by Deck Davis
Morrigan glanced left to right as she guided them through the maze of crooked trees and pillars. Her hand was tense around her dagger, and Jakub made sure to keep his movements deliberate and within her eyeshot, because she looked ready to slash at anything.
The further into the burial grounds they went the more voices joined the chorus, until each of them added a new layer to a tapestry of threats and curses, each blacker and nastier than the last.
“They’re talking to me,” said Morrigan.
“I gathered that.”
“Or not to me, as such, but...”
“One the ancestors inside you, who they’ve obviously taken offence to. How long until the spirits can take form?”
“Don’t worry; the spirits you’re hearing now aren’t strong enough to materialize. The strongest of the dead are in the center of the grounds.”
“Good. That makes me feel better. So, where’s the orragrass?
“In the center.”
“Great.”
Jakub watched for Death Bringers as they followed paths that seemed to defy physics; opening up suddenly on pathways that had looked to be blocked off, or going in what should have been a circle, only to reach a new section. If he’d been alone, he would have been lost.
This stoked paranoia in him, because he didn’t know Morrigan at all. It was only her genuine concern over Kortho and the way she’d been so nervous about her hawk that had persuaded Jakub to let his guard down. He liked her, yeah, but he didn’t know her, and he didn’t know who else shared her body, either.
He wished he’d thought of that when he let her into his bed, but it was another part of him doing the thinking.
It made him shiver. Paranoia wouldn’t help now, so he tried to focus on the burial grounds. He couldn’t see any Death Bringers, and he couldn’t hear any. Then again, the spectral voices were getting louder. They were getting deeper, throatier, and the words they used were a hell of a lot viler.
“Should have been drowned at birth, you little whore,” hissed one voice.
Jakob became angry on Morrigan’s behalf. It was only the chorus of laughs and shrieks that stopped him saying something, because something happened when dozens of dead voices sounded of at once; it was a haunting noise, one that sunk deep into his core.
“This is it,” said Morrigan. “Around this corner. The orrograss can grow red or black. Always choose the red ones; never black. Grab as many as you can, but stay close to me, close enough that I can feel your back against mine. And don’t look at the spirits.”
“Don’t look at them?”
“Eyes on the ground. You’ll know they’re there, and you’ll know that they’re watching you, but don’t be tempted to look at them. Eyes are the gateway to the soul.”
CHAPTER 28
Unlike the spirits they’d passed on their way to the center of the burial chamber, the ones waiting in the heart of it were silent. Even in their silence, Jakub could feel their presence. While the others had no form, no weight, these were gathering in strength.
He could see them in the corner of his eye. He daren’t move his head to get a better look, but instead kept them as dim, black shadows in the edges of his vision.
He knew they were watching him. A spectral evil dripped from some of them, real enough that it tainted the air.
“Over here,” said Morrigan, walking with her gaze on the ground.
The ground in the heart of the Killeshi burial grounds was made from pure black stone. Incredibly, flowers pushed up through it somehow, and not through any cracks, for the stone itself was flawless.
Jakub was at a complete loss to explain what the flowers lived on or how they made it to the surface, but it didn’t matter; they were orrograss, the last ingredient he needed for the goodlight potion.
“Funny how something beautiful can grow in a place like this. Life and death are long lost friends that never quite meet. Always missing each other, a life ends, death takes it away, but never a hello in-between. Except when you and your necromancer friends get involved. Then life and death get mixed like an alchemist’s brew.”
“Or maybe when you put the spirits of the dead into a child,” said Jakub.
“There’s a right way, and a wrong way.”
“No. Maybe both ways are wrong,” he said.
He let his own words rebound in his head. In all his time in the academy, he’d never questioned his training. It was never about morality for him; the academy was an escape from his family, and when he first got there, he’d have trained in whatever the hell they wanted so long as he could stay. Poisoner, alchemist, artificer; he’d have done it all.
They’d chosen necromancy for him for a reason, and he’d never questioned why that was, and he’d never questioned until now why the academy didn’t teach morality. He’d never heard Instructor Irvine or Madam Lolo or even Kortho ask whether what they did was right.
“The spirits are growing stronger,” said Morrigan, cutting at a red stalk with her dagger, and then putting the flower in her bag. “Can you feel it? They’re all around us now.”
“Why are they just watching?”
“Because they haven’t taken form properly yet. They aren’t like the others; these spirits are older. Wiser. They won’t insult me, because they’re beyond anything like that. They’re content to wait until they’ve gathered form.”
“And they can actually touch us?”
“Not in the sense of hurting us, but they can invade your spirit, submerging it in their own.”
Walking around the burial ground and looking for the flowers, aware that the spirits were watching him and not being able to look; it was the hardest thing he’d done.
It was their silence coupled with their stares that made it hard; he wanted to badly to look at them, it was like every cell in his body was begging him to. It was an itch begging for relief, but one where the relief could be deadly.
“How many do you need?” said Morrigan.
“How many have you got?”
“Three.”
“I have four. Just a few more. It might take a try or two to get the potion right, and there’s no way in hell I’m coming back here for more.”
Suddenly, a voice rasped in his ear.
“They’re waiting for you, necromancer. Waiting for you to come home.”
It took every last trace of willpower to avoid looking around. It’s a spirit, he told himself. Just a spirit.
“Necromancer?” said Morrigan.
“It’s nothing.”
She clipped another flower. Jakub kept his eyes on the ground and found one of his own.
“Waiting and preparing and getting their shrines ready,” said the voice again, this time from his other side.
His heart picked up now, the thud-thud multiplying in speed, getting frantic.
He heard another noise then; this time it wasn’t the rasping voice of a spirit, but something else.
“Death Bringers,” said Jakub. “Listen.”
Morrigan stopped mid-snip. They both listened, and the sound of boots pounding on the ground became louder and louder.
On the outskirts of Jakub’s vision, the shapes of the spirits were bigger now. Some had taken on defined figures, with silhouetted arms and legs.
The Death Bringers’ boots came at them from both the east and the west. This was more than unfortunate, given that west was the direction they’d taken to come here.
“We need to leave. Now.”
“Do you have enough orrograss?”
“It’ll have to be enough; I can feel them growing stronger,” he said. “They’re moving, and the Death Bringers are coming the way we came.”
“There are two more ways out, but I don’t know the paths. This is the last place to get lost, especially when we have to keep our eyes on the ground.”
“We can’t look up when we leave the center of the grounds?”
“The stronger spirits will follow us now that they’ve taken form and they know we’re he
re. Follow my lead. Never take your eyes off the ground, no matter what they say. They’ll pretend they know things. They’ll offer you things. Never look at them.”
“What about the death bringers? Can they look at them?”
“Yes; it’s part of their gift.”
“Then they can see, and we can’t, and they’re coming from the direction of our only escape. We have no chance.”
“Unless you want to stay here, necromancer, I suggest you leave it not to chance, but to your own agency. Better to try and die than let the gods’ wind blow you around.”
He’d never heard the phrase before; it must have been a Killeshi saying. He took its meaning, though, and he agreed. He was a necromancer, and he wouldn’t let a bunch of spirits with body-envy nor a group of self-important grave diggers who called themselves Death Bringers stop him.
“I have something that can help,” he said.
He reached into his inventory bag and took out the jade-framed mirror he’d looted from the outpost basement.
“We can look at them through this. We’ll see them without actually looking.”
Morrigan shook her head. “You think that glass can trick the spirits? Put that thing away.”
The spectral weights seemed to be growing bigger around them until his peripheral vision was filled with black forms. Something instinctual in his mind roared at him to look at them; he guessed the human body wasn’t used to ignoring its enemies.
To the west, the boots were louder now, and he picked out voices. Real voices from living bodies, and not the insults and taunts of the dead.
“We’ll have to rush through them,” he said.
“That’s the best bet. Death Bringers are chosen for their innate talent to withstand possession; not for their combat abilities.”
They only took three more turnings before they saw the Death Bringers. Their Killeshi faces were painted bone white, and they peeked out from behind over-sized hats similar to what a bishop would wear. They were such a mix of pomp and morbidity that it was laughable.
“Morrigan,” said one. “By the Three Laws, you were not to set foot here.”
“The three laws don’t mean a thing when you’re banished.”
Morrigan ducked her head and charged at the Death Bringers.
Jakub held his blackened sword and followed her, taking pains not to look up and catch the sight of a spirit. The spirits had followed them from the heart of the grounds now and were trailing either side, spectral vultures waiting for morsels of soul from anyone stupid enough to look.
With his head ducked, he braced for impact as one Death Bringer stood in his way. He expected resistance but in the end met none; the one he barreled into was lightweight, and he sent them staggering back and into one of the trees, knocking ash from its trunk.
They ran through the center of the group of Death Bringers, because without being able to properly look around, it was the only way they could go.
“Watch out,” said Morrigan. “They use-”
The Death Bringers lashed out at Jakub, and a flash of pain stung across his neck.
He forced himself to run through the agony, and by the time they’d cleared the Bringers, it had ebbed.
“What the hell was that?” he said.
“They use switches made of vines. Sometimes they rub them with poison ivy, so you’ll have a rash tomorrow. Come on; we’re almost free. Keep your eyes down. Don’t mess this up when we’re so close.”
As they started to run, a voice called out.
“Morrigan,” said a voice.
Was it a spirit, or a death bringer? Jakub couldn’t tell, nor could he risk looking. Whatever it was, it brought Morrigan to a stop.
“Keep going,” he said.
“Yutulia. Stop running.”
Morrigan turned around.
“Yutulia? What the hell does that mean? What are you doing?” Jakub said.
The voice spoke again. “Chancel, Zelox, I call on you both now; cast Morrigan from this girl. Let Yutulia be free.”
It wasn’t a spirit, he decided. It sounded alive, and its accent was Killeshi. This was a Death Bringer speaking to Morrigan.
Morrigan fell to her knees. The crunch as her kneecaps hit stone was sickening and he wouldn’t have been surprised if they were fractured, but she didn’t flinch at it. Instead, she grabbed Jakub’s arm. “Leave, necromancer.”
“Get up,” said Jakub. “We’re, what, three minutes away from the exit? Get up and run.”
The shadows of the spirits loomed larger and nearer now, so much that it was inevitable he’d look at one unless he ran.
“Chancel,” said the Death Bringer. “I call you. Zelox, I call you.”
“Go,” said Morrigan.
He badly wanted to look at her face, but he couldn’t. Even so, he could tell from her voice that she was fighting something.
“Chancel, come out. Zelox, come out,” said the voice.
The shadows were closer now, the Death Bringers more so. This was his last chance to leave. He could fight the Bringers, but he couldn’t take on the spirits without Morrigan. Staying here wouldn’t only doom Kortho, but it was suicide for Jakub.
He was going to have to leave without her. Leave her to the death Bringers, to the spirits.
“Piss off out of here!” said Morrigan. “Why aren’t you going?”
He wouldn’t leave her. He’d taken a leap in trusting her with Kortho, and she’d justified that faith until now. Kortho might have died, but she had done what she could.
He grabbed her arm and dragged her to her feet. Her legs bucked and she screamed in pain.
“You smashed your knee caps,” he said.
He touched his Soul Harvest tattoo. He uttered the spellword of his new Health Harvest ability and hoped to all the gods that there was enough essence in his soul necklace to make it work.
A blue mist snaked out of his collar and around his neck, where his necklace was. Jakub’s chest ached with the relief he got from seeing that.
He pushed the blue mist with his fingers, but then he realized that he just had to will it to go somewhere, and it would. He sent a plume of healing essence from himself to Morrigan.
*Necromancy Experience Gained!*
[III ]
It had worked. His Health Harvest spell had taken the essence from his necklace and used it to heal her.
“Try walking again,” he said.
She got to her feet. She took a step with her left leg and she was fine, but she cried out in agony when she put weight on her right.
Behind her, the Death Bringers and spirits advanced.
“Guess I didn’t have enough essence for a full heal,” he said. “Put your arm on my shoulder and tell me which turns to take to get out of here.”
Together, Jakub and Morrigan limped their way out of the Killeshi burial chambers. It was only when they fled out of the exit that Jakub realized something; Morrigan had dropped her bag, and she had picked the bulk of the orrograss.
CHAPTER 29
Jakub supported Morrigan out of the boundaries of the burial grounds and then in the direction of her hut. It was only when he knew the spirits and the Death Bringers weren’t following them that he stopped.
He’d held in his pain all this time by imagining a steel door bolting shut in his mind and holding it at bay, but now his shoulders burned. He let Morrigan go harder than he’d intended, and she hit the ground with a thud.
“Sorry,” he said, rubbing his muscles. The Death Bringers hadn’t hurt him, but he didn’t have the physique for strenuous lifting and running yet. That, along with better spells and experience, was something else that came with more field work.
Morrigan rubbed her knee. “Where are we? What happened to me?”
She must have been in shock. Jakub took off his overcoat and put it around her shoulders. He pressed his thumb against his index finger and watched cobwebs of light form a map in front of him.
“We’re southeast of your hut, close to t
he river. We’re not far off course.”
“I take it we left the burial grounds, then,” she said, laying her head back on the grass and shutting her eyes and then wincing in pain.
“What happened to you back there? You’re telling me you can’t remember anything?”
“After picking the orrograss, no.”
“The Death Bringers started calling you a bunch of names, and then you stopped running. You were acting strange. I think I get the name part – those are the names of the ancestors inside you, right?”
“Correct.”
“Chancer, Zelox, and…”
“Chancel,” corrected Morrigan.
“What was the last one? It’s on the tip of my tongue.”
“Yutulia.”
“That was it! He was trying to draw the spirits in you to the surface. I don’t know, like he knew it would stop you.”
Morrigan sat up and looked around. “Damn it. My bag,” she said. “Did I leave it behind?”
“You must have.”
She smacked the grass. “The last of my tuckweed was in there. You got anything to smoke?”
“You smoke?”
“Only when my luck comes in, or when it turns to shit. I’ll let you guess which this is.”
“Tried smoking once, coughed up a lung, and never tried it again. Those three, Chancel, Zelox and Yutulia. You grew up with them as part of you, right? Do you know anything about them?”
“You seem awfully interested for someone who was disgusted by the idea before now,” said Morrigan.
She took off her left boot and laid it out on her lap. She unsheathed her dagger and cut at the heel on the boot and then slid open a secret compartment.
From that she pulled out a miniature pipe and a box with a thumb-sized pinch of weeds in it.
“Knew I’d hidden some. Gimme a spark,” she said.
After she filled the pipe with weeds, Jakub used his spark stone to light them. A few puffs later and the pipe blazed.
Morrigan spoke with the pipe in the corner of her mouth. “You better sit down,” she said, “and I’ll tell you about them.”
