The Death of the Necromancer

by Martha Wells

  "You’ll have to carry him alone," Madeline told him. "I’ve got to hold on to this thing."

  Halle was already lifting Ronsarde, dragging one limp arm across his shoulders and pulling him upright. It was only the two of them, she saw. No Nicholas, no Arisilde. "Have you seen the others?" she asked.

  Halle half-carried, half-dragged Ronsarde to the doorway and Madeline stepped back out of his way and cast the torch aside. They didn’t need it and she didn’t have any spare hands. Halle said, "Your man Crack was with us—"

  "We found Crack; there’s a catacomb above here and he was in it. We sent him back for help. I hope he’s found his way out by now." I hope Nicholas isn’t dead. And what did Macob do with Arisilde? There was no time for speculation. She climbed up onto her rock step and took Ronsarde’s free arm.

  With Halle pushing and her pulling, they managed to get him up onto the first ledge. Madeline looked up at the walkway unhappily. She could make it and Halle could on his own, but. . . . But we’re not giving up now. She grabbed one of the balusters and swung up, ignoring the ominous crack from the stone and the wrenching pain in her arm. She reached down for the Inspector and caught movement out of the corner of her eye. Ghouls, several of them, leaping from roof to roof across the sea of crypts. And something else behind them, something dark, its form impossible to discern in the half-light.

  Halle followed her arrested gaze and swore, loudly. Ronsarde picked that moment to come back to consciousness. He straightened in Halle’s grasp and said, "What the devil?"

  "Climb," Halle ordered succinctly. "Then run."

  Ronsarde didn’t argue, only reached up for Madeline’s hand. She braced her feet and leaned back and in another moment he was scrambling up beside her. His breathing sounded labored and harsh but there was nothing they could do for him now. Madeline got to her feet and helped him stand as Halle climbed up beside them. "That way." She pointed toward the catacomb. "Hurry."

  Halle caught Ronsarde’s arm and hurried. Madeline followed, not taking her eyes off the approaching ghouls.

  The creatures had stopped on the roof of the nearest crypt, watching them with those staring eyes but not coming any closer. Their terror of the sphere was gratifying but the dark thing that her eyes just couldn’t seem to focus on was still coming, flowing over the rooftops toward her, sometimes like an airy mist, sometimes like something far more solid and ominous.

  They reached the gap in the walkway and Halle got Ronsarde across with difficulty. Madeline almost stepped backward into it, but her boot caught the edge and she recovered with effort, then turned and jumped across.

  It had slowed them down but it didn’t stop their pursuer. The dark thing vas on the walkway now. A glimpse back showed Madeline its motion was more halting and jerky now, more like a man running. The sphere under her arm was ominously quiet. If it can’t stop that thing we’re dead, she thought desperately.

  They reached the entrance to the catacomb. Madeline caught Ronsarde’s other arm and helped Halle pull him up the broken steps. She stumbled, barking her shins on the stone and barely noticing. The thing was almost on them; its proximity made her skin itch. She gave Halle a shove and shouted, "Keep going."

  She swung around in time to watch it cross the balcony and start up the steps toward her. It was a man now, she could see his shape in the obscuring cloud of shadow and firefly flickers of light. The sphere was silent in her arms. It wasn’t going to help them. He was on the top step a hand’s breadth away and she could see his face. An old man’s face, but hideous with greed and somehow inhuman, like a death mask.

  Then Madeline felt a concussion, and there was a searing white light. She blinked and found herself sitting on the step, staring at the cave of crypts, and everything was rippling like a hot stone-paved street on an intense summer day.

  The man was nowhere to be seen. Then an instant later her eyes found that unnaturally dark blot of shadow and mist, tumbling back across the crypts, a leaf in a windstorm.

  The sphere in her hands was hot and trembling a little.

  Sense returned to her and she staggered to her feet and ran after Halle and Ronsarde.

  The slope was steeper than Nicholas thought and he couldn’t control his descent. He half-tumbled to land hard on a shelf of rock. He blinked dirt out of his eyes and managed to push himself up, feeling bruised and battered muscles protest. He squinted up the slope toward the narrow opening at the top but the ghouls didn’t seem to be pitching down after him.

  He was on a ledge hanging above a deep, shadowed pit with sloped sides. There was ghost-lichen here, just enough to see by. The walls were rough stone, pocked with irregular cracks and fissures, and a pool of foul-smelling water had collected in the bottom. It was either the dim, unnatural quality of the ghost-light or his blurry vision, but the dimensions of the pit were hard to judge and a fold in the rock cut off his view of a section of it. There was a crack in the wall nearby that seemed to open into a deeper fissure. He kept an eye on it warily as he staggered to his feet. It was the perfect lurking spot for ghouls or revenants . . .

  The wall just above him was too steep to climb and he started to make his way along the ledge to where the slope wasn’t so dramatic. There seemed to be an inordinate amount of debris from the catacomb down here. He stumbled on a pile of bones and disturbed a ragged heap of detritus that gave off an odor so sickly sweet it made him gag.

  There was a scrabbling above him, then a shower of pebbles rained down the slope as a revenant burst out of a crack and barrelled straight for him. Nicholas reached for his pistol before he remembered it was empty. He flung himself back against the wall and grabbed up a rock. He had time to see the creature was an old revenant, its features distorted until they were barely recognizable as human, its clothing in rags, then it raced straight past him and flung itself into the deeper crevice he had noted earlier.

  Nicholas stared after it, his brows drawing together. That. . . was not a good sign.

  Down in the pit below he heard a shifting, something heavy moving and grating against the stone. Nicholas hesitated, but an awkward scramble across the ledge would just make him more of a target. It was better to face whatever it was here with the wall at his back. Then it growled.

  It was a low rumble, sounding more like rock grinding but with an animal tone to it that was unmistakable. The sound reverberated throughout the pit like a distant underground train. That isn’t a ghoul, or a revenant. Nicholas sank back against the wall and held his breath.

  Something stirred below, creeping out of the deep shadow. At first it blended in against the mottled surface of the rock, then he made out something vaguely like a human head with patchy gray-green flesh. There was a scrambling in the rocks above him and Nicholas twitched minutely before he caught himself. He stayed motionless even when chips of rock and bone rained down on him. Then he saw a revenant burst from cover on the ledge above and skitter down the slope.

  The thing below moved in a blur, suddenly resolving into a recognizably human shape. Its skin was horribly discolored and gaped open in places to reveal bare yellowed bone. Nicholas thought it was a larger version of the revenants until it started to climb the slope toward the one that was trying desperately to escape.

  Seen in perspective it was far larger than any human, perhaps twenty feet tall. Moving with an uncanny swiftness, it climbed the rocky slope and snatched the revenant. What Nicholas had seen before was the bare crown of its head and it had been standing further down in the pit than he had thought. Its skull still bore ragged remnants of hair and it wore rusted chains wrapped around its upper body. The revenant had barely time for one shriek of terror before the thing tore it apart.

  Slowly, Nicholas started to edge backward toward the fissure in the rock wall. It might be a dead end and teeming with revenants but it was too small for that thing to fit into. It had to be another dead fay, like the one Macob had used for the Sending. Perhaps buried in the catacomb, long forgotten beneath the present-day city’s
foundations.

  It was eating the revenant, or trying to. It doesn’t realize it’s dead, Nicholas thought. The sight would sicken him if fear hadn’t already overridden every other emotion. He reached the end of the ledge and eased himself carefully to his feet.

  It turned suddenly as if it had heard him. The one remaining eye seemed to be staring directly at him, though it was covered with a heavy white film; the other eye was an empty socket surrounded by bare skull. The mouth was open, revealing jagged teeth and the decaying lips were curled in a snarl. Nicholas leapt for the next ledge.

  He heard it behind him as he landed and he swarmed up the jagged rocks. He felt a tug at his coat just as he reached the lip of the crevice and threw himself forward. The coat ripped and he rolled down over rough rock and foul-smelling debris. The thwarted roar of rage echoed down the narrow passage.

  Nicholas crawled several yards further down before he looked back.

  It was digging at the edges of the fissure and pounding the stone, furious at losing its prey. The thing’s face was even worse at close view, the dead tattered flesh revealing the bone beneath and the teeth jagged yellowed daggers. He could see the wound that must have killed it the first time, a gaping hole in the side of the skull that looked as if it had been made by a cannonball or a ballista.

  That would have been an ignominious end to a checkered career, Nicholas thought, taking a deep breath to try to calm his pounding heart. His hand was burning and he realized he had ripped his glove and torn his palm open climbing the rocks and not even noticed. He found a handkerchief in an inner coat pocket and stanched the blood, then stood carefully, trying to ignore the fact that his knees were still shaking. Keeping his head down to avoid the low ceiling of the passage, he made his way deeper into it, stumbling a little on the bones and other unspeakable debris that littered the floor.

  It was so dark, with only small patches of the ghost-lichen to light the way, that there could have been any number of revenants hiding in the crevices and gaps in the rock, but nothing attacked him. Nicholas thought he would be safe until the fay stopped clawing at the entrance and snarling its frustration. The revenants still active down here must have survived by learning when to go to ground; they would stay silent and still until the creature left.

  There was a brighter patch of dimness ahead and Nicholas headed for it. The passage was growing more narrow and he had to climb fallen chunks of stone and navigate narrow gaps. He struggled through the last crevice and almost fell out of it onto a paved floor. There was just enough light from the opening in the wall ahead to show him that this was a room built of regular shaped blocks and not just a hollow carved in the rock. Another part of the old fortification, perhaps. The opening had been a square window but a chunk knocked out of the corner gave it an irregular shape. It was high on the wall and Nicholas had to look for hand-and foot-holds in the ancient mortar before he could pull himself up high enough to look out.

  Outside lay another section of the pit about half the size of the area haunted by the fay. There was a gap in the side that must lead back to the other section and a round, regular opening overhead. Nicholas could still hear the creature growling and scratching at the other entrance to the crevice, so he was at least temporarily safe here. There were bones scattered on the ledges below and several corpses in a much more recent state of decay, still clad in rags of clothing. Nicholas squinted at a pallid form on the ledge several yards below and stiffened suddenly. The body lay face down but the hair was almost shoulder-length and entirely white.

  Nicholas had scrambled up onto the flat stone sill of the window before he realized what he was doing. He hesitated, listening for the fay, and heard another low rumbling growl echo through the crevice. He lowered himself as far down as he could, then let go and dropped to the ledge immediately below. Trying to move as silently as possible, he climbed down the rocky slope, cursing the small avalanches of pebbles his boots touched off. Closer he could see the body was the right size, that it wore a dull-colored dressing gown. If he’s not dead, Nicholas thought. If the fall down here or the old dampness of the place hadn’t killed him yet. He reached the outcropping and crouched near the motionless form, brushing the loose hair back from the face.

  It was Arisilde. His face was white and there were dark bruises under his eyes, that was all Nicholas could tell in the light from the ghost-lichen. He looked dead. But he looked dead before. Nicholas rolled him over, gently lowering his head to the ground. There was dirt in his hair and his robe was stained and torn from contact with the damp stone, but Nicholas couldn’t see any new injuries. If he was breathing it was shallowly and Nicholas’s own pulse was pounding too hard for him to detect Arisilde’s. Damn it, we’re both going to be dead for certain in a moment. But Isham had said Arisilde was waking.

  Nicholas patted Arisilde’s face and chafed his freezing hands while trying to think. Isham had also said something about a "corpse ring" which Madele had removed. Nicholas hadn’t heard the term before but he remembered Madele’s interest in the ring that had charred the flesh around the dead woman’s finger at Chaldome House. Arisilde didn’t appear to be wearing any kind of a ring now but he hadn’t before either, when they had first found him in this condition in his apartment.

  Nicholas felt each of Arisilde’s fingers, wary of illusions or avoidance spells, then checked his feet. He felt a hard metal band around the smallest toe and almost didn’t believe he had found it. He worked the band off and sat back on his heels, watching Arisilde hopefully.

  There was no change, or at least no visible one. Nicholas looked at the ring he had removed. It was a plain cheap metal band, no odd inscriptions or glyphs inscribed on it, but he was careful to keep from inadvertently slipping it onto one of his own fingers.

  Arisilde still showed no sign of waking and in the silence of the place. . . .

  Silence. I can’t hear the fay, Nicholas thought. He shoved the ring into his pocket and grabbed Arisilde’s arms, hauling him up and managing to sling him over one shoulder. He didn’t know how long the creature had been silent; if he had any luck at all, it had been distracted by another fleeing revenant.

  He managed to get Arisilde up the slope and to the ledge just below the window but it was slow and awkward going. Nicholas let him down, propping him up against the wall, and took a deep breath. He was going to have to climb the rock face to the opening with Arisilde a dead weight over his shoulder.

  He started to lift Arisilde again but froze when he heard a skitter of pebbles from the other side of the pit. Nicholas lowered Arisilde and glanced around frantically. There was a small crevice where the rock had broken through the old stone wall with an overhang that provided some shelter. Nicholas found the pitiful and far too recent remains of the last creature to take shelter there and hastily flung it out, then worked his way as far back into the corner as he could. He dragged Arisilde in after him, pulling the limp body half into his lap and letting the head rest on his shoulder. They were in deep shadow here and it gave them more of a chance than being caught in the open did.

  There was another rush of disturbed rock chips, then stealthy movement at the far end of the pit. Nicholas stopped breathing, stopped thinking when the huge fay crept into sight. Its head swung back and forth, a seeking motion. It knew there was something alive in here or at least something that moved, and it hadn’t given up yet.

  Nicholas’s hold on Arisilde had unconsciously tightened. Suddenly the sorcerer drew a deeper breath. He’s waking, Nicholas thought, stunned. What a time to prove Isham right. He leaned his head down to Arisilde’s ear and in an almost voiceless whisper said, "Don’t move."

  The fay crossed the floor of the pit, the stumps that had been its feet stirring up a small cloud of dirt and debris. Arisilde gave no sign he had heard or understood him but he didn’t betray them with a quick movement. Nicholas could feel him breathing now, deep regular breaths, as if he was in a natural sleep. That might be some intermediate stage before real consciousn
ess. There was no telling how long it would take Arisilde to wake or if he would be capable of performing sorcery when he did. Think, Nicholas told himself. Come up with a clever way to kill that thing because it’s not going to leave until it finds us.

  He watched it hunt for them along the lower reaches of the pit, kicking at piles of ancient bone, poking behind rockfalls, casting its hideous head back and forth like a hunting dog on the scent. Cold iron and magic kill fay, Nicholas thought, his mind racing. And we have rocks and nothing. He might try to cause a rockfall to crush it but he didn’t see how; the loose stones were all far too small to hurt it and the large ones too heavy for him to shift. And it was so fast it might well duck out of the way. His pistol was empty and useless. . . . And made of steel, which was still iron, as far as sorcery was concerned. Except if he tried to throw the pistol at the thing it would do nothing but further enrage it. When it eats us perhaps it will accidentally swallow it and that will cause some discomfort. . . . Now there’s a thought.

  He looked at the revenant who had been the last occupant of their shelter. Its legs had been torn away but most of the torso was left. The fay was on the far side of the pit digging at a pile of filth, stirring up a cloud of dust. Now or never.

  Nicholas shifted Arisilde over, propping him against the wall. He squeezed out past him and knelt next to the revenant, searching around for a fragment of rock with a relatively sharp edge. The fay whirled around, alerted by some faint sound. Nicholas froze, gritting his teeth, cursing the persistence of the damn thing.

  It growled low but couldn’t seem to pinpoint his location. After a moment it turned back to digging at the side of the pit, slinging a small boulder out of the way in its annoyance.

  The noise of the fall masked the slight sound as Nicholas rolled the revenant over. He used the fragment to tear the belly open and had to swallow hard to keep from gagging at the stench released.

  The fay turned and came back toward this side of the pit, its head cocked, as if certain it heard or sensed movement. Nicholas slipped the empty pistol out of his pocket and forced it into the revenant’s body cavity.