A Whisper of Death

by Paul Barrett

  “I am the owner’s son. I’m also now the owner.” Erick’s voice choked despite his efforts to control it.

  Carn hesitated and looked at Fathen, who shrugged. Carn turned to the manor. “Darric is dead?”

  “You know that both my parents are gone. They leapt to their deaths a month ago, driven insane by isolation and hatred: hatred created and fed by your beloved priest. I guess you hoped I would go with them, but since I didn’t, you’ve come to help the hell-spawn cleric finish the job.”

  Fathen stepped forward, his long stride putting him beside Carn in two steps. His sun-colored robes threw the mayor’s drab shape into deeper shadow. “The law of the Temple makes it clear the Necromancers are sacrosanct,” Fathen shouted, his voice more imposing than Carn’s. “I have never preached hatred or violence toward the name of Darvaul. As for you, I was not aware of your existence.”

  “You’re aware of it now,” Erick said. “I am Erick Darvaul, son of Darric and Olena. And you lie, so-called priest. I know well that you speak against my parents every chance you get. You forbid all in the town to approach the manor. You tell them we will absorb their souls and make them our thralls.”

  Surprise flared across the priest’s angular face. He no doubt wondered how Erick came across such knowledge. “It is true I warn people away from this hill, but it was not my idea.”

  “Then whose was it?”

  “Your father’s. Twenty years ago, he demanded no one in the town approach the manor, on pain of death.”

  Erick’s vision blurred; Blink recoiled from the pain within his master. “More lies! My father died because he longed for the town’s friendship.”

  “If he desired the town’s friendship, why did he not come to us?” Fathen asked.

  “He knew it would be his death.”

  The priest shrugged. “It appears that was the outcome anyway.”

  Erick’s eyes narrowed. The past month’s pain and grief, ignited by Fathen’s haughty comment, fused into rage. He didn’t care about the rest of the town, but the priest had to die. “Quana, quas alang de Caros!”

  “We obey,” Javer said, and the others echoed the words, setting up a chorus of assent. They slammed against the gateway, forty undead smashing into the iron as one. The lock snapped. The gates flew outward. The edge caught a guard and knocked him to the ground.

  Panic rippled through the crowd. The screaming villagers turned and fled. Several dropped their torches, where the dewy grass extinguished the flames.

  The guards surrounded Carn and began a swift retreat, carrying the lame mayor. Fathen backed away, his face pale as he muttered prayers and threw useless gestures of protection toward the quana.

  In the midst of the chaos, one person did not flee. A petite girl with long ebony hair walked toward the advancing creatures. A boy, taller but younger, his hair cut in the side-shaved manner of a scholar, tugged at her dark brown tunic. Erick recognized his friend Corby. Then the girl had to be his cousin, Elissia.

  Elissia shrugged Corby away and put herself in the path of the oncoming priquana. She stared at Erick, ignoring the certain death ten feet away.

  “Stop it!” she shouted, her commanding voice cutting above the crowd. “We didn’t come to destroy you; we came to ask for your help.”

  2

  I often wonder how different things might have been had I persuaded the leaders of Draymed to approach Erick differently. I have no doubt much sorrow would have been avoided in the short term, but it might have been at the loss of a dear friend, and ultimately the destruction of Krinnik.

  -Excerpt from The Journey to Twr Krinnik by Corberin of Draymed

  Stunned to see her in more than his imagination, Erick almost didn’t react in time. The quana had hands outstretched, reaching for her throat, before he yelled, “Quana, alar!”

  She never flinched.

  Using Blink’s superior night vision, he studied her, delighted at how much she matched Corby’s description. She was Erick’s age, and he could easily make out the mounds of her round breasts under her dark tunic. Her delicate but firm face offered a defiant stare, small nose wrinkled and lips pressed tight. Raven hair absorbed the torchlight, making her olive skin shine.

  Something about her stance, fearless while those around her fled, struck deep inside Erick. Loneliness washed over him, a sense of how much he had lost with his parents’ death. She’s even more beautiful than Corby said.

  Blink rolled his large eyes. Yes, she is, but she’s also stupid. She should have run.

  She’s not stupid; she’s brave.

  Thin line.

  Corby stood ten feet behind her, dressed in a rumpled brown tunic and pants, a haversack slung over one shoulder. Terror radiated through his pale, freckled face as he stood on the balls of his feet, ready to run.

  The fleeing townspeople noticed the immobile quana. Their panicked run slowed to a stop, and they huddled a safe distance away. The guards took up protective stances around the mayor. The pounding surf echoed from far below.

  Fascination with Elissia tempered Erick’s anger. “My help? How can you have the nerve after what you’ve done to my family? To me?”

  “I haven’t done anything to you or your family,” Elissia said. “I was told evil people lived here. It would be my life if I strayed too near.”

  “Lies told by the priest.”

  “They are not lies,” Fathen shouted. He strode forward until he stood behind Elissia, towering over her. “You are evil.”

  “What evil have we done? We speak to the dead and comfort them. We answer their questions about the living. We—”

  “You raise them from their graves and draw their souls from heaven,” Fathen accused. “It is blasphemy!”

  “The Gods gave their blessing to the Covenant,” Erick said. “As you well know, priest!”

  Elissia glared at Fathen over her shoulder. Her voice dropped but, still connected to Blink, Erick heard as if she stood beside him. “Are you trying to provoke him into killing us? Go back to where you were hiding and shut up.”

  Fathen returned her fierce gaze. “You can’t speak to me like that!”

  Her voice rose. “If you’re going to use me as a shield and hurl insults, I’ll speak to you any damn way I please. You’re not helping, so stay quiet.”

  Gasps and mutters of astonishment rose from the crowd, while Erick’s laughter rolled off the balcony.

  Brannon stepped away from the mayor and walked toward Fathen. He wore the same garb as his men, but a pin on his tabard, a cluster of three silver roses, marked him as a captain. “Elissia speaks the truth. We face a threat far greater than this boy, and we need his help. It’s time to put aside your prejudice. His actions prove he is not entirely evil.”

  “How is that?” Fathen said. “He sent his creatures to attack us.”

  “Only after we mobbed him with torches in the middle of the night,” Elissia said. She wrinkled her nose at the motionless quana. “They may stink, but we’re still alive.”

  With a snort, Fathen said, “That proves only he didn’t want to kill a beautiful girl. Perhaps he has other ideas for you.”

  Erick stepped back as a shock ran through his body. It was as if Fathen could read his thoughts, an unnerving idea.

  Brannon drew his sword and placed it on the ground. He grabbed the priest by the arm. More gasps came from the crowd.

  Carn thumped his cane. “Brannon, unhand him. You risk the wrath of Caros on all of us.”

  “I risk nothing worse than what has befallen us these past three nights. If the priest is true to his faith, he will do what he must, not what he wants.”

  As Brannon walked toward the gate, Fathen struggled to escape. Although he stood a foot taller than the commander, he could not wrestle away from the soldier’s grasp. Brannon twisted Fathen’s arm. The priest squawked in pain and ceased resisting.

  “Let him go,” a young man, standing in a cluster of yellow-robed men, shouted.

  Brannon pushed past
the quana, Fathen in front, until they stood at the threshold of the gate. “Erick Darvaul, I am Captain Brannon, commander of the Royal Guardians assigned to this outpost. I am a soldier sworn to the warrior goddess Sangara. As such, I have taken a vow to speak no falsehoods. To my knowledge, no villager knew of your parents’ death. That is not why we stand before you. Fathen has spoken ill of your family. His motives for this are unknown to me. But in the ten years I’ve known him, he has never called for violence, only avoidance.

  “The whole town has been taught that evil resides within the manor and our lives would be forfeit if we approached. We are here now, and it is within your power to kill us and prove Fathen correct or to spare us and hear our request for aid. If you believe my words ill-spoken, then attack. I will not resist–”

  Fathen tried to struggle away, but Brannon applied more pressure to the priest’s arm, and he stopped with a grimace.

  “Leave him alone!” the yellow-robed man shouted, stepping into the torchlight. A scar ran a ragged weal under his right eye to the center of his upper lip. The five similarly dressed men surged forward as if they would attack the commander.

  “Sergeant, detain the acolytes,” Brannon commanded. “They speak above their station.”

  The sergeant turned to face the quintet, hand on his sword. The acolytes stopped, but remained in a cluster, shoulders hunched and faces tight.

  Brannon returned his attention to Erick. “As I said, I will not resist. But if you feel perhaps both you and the town have been living under a misunderstanding, then forestall your vengeance and listen to our plight.”

  Erick studied the people through Blink’s eyes. He tried to read the intention behind their faces in the crowd, but he kept coming back to Elissia. A beautiful name for a beautiful girl. She stared at him, hands on hips, eyes defiant.

  What do you think?

  I’ve already told you. Blink thought. She’s very pretty.

  I mean about the town, Erick shot back in annoyance.

  I don’t know. If Brannon’s telling the truth that means your father lied. Why would he do that?

  Erick’s whole world suddenly made no sense. His parents, his only source of human contact for seventeen years, were dead by their own hand. The townspeople--enemies full of hatred, according to his father--stood before him begging for his aid against something terrifying enough to drive them to seek him in the middle of the night.

  An urge to do as Brannon suggested swept through Erick. He would kill the captain. Kill the whole town, save Elissia, who he would keep as payment for the loss of his parents, and Corby, for his bravery in approaching the terrifying manor on the hill.

  That’s the Elonsha, not you, Blink warned.

  Erick nodded. You’re right. Thank you.

  Just doing my job, Blink thought.

  Erick nodded. He was susceptible to his power’s evil in his emotionally fragile condition, and it heartened him to have Blink stand vigil over him.

  He stared at the crowd, tired of it all. He didn’t hate these people. He couldn’t hate people he didn’t know. They reviled him out of fear because they had been told he should be feared. And they hadn’t killed his parents, no matter how much Erick wanted to believe it. His parents had killed themselves, for reasons Erick couldn’t fathom. He had spent a month trying to figure that puzzle out, with no success.

  Blink made a wonderful companion, but with his parents gone, Erick longed for contact with living people. His conversations with Corby had brightened Erick’s days before his parents had died and he had refused to see his new friend.

  Erick didn’t want to spend his life with his mother’s books as his only connection to the world outside his walls, and the dead, ageless and unchanging, as his only companionship within. The townspeople needed him.

  And, it surprised him to realize, he needed them.

  Brannon stood fearlessly amidst forty undead, holding Fathen, whose eyes gleamed with terror even as his sallow face radiated hatred.

  “Quana, zacam!” Erick shouted. Fathen flinched as the creatures moved, but this time they retreated.

  When his undead stood twenty feet back, Erick halted them and shouted to Carn. “Come to the manor. I’ll listen and help if I can.”

  A smile broke across Elissia’s face and burned into Erick’s heart.

  Carn limped forward, steadying himself with his cane. A guard tried to stop him, but Carn whacked him with the knotted wooden pole and continued through the gate. Brannon followed behind the mayor, dragging Fathen along. The priest, pale and sweating, eyed the quana as the group moved toward the manor.

  Erick sent Blink inside. The familiar soon returned with the bedroom lantern.

  The trio had walked halfway across the yard when a cold shiver broke over Erick. The overwhelming stench of onions filled the air, and Blink reeled back.

  A second later, a pale form leapt from the shadows and landed amidst the gathered villagers.

  “Run,” someone shouted.

  It was a vampire. Erick’s world tilted at the implications brought by the creature’s appearance.

  People scattered, screaming. The vampire looked up; its watery yellow eyes locked with Erick’s. Even at the hundred-foot distance, Erick recognized his father’s face.

  3

  The necromancers are, despite Fathen’s assertions, exceedingly ordinary, in as far as I can see from my hidden perch. Those they work with no longer live, but once I moved past the feeling of disconcert such an observation brought, I found their routine of manor chores fascinating in its very banality. The family consists of a man, woman, and young man certainly no more than two years my senior, along with some winged creature with which I’m unfamiliar. Rather than conjuring demons from hell or screaming blasphemies to the sky, they occupied their day with farming, manor maintenance, and care of livestock. Hardly the frightening beasts the priest has made them out to be.

  -From the journal of Corberin of Draymed.

  Erick stumbled backward and almost tripped over Blink. Malevolence radiated from the creature’s soulless eyes and leering face. Loss ripped through Erick as he stared at the bald, pale-skinned thing his father had become. His teeth had sharpened, his hands elongated into claws. Tattered brown clothing, wet and glistening with algae, spoke of a watery grave. Blink let out a wail, and a sob caught in Erick’s throat. He saw all undead as they appeared before death, but this ghoul was a mockery of his father, created from the deepest well of Elonsha. An aura of solid black surrounded it.

  “How?” Erick asked in a choked whisper.

  The vampire hissed, leapt at an old man hobbled by bad knees, and sliced open the elder’s neck with sand-encrusted claws. Blood sprayed in an arc, splashing those who ran nearby. The villager stumbled a few steps before he collapsed. The vampire licked blood off its pale fingers and lunged for the next victim, a young girl who stood frozen and whimpering.

  “Draw your weapons,” Brannon yelled, rushing across the yard as he reached for a sword no longer at his side; it still rested outside the gate.

  Guards dashed toward the monster. One of them placed himself between the girl and the beast. His sword thrust caught the vampire in the stomach, sliding through the mushy skin until it protruded from the creature’s back with a pop.

  The monster snarled, grabbed the soldier’s neck, and twisted. Bones snapped. The body fell. The creature searched for the young girl, but the guard’s bravery had given the mother time to grab her child and flee. The monster withdrew the blade and flung it away; the bloodless wound closed instantly.

  The other guardsmen moved in. One slammed his sword into the creature’s arm. Despite the severing fury of the blow, the blade bit shallow, the Elonsha absorbing the force. The vampire gave an irritated hiss. A backhand snapped the soldier’s ribs and sent him sprawling. The guard screamed and clutched his injured chest.

  Erick stood paralyzed; the appearance of his father in this form shattered coherent thought. He witnessed the carnage but could not w
ill himself to move. Blink tugged at his pants.

  Do SOMETHING!

  Erick staggered back as his familiar’s mental slap broke the paralysis. He turned and ran inside.

  “Help us!” Elissia screamed.

  “I’m going to,” he said, knowing a valiant death would probably be his only accomplishment. He stopped and returned to the balcony with a curse. If Brannon and his men tried to fight, the vampire would kill them before Erick could prepare an offense. The soldiers had no weapons to deter this creature. The prayers Fathen screamed as the vampire stalked them would hinder it even less.

  “Brannon, get your men away,” Erick shouted at the guard captain, who had reached the gate and retrieved his sword. Erick looked at his servants. “Quana, zacare mahornila!”

  The undead lurched forward, advancing on the vampire as the soldiers withdrew. Brannon and another guard stooped to pick up their comrade with the broken ribs. The vampire snarled at the shambling undead.

  Erick spotted Carn and Fathen, who stood in the yard. The villagers retreated down the hill, except Elissia. She ran toward the manor with Corby beside her.

  “Get inside,” Erick yelled. “I’ll be right there.”

  He turned and ran through his parents’ bedroom and down the hall, Blink on his heels. At the broad stairway, he descended the polished wooden steps two at a time while Blink flew ahead of him.

  “Open the front door and let me know what’s going on.” He ran into a side hallway, flung open a small mahogany door, and moved as fast as he dared down the dark, narrow stone steps. He took them one at a time, putting his hands on either side against the cool brick wall.

  At the bottom, he ran across the laboratory, the stone floor icy against his feet. Moonlight shone through a small window high in the wall. Erick knew the lab well, and he needed only that dim illumination to navigate around the numerous jar- and implement-filled tables.

  Erick grabbed a rack of vials and pulled jars from the wall, thankful he knew the location of everything. What’s happening?