by Aiden Bates
Too late.
Nix leapt, his head jerking around a split second after he left the earth to look at me in surprise. Rezzek gushed fire.
Ivan’s hand came up. The fire turned black and green, and burst over him, leaving parts of him burning coldly. He moved with impossible speed, driven not by muscle and nerve, but by supernatural will. Rezzek passed him, landing with a snarl and pivoting to attack again.
But Nix, Ivan caught by the throat, jerking him to a stop in mid-air. Nix slashed out, carving furrows across Ivan’s skeletal face.
Ivan’s eyes were on me, though.
He grinned.
I reached out with raw magic, curling the ether to my will, grasping to get my power between Nix and Ivan’s, but even if I had been stronger, I would not have been fast enough.
Ivan’s body collapsed. The protections beneath the weyr shattered like glass, shards of it snapping back along my link to them in a warning, far too late now, that they had been compromised.
Nix dropped to the ground, still.
Rezzek roared, leapt, tore violently at the pile of bone and oozing flesh that had been Ivan only a moment ago, before he turned and lifted Nix’s head in his hand.
I was to them a moment later, falling to my knees by my mate. “Nix?”
I knew it was useless. I knew what had been done. It had happened so fast. It should not have been possible. It was brute force. The way Ivan snapped any trap closed when he knew that the time had come.
And like any prey he pursued, I had charged into it, and taken what was most precious to me along.
25
Mikhail
I spared only the time required to carry Nix’s body to what passed for a hospital in Emberwood. If he had known, he would have objected, I had no doubt.
He lay in his father’s bed, gradually returning to human form. Miral, who was the weyr’s healer, doctor, and everything else, had managed to get the respirator that had been procured at first for Roland’s worse bouts of wasting illness. Small miracles. She was able to get Nix hooked up to it, which would help to keep his body alive.
But without a soul…
I arranged the stones around me, as I had been taught. Already, the council was meeting. Rezzek would join them soon. It was his expectation that they would approve an invitation to the mages of Custodes Lunae. Which was fortunate. I would likely require their aid for what I had to do, even if they were late to that particular party.
“I am not to be disturbed,” I warned both him and Miral. “It will seem as though I am dead, that I am not breathing. You may not hear my heart beating for a long time. I will grow cold to the touch. Even my eyes may appear to cloud. But I am not dead. When I am dead, you will know.”
“How?” Rezzek asked. “If you look, sound, feel, smell dead—”
“Because I will tell you,” I muttered. “Or I will send someone else to tell you if I am unable.”
He and the healer exchanged concerned and skeptical looks. I sighed. “Just… trust me in this. I will retrieve him. We will return. I will… find a way to deal with Ivan.”
“Your brother, Ivan,” Rezzek said.
I sighed. “If it is some consolation in this moment,” I said slowly, “Nix knew of my relationship to him. We… moved through our conflict, and began to approach a resolution. It is our intention to be together. If I can get him back from wherever Ivan took him to.”
“Which would be?” he pressed.
I gave him a patient look—but only just. “A very long way away if they get much more of a head start.”
He put his hands up. “Yeah. Okay. We’ll sort it out after, just… just get him back. I’ll manage the council, get Vilar to push the vote. If I need to—well, we follow the Old Codes. I’ll just oust whoever doesn’t agree.”
“Nix would not want further bloodshed,” I warned him. “He did not wish to challenge Roland even. I do not know why he did at all.”
“No?” Rezzek wondered. “That’s easy. Roland threatened you. It’s the only thing that would have made Nix stand up to him, even kill him.”
I did not know what to think of that. Perhaps Nix would resent me when he returned. It was difficult to say. It was as though I had taken everything from him. His brother, now his father. Was I enough to replace what had been taken?
“I will go,” I said softly, and adjusted the last bone. Before, I had dropped into the etheric plane more or less on instinct, seeking Gabby. This… this was different. It was doubtless beyond the etheric, and it was a controlled dive. Still very dangerous, still limited by time. And while I would be holding my breath, after a manner of speaking, I suspected that Ivan breathed the water of the underworld like a fish. “If I am not awake in two days… I have failed. Urge Master Laryn to be swift. Tell him that I went. Tell him…” What I wanted was for him to join me. To protect me. But Ivan was potentially too powerful for even the two of us to manage. But he had fled to the underworld. And I thought that I knew why he would do this. “Tell him that I will need a great many friends. He will know.”
Rezzek gave a nod, then bent to kiss Nix’s forehead, before he came to me and rested a hand on my shoulder, wordless. He left the room. Miral studied me with interest and fear, then checked the respirator, and hurried out as well.
It was not necessary to take a deep breath. I was not really diving into the ocean. But it certainly felt like it, and so I did, as I cleared my mind, pulled at the ether, and gradually released each part of my body until, at last, I slipped free of it.
In the near ether, I could see my own body, and Nix’s. I could see, also, a faint silver cord stretched impossibly thin, so that it was almost like a strand of spider’s silk. I drifted toward it, ran my spectral fingers along it, and looked back to my body, where the arrangement of stones and bones and bits of clay and wood—life and death mixed together in harmonious arrangement—now encircled a yawning void alive with whispers and sighing. I took hold of Nix’s cord, and drifted back to the opening. I steeled my will, and sank into it, the thread which would lead me to my mate grasped lightly between my fingers.
Descent into the underworld is an unsettling experience the first time. And again the second time. And… it doesn’t really get better the more you do it. The world of life calls to the errant soul, begging it to return. That is even more true when the soul is technically still alive. But it is this same call which at times manages to convince the recently dead to cling to life. They listen, and follow, and try to reach but never can. Life, in a way, is cruel for this. It makes promises that it cannot fulfill, indiscriminately, to all that would listen.
Death makes no such promises. It does not call. It has no need. Descent into the underworld is a slow fall from all that is, into that which consumes whatever no longer can be. The sense of smell is first. Perhaps because it is most strongly tied to memory, and death strips away memory in preparation of removing the desire to return. It is disconcerting, and unexpected. Even for a human, sense of smell is all pervasive until it is gone. The world seems to lose depth.
Taste is next, and then sight, and then touch, and finally hearing, when one is too far from the world of life for that urgent call to reach. Each one taken away as a soul passes through ever deeper layers of the ether, toward the true gate to the underworld.
That is what is truly terrifying. Every necromancer must one day pass this gate. Well—every necromancer will pass it at least twice. But, the first time must be intentional. And like all the times before, I screamed with a voice silenced, thrashed a body no longer able to feel, and instinctively longed to hear the song of the world of life again, to be welcomed back to warmth and light.
Here, the soul of the dead is forever consigned to the depths.
For a necromancer, it is a little different.
I held the cord, though I could not feel it in my fingers now, and followed it beyond the gate of death into the first realm. I was given back not my own sense of hearing, but a sense of hearing. The sound was dif
ferent here. Not a song, not even a whisper. A quiet hum, barely audible, ever present. The task of the necromancer is to ignore the sound, and continue to travel. The task of the dying soul is to follow the sound as a guide to where they must ultimately arrive.
In the next layer I was given back the sense of touch, so that I could feel the cold of the Great River as it washed over me, its current plucking at my memories, at my ego, attempting to wear me down as the rivers of life wear down stones. Here, a soul is cleansed, and perhaps also eased into their new world.
In the next level, my sight was returned, but not the sight of the mortal world. Rather, my eyes adjusted to a lightless depth where all things were shadow, but those shadows yet had shape and texture, and they moved, ushering me along as they ushered all the newly washed souls.
I traveled on still, until my sense of taste was given back to me, changed as the other senses were, so that all I tasted was dust and ash. Mortal souls were enticed or punished here, with sweetness or bitterness according to the state of their soul, which has little to do with righteousness or evil, but with how the soul was used in life. To love or to hate; create or destroy; to liberate or enslave. These are the wages of the world of the dead. To an outsider, though—dust and ash. Bland, unenticing—encouragement to turn back, and leave the dead to themselves.
Smell is the last sense to be returned. With it comes only those memories which are sweetest or most foul, again according to the ledger of the soul. For me, who did not belong in this place, it was still more ash, a stale musk that pervaded everything.
Here at last, my feet touched a dry and cracked ground. I hoped that when I came here at the end, it would be lush grass instead. With an effort of will, I could make it so. Even go to Elysium and see if Gabby had made it there.
But I held Nix’s cord in my hand. And this is where it had led me. And that it led me anywhere at all meant that most likely Ivan kept him whole instead of devouring him in order to lure me here.
Why my brother held such contempt for me, I did not know. But it was palpable this deep. He had made a domain for himself in the underworld. A root to his power, perhaps because having his roots in the world of life had failed him. We were not in Tartarus, though—that place, I had seen before.
This was an endless desolation, a purgatory, and perhaps some sublevel of that place, where he found the opportunity he needed to establish a stronghold. Whatever the circumstances were, I began walking, following the thread to Nix’s soul.
Time means nothing in the underworld. Distance is of little consequence. It is intention which moves these things, and necessity. I had a great necessity, and a powerful intention, and so it was only a few steps before, as if it had been there always, a great temple loomed up before me. The silver thread in my fingers led into the great, toothy maw of the place, which yawned wide and tall like some slain beast that still hungered.
I held Nix’s cord tightly in my hand, and did what I could to prepare myself for what awaited. Doubtless, I could not predict it.
But if there was an advantage to meeting Ivan here, in the underworld, it was that this was a place where the ledger of the soul held tangible meaning. I was whole here, mostly. Here than there, my moments of pettiness were written. But so were written my loves, my sacrifices, my striving to be better than him, to correct what terrible sins he had wrought on the world. I did not look at these very closely. To do so, Master Laryn warned often, was to invite a madness that would stay with a necromancer until the day when the ledger would be balanced.
Instead, I kept my eyes on the entrance to this temple of death he had built here, and took the steps one at a time, holding tight to my resolve. I would need every ounce of it, I had no doubt.
26
Nix
It had all happened so quickly that by the time the chapel-like construct of bones and screaming souls that writhed around them appeared, I didn’t know what was happening, where I was, even who I was. It came back, gradually, as I sat at the center of this place, struggling to make sense of senses that were wrong, and a place that felt as if it were somehow inside out.
For minutes or eons, I tried to remind myself of something that was just out of reach, a word on the tip of my tongue.
That is, until he returned.
Ivan cocked his head at me, his face sunken, his eyes almost hollow, his hair stringy and sparse. He tapped a thin, almost bone-like finger against his chin, considering, and then gave a shrug and tapped me in the center of my forehead.
As if a curtain had been drawn aside, I knew my name, where I was, who he was, where I had been—everything. My senses still didn’t function the way they were meant to. They were dull, for a start. And I couldn’t feel my dragon.
“You have questions,” Ivan mused. “I’m an old hat at this by now, as you might imagine. Your brother came here once.”
I tried to rise, or to shout at him, but my mouth wouldn’t respond and my muscles wouldn’t obey.
He shook his head and began to pace back and forth in front of me. “Little brother didn’t tell you much, did he? We’re a secretive lot, necromancers. You’re not a body here. You’re a soul. And souls are under the domain of necromantic magic—hence, you move when I tell you, speak when I tell you, do basically anything when I tell you. Easy enough? Now let us see… your dragon is a part of your terrestrial body, not really an aspect of your soul. You may look like yourself, but that’s more a habit than a fundamental truth. So no shifting, no claws, no fire… no hope, is what I’m getting at.”
He paused, turned toward me and looked me over. “So. You fucked my little brother. How was it? I always wondered. Figured he’d squirm a lot, probably scream, make a fuss. He was always like that.”
It wasn’t even a struggle to speak; the parts that should have done it for me just didn’t.
“I can tell when you do that,” Ivan said softly. “It’s like a… flutter. Pendrig used to do it constantly. You know that he never gave up struggling. No matter what I did to him—and I did a lot—he always thought that maybe this time was the time he could somehow break free, somehow utter a single word, blink, move a toe, or some such.”
He came closer, examining me. He knelt and ran a hand over my arm. His touch felt grainy, like sandpaper. “Pristine,” he murmured. “I’ll bet there’s a sin on you somewhere. After all, you did murder your own father. Cold, that. Hm. Practically pure-hearted. That’s good. Down here, that’s worth something, you know. Not like it is up there.”
When he moved in front of me, and leaned close, and pointed to his eyebrow, my eyes moved on their own to look closely at his skin. “You see these?” he asked.
It was impossibly fine writing, but not in any letters I knew. The dull patina that covered his skin wasn’t a pallor. It was millions, maybe billions, of tiny letters.
“If you could read them,” he whispered, “they would drive you mad. I’ve devoted my life to learning that language. I’m not exactly fluent, but… I’m getting there. There’s a rumor around here, you see, that it’s the first language.”
He stood again, and ruffled my hair like I was some pet, or a child in his care, before he paced away, and gave a long, impatient sigh. “For fuck’s sake…” he whirled on me. “You know he was always Master Laryn’s favorite? And for this.” He waved his hands at the creepy fucking church parody. “He’s not even here yet. You know how old I was when I first made my descent? Twelve. And I did it in record time. I was brilliant. I was destined for greatness. I put prodigies to shame. I was the pride of the cabal, and rightfully so. I learned faster, I had more power, fewer reservations. I was supposed to lead all of them to greatness, and I would have, if they’d just…”
Something was happening to him. His whole form seemed to… vibrate.
He calmed, maybe, and the vibration calmed with him. “Sorry,” he said cheerfully. “Easy to dwell on things down here. There isn’t much else to do. Even in Elysium, it’s just… frolicking and smelling the same flower
a trillion times for all eternity like some damned goldfish in a bowl, excited by the same castle over and over again until they die. Except here, you don’t. You just become one thing. That’s what death is, you know. If you want the horrifying truth of it. It’s a reduction. You start as something brilliant and complex and full of needs and desires and dreams and potential, and this place… this place just boils you down, and down and down… until you’re just one thing. A waste. That’s what everyone is, in the end.”
I didn’t know whether it was being dead that did it to him, or if he had always been like this, but he was clearly unhinged now. He rambled on more about the unfairness of death, and the universe, and the cosmos, and the gods and their apparent apathy toward it all, but I could barely keep track of it, and began to wonder if the underworld really was just an eternity of listening to an insane person talk in circles.
Eventually, though, he appeared to get bored. He folded his bony arms over his chest, and stared at me. “Fuck. It gets boring fast here. You may as well speak. It’ll pass the time.”
I had the use of my mouth, as simple as that, but now that I could speak… I didn’t want to.
Ivan stalked toward me. “I said,” he whispered, and pointed at my mouth, “speak.”
“My mate is coming for me,” I said, without thinking, without forming the words in my mind first. “And the two of us will make sure that you are reduced to a lot less than one thing. He’s bringing others with him. Maybe you can fight one mage, but you can’t fight them all, Ivan. Just like you couldn’t fight us. We didn’t even have magic, couldn’t even hurt you like that, but we still found you and burned you and sent you here. And this time—”
He waved a hand, and I stopped.
“Hades, it's better when you’re not talking. But we could have a lot of time to kill—not that there’s time here, or that killing means anything.” He grinned, his teeth covered in the same layers of script as the rest of him. “I could do anything to you that I like down here. I got extremely creative before, with Pendrig. Did you know I brought him with me? Mm. Stowed him in a little cubby until I was released. Then—my, but I had fun with him.”
