by Deck Davis
Pain flared in his shin, a sting of it that travelled through his legs.
He’d cut himself.
I’m going to die.
He swung again, again, and he felt the pressure lessen as he struck each rat tail.
With every last trace of energy he had, he swum to the surface, breaching it with a spray of water, feeling the sewer air cold on his face.
He swum to the edge, where hands hooked his armpits and dragged him out.
And then he stared at the ceiling, his lungs burning, his stomach full of bile, his legs singing with agony.
He wanted to move, but he couldn’t.
There was the sound of claws scuttling over stone.
More rats coming for him? Could he even summon the energy to fight them off?
But they didn’t come.
Instead, there was a growl, and then a scream; a woman crying out in agony. And then footsteps retreating from him, travelling to the far end of the chamber.
Health Harvest; it was the only spell that could help him now. He’d earned it when he levelled up in his first assignment, and it could convert essence in his soul necklace to a healing wind.
He heard Witas struggling with the woman, but their sounds were dim because one of his ears had taken in water, and it wouldn’t pop clear.
As nausea coiled inside him, he spoke the word of Health Harvest.
Nothing happened; no healing winds, no sound of essence drifting from his necklace.
He fought his pain and his fatigue to take the necklace out, and he saw that it was empty.
Fuck you, Archibald. You miserable bastard.
He felt his mind snap from its last thread then; darkness swam in his vision, and the sounds of Witas and the woman fell to nothing, to emptiness, and Jakub lost consciousness.
CHAPTER 32
A slap brought him back into the world, and he woke to see Witas kneeling beside him. The cleric brought his hand up again for another slap, but Jakub put his arms out.
“I’m awake.”
The sewer was silent now; only dew dripping from the ceiling and into the pool made any noise.
He tried to sit up, but a wave of nausea flushed through him, and he turned to his side and vomited. It was watery, dark green. The smell made his stomach churn.
“You took a mouthful of that stuff,” said Witas, nodding at the pool.
“What about her?”
“Your gator saw to her; chewed through her leg. It’s hanging off at her knee. And then her rats saw to your gator…and I saw to them.”
“That’s a lot of seeing.”
“Get up. She’s still alive, but she’s gushing blood.”
Jakub scrabbled to his feet. His leg ached from where he’d cut himself, and his stomach felt heavy.
“You need to make yourself sick,” said Witas. “You swallowed a belly full of that shit.”
“We need to talk to her.”
“I’m serious; stick your fingers down your throat; blight water will get you ill.”
Jakub made himself vomit, sending a stream of liquid spattering onto the stone. He tasted it as it came up, and he felt his stomach flip once, twice. He retched until all he got were dry heaves.
Now he felt cold, empty. He needed to sleep for a week.
He took his Bracelet of Rest from his inventory bag and clipped it around his wrist. The trinket cast energy through him, cutting through the ebbing of fatigue.
The necromancer was on the far side of the chamber. She didn’t move when they approached; with all the gator wounds on her, it was all she could do to keep breathing.
Jakub took a few steps and then slumped into the wall. It was no good; between the water and the rats, he was beat. The bracelet helped beat back the ebbs of sleep, but it wasn’t a cure-all.
“Pass me her necklace,” he said.
“I know you academy types love to loot from your kills, but-”
“Just pass it me.”
Witas unclipped the necklace from the woman and gave it him. Jakub held it up.
Empty, damn it.
He looked at the rats corpses laying around the chamber. Most had already been resurrected, so he couldn’t draw essence from them. Instead he looked at the pool and, hoping that more corpses lay in its depths, he spoke the spellword of Soul Harvest.
Streams of blue light rose from the waters, warping in the air and then drifting into his new soul necklace.
Unlike the one he’d gotten Archibald to fix – badly – this necklace was golden, uncracked, and it held the essence firmly within it.
*Necromancy EXP Gained!*
[IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII ]
Next, he cast Health Harvest on himself, letting the soul essence convert into wisps of yellow light, which spread on him. It snaked over his leg, touching his sword wound, and it settled on his thigh where the crossbow sniper had hurt him near the academy.
He opened his mouth to breath it in, but the light dispersed without going into his mouth.
“Your spells won’t help if you’ve caught the blight,” said Witas. “You’re gonna feel it soon. Gods, I hope it hasn’t happened.”
“What can we do?”
“Get you to a mender; see if they can fix you.”
“You’re a cleric. Can’t you do anything?”
“I’m a black cleric, Jakub. Healing isn’t one of my gifts anymore.”
As the light of his Health Harvest disappeared, wispy text replaced it, hovering in his eyeline.
*Necromancy EXP Gained!*
[IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII ]
He had almost levelled up, and even in his condition, he could feel excitement building in him. He was a level 3 novice, and the next level would bring…
No time to think about that.
He kneeled beside the woman. Jakub knew what death looked like, and he knew when someone was staring over its precipice. He needed answers now.
“Who are you?”
“Queen Patience,” she said, then spat blood onto the ground.
“You stupid cow; think this is the time for jokes?” said Witas.
“I can heal you. You know what the Health Harvest spell is, so tell me what I want to know, and I’ll heal you,” said Jakub.
“I’d rather not.”
She reached to her side and drew a dagger. Before Jakub or Witas could react, she pulled the blade across her throat, tearing an arc through her own skin. Blood spat from the wound, gushing over her robes.
Witas grabbed the dagger from her and threw it away. He put his hand against her throat and pressed against the cut. Her blood seeped over his fingers, pooling over his wrists and trickling to the ground.
“Crazy bitch,” he said. “Get me a cloth. Something to press the wound.”
Jakub shook his head. “She’s gone. Look at her.”
“You’re a necromancer; bring the bitch back.”
“I’m not strong enough. I can’t do that.”
“Fuck!”
He let her go, and her head smashed against the stone. Jakub watched blood spread around her, he watched it trickle over the stone and to the pool, where it dripped over the edge and into the blight-ridden water.
CHAPTER 33
“Who in all hells is she?” said Witas.
“That’s exactly the thing she didn’t want us to know.”
“There must be something you can do; what about that Last Rites? Show us what she saw.”
“That’ll only show how she died, and we don’t need a repeat of that, do we?”
“She’s a part of whatever the hell this is,” said Witas. “She changed the sewer markings and led us here, into a trap.”
“How would she even know we were coming down here?”
Witas punched the wall. “Damn it. It was Archie; he was the only person we told. You old artificing bastard, I’ll ram that duck straight up your arse.”
“You were right, though. She’s part of it. Whoever wanted to take me, she’s one of them.”
“And n
ow we’ve got nothing. She’s dead, you’re too much of a pussy necromancer to bring her back and…” he stopped talking now, and he composed himself. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.”
“Why are you so worked up? I’m the one they want,” said Jakub.
“Because whatever this is, whoever they are, they’re bringing others into it. The pickpocket boy, your girlfriend, you. When I think back to the Last Rites, seeing that smug bastard hiding behind his mask and showing off his coins, it makes me want to tear Dispolis apart finding him.”
“There might be something we can do,” said Jakub.
“You said it yourself; she’s dead.”
“And you know as well as I do; there are places people go when they die.”
“The seven afterlives?” said Witas. “I commune with the Blacktyde, but I can’t go there. And what about the other six? We don’t know where this bitch went.”
“No; until the resurrection window closes, she’ll be somewhere else. Somewhere I’ve been before.”
“Where?”
“The Greylands.”
CHAPTER 34
He was crazy to even think about it. The Greylands wasn’t a cosy tavern with a roaring fire and a gentle lute music; it was where a person went when they died, but before the cosmos had picked one of the seven afterlives for them.
A person being there also gave necromancers time to resurrect a body, but that was out of the question now.
That didn’t mean that he couldn’t go to the Greylands, though. He’d done it once before and lived through it, but at the same time, he’d seen what the things down there could do. He’d held their stares too long, and he’d felt them wrench something from his mind.
He remembered what Kortho had taught him about it. It was soon after he’d joined the academy, before he’d learned any spells.
“When someone dies, they go to the Greylands,” said Kortho, standing at the front of the class.
Unlike Irvine’s matter-of-fact way of speaking or Henwright’s diversions into subjects that had nothing to do with the lesson, Kortho always knew how to keep his students hanging on his words. That was one thing everyone agreed on – all the students loved Kortho.
“Do we know what happens there?” he asked the class.
Florin, a boy who used to treat every question like you got points for answering, said. “It’s a place you wait while they sort your soul for one of the Seven.”
“Correct. We necromancers call this time the resurrection window, because while a soul is still in the Greylands, we can recall it to its body. But what happens if this window closes, yet the soul refuses to leave the Greylands?”
“They’re stuck.”
“Not just stuck,” said Kortho. “They change. I’m going to project an image in front of you. Soak it in, for it is the last time you’ll be able to look at it directly. If you saw it in the flesh and met its stare, you’d be in trouble.”
Kortho used an artificed picture box to cast a square of light beside him. In that there was a color painting of a giant arachnid; but rather than the graceful body of a spider this arachnid was mal-formed, some limbs longer than others, parts of its body covered in black skin but others with raw flesh showing.
It was sitting on a mound of flesh and bone, writhing its legs, snapping each of its eight eyes in different directions.
“This is what you become when you stay in the Greylands beyond your time. These creatures are to be feared, but also pitied; for as the Greylands changes them, so does it take from them. They lose their minds, and this is what makes them so dangerous to you. You will have to go in there someday to bind a spirit animal to you, and these things will be waiting.”
“What will they do?”
“Eyes are the soul’s window. Meet their gaze, and they will ride your thoughts like a wave, using them to get closer to you, and consuming each thought they ride. They’ll strip your mind to its threads given time.”
Jakub remembered staring at the monstrosity and feeling sick imagining himself having to go down there.
That day had come years later, when he’d gone to the Greylands under the protection of Instructor Irvine and Madam Lolo.
Then, years later, he’d gone again. It was during his first assignment, and he’d gone in with a teen called Rud.
He’d been lucky to leave the Greylands the first time and the second, and now he was thinking of going back.
Witas crossed his arms. “The woman’s got a name, and I know people in Dispolis who are good at finding them.”
“So what, we’re gonna take her body out of the sewers and drag her around Dispolis? Play a game of ‘guess the name of the corpse’?” said Jakub.
“If you want to wow me with your necromancer bag of tricks, be my guest.”
“I can go to the Greylands and try and find her,” said Jakub.
“The Greylands…I should have known. Well, what are you waiting for?”
“I’m waiting for my rationality to kick in and tell me what a stupid idea this is.”
Witas put his hand around his ear. “I don’t hear anything.”
“That side of me is pretty quiet sometimes. I just don’t know if I feel like risking it. Then again, if I thought this would end with her, I’d gladly call this thing finished, go find a bar and drink enough whiskey until I get to that point where I convince myself I’m a good dancer. But it was a man in the Last Rites, so we know she wasn’t working alone. There’s one of them still out there, and maybe more.”
“Then what’s the hold up?”
“Not even a necromancer messes around in the Greylands. The first time I went, I had Irvine and Lolo with me.”
“Well my brother’s probably in his room rearranging his shoes in color order, but I’ll hold your hand.”
“No, I have to do it alone. I took a guy with me once, and if you asked him now, I’d bet I’m not on his Solstice card list,” said Jakub.
He held his new soul necklace in one hand, and with the other he touched his Summon Bound glyphline tattoo.
When he spoke the spellword, a circle of light appeared on the ground by his feet. It swirled round like a whirlpool, grey and dizzying and with a depth to it, a passageway to the land between life and death.
This was a spell he used to summon his bound animal, Ludwig, from the Greylands.
This time, instead of waiting for Ludwig to appear, Jakub stepped into the portal and let it suck him into its swirls, carrying him down into the land beyond.
CHAPTER 35
He found himself standing on land the color of cooked flesh, with rivers and streams and brooks of blue essence cutting through it. Most of the activity in the Greylands was in the sky, where it stretched for miles. Portal opened in it, some like watercolours dripping down a canvas, others like mirrors.
People fell from the portals and floated down through the Greylands. Every kind of animal or race fell through at some point, and now Jakub saw a dog, a goblins, and then an elephant.
“The Greylands are a part of everything’s death, not just people,” Irvine had told him when he came here to bind Ludwig.
And with that memory he was reminded about what else waited in the Greylands; the creatures that had resisted leaving here, and so had become corrupted.
Kortho’s lessons repeated in his head; “The corrupted ones will stay on the horizon; the oldest of them are too malformed to move except through riding thoughts. Don’t look at them, and you’ll be fine.”
It wasn’t just the arachnids, though. There were other permanent residents of the Greylands who wanted the same thing; to take pieces of his mind for their own.
That was why this stop would be as short as he could make it.
“Jakub!” shouted a voice.
He heard paws pounding over the ground. Ludwig was running toward him, his eyes lit, tail swishing.
Unlike Jakub, Ludwig was a resident of the Greylands and as so could look at the eight-legged monstrosities in the distance. Not only th
at, but Jakub’s necromancy protected his hound from turning into one of them.
Their bond brought them close together in different ways; it let Ludwig stay in the Greylands instead of going to an afterlife, and he sometimes got to visit the land of the living when Jakub summoned him.
Jakub got a friend in return. When Kortho saved him from his family he had nobody. When he had nightmares that Irvine thought were dangerous enough that he needed to be isolated from the other students, he was alone.
But as soon as he was bound to Ludwig, he had a friend whenever he wanted one. A friend who was always insanely happy to see him.
“Ludwig! Come on, boy!” he said, kneeling to be level with his hound.
Ludwig was real down here and so his footsteps made a noise, his breath smelled doggy, and when he rushed at Jakub…his bulk sent him flying.
It happened this time; Ludwig jumped at him, caught his paws on his shoulders, and the both of them fell over.
Lud covered his face in licks, and his tongue was drier than a rock.
“You’re down here? Again?” said Ludwig. “I just got your summons, and I was about to come through the portal. Couldn’t you wait to see me?”
Jakub could already feel the giant arachnids gathering in the distance. That was how it worked; once one of them realized a mortal was here, the rest would notice.
Then they’d do things to get your attention, to try and lock stares with you.
Right now, Jakub saw movement in his peripheral vision; one of the arachnids was flailing its legs in the air.
Don’t look he told himself.
Ludwig sniffed him. “You smell different, Jakub.”
“You spend a few hours knee-deep in shit, and we’ll see how you smell.”
“No, I don’t like this. There’s something strange.”
“I’m fine, Lud.”
“We need to get you to a doctor.”
“What? Lud, look at me; I’m fine. I need you to do something for me,” he told Ludwig.
“Anything.”
“There’s a woman down here. She only just died, and she’s a necromancer, so she’ll know her way around.”
