of narrow-minded island residents, who’ve been affected by your actions, in an attempt to talk some sense into them. I want you to attend.”
“You’re not going to make me give speeches, right?”
“Of course not. Actions speak louder than words, Miss Dustrikke, and your unruly actions have spoken eloquently.”
Over the next half an hour, Svensson didn’t make any hints or direct complains about how many problems I created, but my time with her was anything but pleasant.
I learned that every living human or supernatural being was made of three basic fragments – a soul, a spirit and a body. Necromancers could influence these fragments in a postmortem stage. In other words, they could gain control over someone’s corpse, apparition or soul only after said someone had died.
Svensson told me raising people from the dead in their full form meant not only reanimating the corpse, but actually weaving the soul and spirit back into the corporeal shell.
During my exercises with her, I was supposed to learn how to do it step by step, starting with learning how to evoke a spirit. Spirits either remained here, in our world, or they ascended onto a different plane. Then came the next step – evoking a soul from beyond, which usually meant from Freya’s or Odin’s abodes in Asgard. The final step was putting the soul and spirit back into the body, while conducting magical energy from my eitr core and using it as a thread to sew the pieces together.
It all sounded easy and only slightly disturbing, up until Svensson
showed me a pentagram in a circle with some intertwining runic symbols.
So much for Nordstrøm residents not worshipping Satan!
“This is a Spirit Trap,” she explained before I even asked. “It keeps the summoned spirit within its bounds until you banish it. What I want from you is to focus on the face of a deceased friend, relative or another person you’ve known, and call their spirit into the pentagram. Think about the deceased, rid your mind of distractions, and focus on the notion of summoning their spirit. It shouldn’t be hard for a Class Five caster.”
I backed away in my chair.
“Ew!” A groan of disgust tore my chest. “I’m so not disturbing the few dead people I’ve known before they died! By the way, how am I supposed to call a spirit here, when spirits can’t get inside the castle?”
“They can, only if they’re summoned inside such pentagrams. If you don’t wish to summon a familiar spirit, you can choose one from your distant ancestors. Most novices find it easier to evoke a family member. You will find extensive chronicles of the Dustrikke bloodline with portraits and names in the library wing’s Section RA1. As for not disturbing the dead, Miss Dustrikke, please open your ears during the group meeting I’ll be holding on Friday. And don’t be late.”
The second she let me go, I bolted for the exit.
I had trashed rooms, murdered guards, made zombies who attacked innocent people, burned my roommate, and splattered black stains over my Goody Two Shoes family’s praised history. The Council had given me a powerful amulet, because they thought I’d become a soulless freak or I’d attempt to bring a demonic entity here. That blonde bimbo Aurora had threatened to kill me and stash my body somewhere where it wouldn’t be found, right after she had actually killed me.
My family had raised me in hiding from the supernatural world, and now I finally understood why. Someone needed to invent a brand-new word, because “insanity” didn’t begin to cover this madness!
