Tarous

by Jeremy W Eason

  I was glad to see that Bob was already in the class room. I gave him my notes and the homework assignment from our previous class. The homework assignment was easy and while waiting for class to begin I had already completed half of it. I would rather do it in class than do it during my free time after class.

  As people began showing up for class I noticed we had the same five people from the previous class. I looked around the room and it appeared to look like a standard classroom with desk, chairs, and windows. Nothing about it looked spooky. For Ghost Studies I had expected something a little spookier. Spirits trapped in jars or crystals would have been cool.

  I was excited to learn about ghosts as I found the subject rather interesting. Plus since necromancers deal with the dead then in the future we would also be dealing with ghosts anyways, at least if I managed to live that long.

  Our teacher Ms. Felicity had dark hair and a slightly round face with a tiny nose. Her eyebrows were thick and her hair fluffy. She seemed like an affectionate person and easily excited. She wasn’t as warm as Ms. Valerie, but she did seem more energetic.

  Once again class went well for me. Once again not so much for Bob. Right in the beginning of class the teacher created a circle of salt and placed a crystal in the middle of the salt circle.

  The crystal, known as ghost crystal, was used to trap a ghost in it. Unless bound to a place ghosts quickly wither and disperse. If a ghost leaves the place they are tied to they also wither and disappear. A ghost crystal not only can trap a ghost it can also sustain a ghost.

  Ms. Felicity began to chant while walking around the circle. She took some powder out of a purple sack and threw it into the air. Wispy white smoke drifted out of the crystal and slowly filled the entire circle. After a few moments, the outline of a person’s body could be seen in the smoke. Over the next few minutes the image of the ghost became sharp and clear.

  The ghost was wearing a white dress with a white veil that completely covered its face. Because of the dress and the curves, I assumed it was a female ghost.

  Bob gently elbowed me and whispered, “It’s watching me…” He was almost in tears at this point. The ghost floated over a foot off the ground.

  “Bob, the ghost is wearing a veil, how can you even tell?”

  “It’s watching me, I just know it,” replied Bob. His eyes were wide with fright.

  At this point Bob was starting to shake. “BOB! NECROMANCER UP!”

  The teacher decided to ignore my loud comment. Though she did nod slightly at my statement. I think she was agreeing with me. Bob’s response was only to whimper. At least he stayed in the room for the entire class, though he started to shake a little. I continued to sit in class with Bob and I tried my best to comfort him. The ghost really did seem to be looking straight at Bob, but there was no way I would ever tell him that. Poor guy, he was already scared enough as it was. Our homework was to research and write about five different types of ghosts. Luckily I knew enough about ghosts that I would be able to do the assignment quickly and without actually having to do any real research.

  The next class was just as bad, Zombies for Beginners. As soon as the two of us walked in we noticed a zombie standing in the corner. There was a chain around its neck that attached to the wall to keep it from eating the few students with brains. Bob started to sob hysterically. I patted him gently on the back. I had no idea why he was putting himself through this torture. I began to wonder if this was the direction my life would take. Bob and I together, him sobbing, me taking care of him. I suddenly felt very tired.

  We sat at the farthest corner from the zombie and I spent the entire class trying to calm Bob down. I never became great with creating zombies. I blame Bob entirely. I did gain some ability with quick summon zombies. Quick summon zombies are the ones that were made from freshly dead bodies. They didn’t last long because of the method used to raise them, but they could be raised quickly and easily.

  The teacher, Ms. Olga, was a rather stout and muscular woman. If the zombie apocalypse ever starts I want her on my team. She was easily over six feet tall, her biceps were bigger than mine. I flexed my bicep, but it was difficult to find. Less of a gun show more of a water pistol exhibit.

  Finally class ended and I stood up to go to the next one. Our homework was to write a two page paper on ghouls and how they differ from zombies. With my level of knowledge assignments like these were a joke.

  I guided a still sobbing Bob out of the classroom.

  “Thank you so much Tarous for all you’ve done for me. I love you so much,” he said between sobs as we exited class. He hugged me for a rather long time as he sobbed into my chest. I briefly wondered about our reputation amongst the other students.

  I patted him on the back as he hugged me. “I don’t need your cheap love, Bob,” I replied as I stepped back from our hug and turned to walk out of class with Bob close on my heels.

  The last class was demonology. It was a rather scary class even to me. We walked into the room and everywhere we looked there were tiny demons in glass jars. Several tried to get our attention. The tiny demons were trying to make deals with us. For the low low price of our soul we could have anything we ever wanted or something along those lines.

  Demons didn’t seem to bother Bob, I wondered if I should encourage him to become a demonologist instead of a necromancer. Demonologists were in high demand, mostly because they kept disappearing in strange and at times frightening ways. I decided to keep a lookout for a safer profession for Bob besides demonologist.

  In all our other classes we had the same students every time, but I noticed we had a student I hadn’t seen before. She was a tall dark haired bombshell. Black dress, black lipstick, and she even had a pointed black hat. Since she hadn’t been in any of our other necromancer classes I assumed she must be studying to become a demonologist. If there was a field less popular than necromancy, it was demonology.

  If you went to a fire elementalist or lighting elementalist class right now it would be packed. Even the beast tamers that had to shovel animal poo had more students than any of the necromancer or demonologist classes. Not only because few were born with the power, but also because nobody wanted to work with dead bodies.

  While all of the demons on this side of the room were jumping around and yelling, all of the demons around the new student were pressed against the farthest side of their jars away from her. Though this was rather worrisome, at least it was quieter around her. Bob and I decided to sit beside the new student. Bob was on my left and the beautiful new student was on my right. The rest of our classmates were busy trying to ignore the demons shouting at them.

  On a nearby shelf, a couple of feet from Bob, there was a zombie head. Its mouth had been sewn shut, but its eyes darted back and forth. The moment Bob sat down, the zombie opened its eyes and stared at Bob. I didn’t notice the zombie head until it started making moaning sounds. Bob started to whimper and leaned as far away from it as he could.

  The witch to the right of me leaned forward so she could look around me at Bob, some of her long black hair falling over her shoulder. Her eyes darted from the whimpering Bob to me and back. The zombie head started doing its best to growl at Bob, despite its lips being sewn shut. Bob finally couldn’t take it and ran from the room.

  I shook my head and reminded myself to take good notes for Bob. The witch watched Bob as he fell over several chairs that he had knocked over and continued to crawl as fast as he could out of the classroom. When Bob was gone she turned towards me again, one eyebrow raised. I turned and looked her straight in the eyes.

  “I have never met him in my entire life,” I told her with as much fake sincerity as I could manage. That was the first and last lie I would ever tell her. If I had known how my future would turn out from this casual meeting, I would have been right behind Bob.

  Class actually went rather slowly. We didn’t summon any demons at all. We mainly studied the basics of demonology. I did learn one thing of importance that day. Her
name was Nyxra.

  Chapter 3

  I spent the afternoon meditating in a nearby graveyard. It was relaxing. I cherished all the time I spent in graveyards. The dead never made me sad nor had the dead ever given me grief or judged me, only the living ever did that.

  When it started getting dark I sent out an invitation to the grim reaper.

  “Death is a release and love a promise,” I spoke the words like a solemn oath. Words that moved me, that spoke to my very soul. As such they contained a part of my soul when spoken, which was true magic.

  A vague form began to take shape behind me. Familiar black robes floated in the air and made a light swishing sound as he moved closer. A hood covered his head and long sleeves covered his hands. The only thing that could be seen besides the robes was an old rusty scythe.

  “Hello death, my old friend.” I used the same greeting I had used a hundred times.

  I proceeded to tell the grim reaper about my day. It may seem kind of dumb to be boring someone as important as the grim reaper with my daily life, but over the years I realized something. This was his tie to life. People like me were his only tie to living beings. He didn’t protect us because he had to, but because he loved us, and wanted to. It was something he had been doing for a long time.

  Despite my meditating and absorption of death qi, the energy inside of me had become more unstable. I had studied vibration of magic in my spare time, but it didn’t seem to help. I had only one idea left. I needed to purify the magic within me. The power I was born with was powerful fire elemental energy, which was burning me alive from the inside out.

  The energy inside me was a fierce and powerful fire. It was more than that, it was alive. It grew and ate just like any living being, though its food of choice was my insides. The best type of balance to that kind of flame would be a frigid ice energy with a hint of death qi in it to counteract the elemental fire energy and the smidgen of life energy that it also contained. So far I had been unable to find energy that was an exact opposite of my fire. The best I could find was a method to harvest death qi that had the coldness of the grave mixed in with it.

  If I wanted to stabilize my power I would need to create a perfect balance. Because my power was so great, if the power wasn’t in perfect balance it would eventually spin out of control, destroying me in the process. Even though the balance wasn’t perfect, without all the death qi I had absorbed I would already be dead. Even with it I only managed to add a few years to my life. I was just happy for every extra second of life I could obtain.

  I told the reaper of my thoughts and it seemed to pause in thought. Then it did something it had never done before. The grim reaper leaned forward, a skeleton hand emerged from the sleeves of its robes and it gently touched me on my forehead with a single finger. Never before had we been able to touch. The reaper had always been incorporeal like a ghost.

  I trusted the reaper, but I had heard stories that the grim reaper could kill with a touch. I held my breath, but nothing happened. As death removed its finger from my forehead it felt as though a tiny black scythe was being marked onto my forehead. It was not painful, but it was an oddly specific and unusual sensation. Within moments the scythe disappeared and soon after that so did the grim reaper. I sat there having no idea what had just happened or how much my life was going to change.

  Chapter 4

  That night I started to feel strange. I didn’t finish the rest of my homework. I also skipped the next day of class since I wasn’t feeling very well. My body felt cold and clammy and I was very tired. I checked my own pulse, it felt weak. I wondered if the power inside of me was finally going to claim my life.

  When Bob woke up and found me sick, he swore he would force himself to remain in class despite his fears so he could take notes for me. He seemed to think I had a virus. Even if he didn’t manage to stay the entire class period I would still be grateful for the care he showed.

  I could feel that something was wrong with my body. It was being destroyed from the inside. Waves of pain washed through me. The swirling vortex of power inside of me became unbalanced. It was like an old fashion spinning top toy that was slowly losing momentum, the vortex inside of me was wobbling erratically and soon it would stop all together. It occurred to me that I had spent most of my life waiting to die, and it was almost a relief to finally be dying. It was only a matter of time.

  The energy was burning me alive. All of my flesh was being burned from the inside out and slowly turning black like charcoal. A normal person would have died already, but unfortunately the life energy that was in my power kept me alive, prolonging the inevitable, and the pain.

  The vortex was slowing down, it was about to collapse. I held my breath just as it collapsed, and the pain from the collapse was beyond what I could have ever imagined. I thought I knew the limits of pain, but today I kept being proven wrong. I must have passed out from the pain at some point, because I woke back up and I was covered in sweat. My throat hurt from the inside of my body being burned.

  I tried not to move even an inch because every bit of my body hurt. I took a deep breath and slowly let it out. It was so painful to breathe and waiting to die was a terrible thing. My power was too much for my body. I had been born to die. My life was so unfair, but when was life ever fair. I had friends and a wonderful family, that was more than most people could hope for. I shouldn’t be sad, I should be happy. The pain I was in made it difficult for me to be happy at this moment.

  I thought back over my life and realized how little I had lived. I had spent most of my time studying to live and very little time actually living. I debated if I had wasted the few years I had or if I had done the right thing by studying and extending my life. No, I had done the right thing, every second of life I could achieve was precious. At least that realization brought me some satisfaction. If only I could have found a way to deal with my powers I would have become a powerful witch. I chuckled a little. If not for my body being burned I would have been leaving behind a handsome corpse.

  The power that once burned within me, like a miniature sun, was now little more than a tiny flame that could flicker out of existence at any moment.

  I missed my parents. I wished I had told them I loved them one last time. Would they get a call tomorrow saying that I had died? I thought about trying to get help, but my parents had already taken me to so many specialists, magical and non-magical, and none of them had a clue what to do. No one could help me now. My death would destroy my parents, but there was nothing I could do.

  I called for the grim reaper. I realized I didn’t want to die alone, but the reaper did not appear. I was so scared and lonely. I guess in the end we all die alone. Death is a door only big enough for one. I continued to watch the power left inside me dwindle. It flickered like a candle that could go out at any moment. My power continued to grow smaller by the second.

  Although I was being burned from the inside out, I felt cold. I felt it when my power was completely snuffed out. I accepted my death in that moment, but honestly I really didn’t have a choice either way. Everything went black as the last energy in my body disappeared. Just as I died I felt a little black scythe appear on top of my forehead.

  Chapter 5

  As the last energy was drained from my body, including my life force, I died. My body turned cold, but no one mourned my passing. Mainly because they never found out. The last remaining energy had been absorbed by the black scythe tattoo on my head. It needed all the energy it could get to remake my body.

  New and strange energies flowed from the scythe on my forehead. Under my charred black skin new pink flesh grew. Skin, full of life, without scars or damage covered my body. The old burnt skin began to fall off. The blood in my veins that had been turned into powder turned back into a liquid and now gushed through my new veins. Blood was being pumped through my body by my new heart. New hair grew from my head and the cooked organs in my body began to turn pink and started working once again. It no longer hurt to breathe.
The scythe on my forehead, bestowed by the grim reaper himself, reconstructed my body.

  I felt like a butterfly emerging from its cocoon.

  My body then began to create new energy. No longer did it create the fiery energy that had led to my destruction, but pure life energy now flooded through my body. Strengthening me, healing me, making me whole once again.

  My body was filled with life energy. Then another energy was pulled from the air into my body. Death qi, even the death qi that was created when I died was pulled into my body. More and more death qi poured into my body until it was equal to the amount of life qi in my body. The scythe on my head became even clearer and the two energies began to swirl in perfect balance. The pure white energy of life and the pure black energy of death swirled faster and faster. More life and death qi was pulled from the air. The vortex grew stronger, but its growth showed no signs of stopping. It was like having a hurricane living within your body.

  The grim reaper had truly changed me. Now the energy that flowed through my body was pure. Where once the energy in my body was a mismatch of life, death, fire, and ice energies, now the pure energies of life and death swirled in perfect balance. Life beget death which beget life once again.

  Life and death qi swirled within me like an eternal yin yang. It was a cycle of rebirth. A wave of death energy traveled through my body and for a moment my entire body would die. It happened in an instance, faster than humans can perceive and just as fast it was followed by a wave of life qi that would breathe life back into my body. An eternal cycle of life and death. A cycle of reincarnation within the same body. My body now produced pure life energy instead of the mixture of fire and life energy from before. This alone showed the changes in my new body. As my body produced more life energy, death energy naturally rushed into me to maintain the balance.