Instead, I found a doll. It was easily the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen in my life, and by far the most beautiful thing in Nethermount. I was a bit startled when she sat up and started doing things on her own (who wouldn't be?) but I never, not in a million years, would have thought that she was dangerous in any way.
Today was the first time I'd seen Diana's physical strength in action, and through her, learned the first name of the Crone. Whatever, or whoever Diana was, she was ancient. And, if Mahlah's words were any indication, a monster.
"I am Diana Galatea. I am... I was... Inval's disciple."
Inval?
Wait.
Inval was the First Necromancer; the man who came to Nethermount of his own accord where he met the Crone of Astheneia and convinced her to let him stay. He was brilliant in every story I'd heard of him. Whether he was a genius or a madman, Inval was regarded as the greatest among us; to most, he was a hero, and some, a God.
He was known to have six disciples: Soma, Myalo, Astheneia, Ponos, Psychi, and Thanos. If what Diana was saying was true, that she was also Inval's student, it meant that there should have been a Seventh House... hers.
I didn't have time to ask any more questions, as she came to a sudden stop.
An icy draft shot towards the ceiling. I shivered and craned my head, seeing that we were at the end of the hall, and at the edge of a dark hole.
Diana cradled my head against her chest, now warmer than ever.
"Close your eyes, Marvin."
"WAIT!"
Diana turned around. Someone was shoving their way through the mass of undead. I recognized Tully, who flapped his wings wildly to grab my attention.
Leo made it through to the front, carrying a massive backpack and a bag that smelled of food.
"Turn back," Diana ordered. "This is not your quest."
Leo squinted at her. "That's for Marvin to decide." He turned to me. "It's my fault you're in this mess. If I'd let go earlier then the porcelain bouncer over here wouldn't have had her cover blown."
"Leo..." I looked between him and the dark pit ahead of us. "I can't ask you to go so far for me."
"You're not asking," he pointed out. "I'll follow at a distance even if you tell me to stay. You proved that you were a true friend, Marvin. I'm not going to let you go alone."
"He's not alone," Diana cut in.
"Yeah?" Leo straightened his back. "Well the more the merrier, then."
I was touched.
"Do what you want," I said finally. "Just don't blame me if this all goes to hell."
Diana pressed my head into her shoulder immediately after that, and jumped into the pit without any warning. I was so scared that I couldn't scream, but I did hear Leo's triumphant roar as he came with us.
We fell, and fell, and fell so far that I began to wonder if the drop would never end. The chill from earlier translated to steam at some point, and my skin and hair were soon wet with humidity.
I jolted so hard that I felt my brain rattle against the inside of my skull.
The landing was sudden, swift, and I heard rocks crashing all around us from the impact. My immediate response was to look at Leo, who was setting his dislocated shoulder back in place. Apart from this, he was a bit shaken, but whole. I felt a little safer now that I realized I was traveling with two monsters instead of one. I just hoped that they would stay on my side in all of this.
Diana walked away from the ditch she made, setting me down on a bed of moss.
Leo joined me, proceeding to pull out some food from his bag.
"You haven't eaten yet, Marvin." He handed me a loaf of bread. "You're gonna need it."
I put the bun against my lips, but didn't feel particularly hungry. My attention was on Diana, who stood at the edge of the plateau we'd landed on.
In this vast continent of Dalani, I didn't think that there was a place deeper beneath the surface than Nethermount, yet here we were, not only in a place, but a world different from anything I'd ever known.
Steam hissed through fissures in the ground, emanating an eerie emerald glow. Moss grew every place that wasn't volcanic rock, black and smooth, and strange in its lack of edges.
I mistook the ceiling for a sky at first, but quickly realized that these were not stars, but glow worms -millions of them hanging from stalactites like living icicles, in every shade of cyan an artist could dream of. The air reeked of sulfur and bled with magic, making my skin tingle until it closely resembled a furious itching sensation.
It was a prairie, a swamp, a paradise, a siren, and easily the most terrifying cavern in the world.
"The Moor of Souls," I said to myself, tasting the name for the thrill it gave me.
"The outskirts," Diana corrected me, pointing to the distance. "The true Moor doesn't begin for another twenty miles."
"Twenty..." my jaw dropped. There was simply too much I didn't know. "I'm not going anywhere until I get some answers."
Leo helped himself to the food I wasn't eating.
I approached Diana until I was eye level with her.
"What are you?"
"A Doll," she replied, her pink eyes shining. "Your Doll, now."
"Yes, but exactly is a Doll? What's a Doll Contract? Why is it such a bad thing that I had to get thrown down here because of it?"
Leo stopped chewing to look at me. "Marvin... you really don't know?"
"You do?" I asked, surprised.
"Well..." Leo scratched the back of his head. "It was discussed at the communal classes when we were younger. You always studied at home. But still, I'm surprised that Lady Formosa didn't tell you."
Tully climbed up Leo's shoulder and made a nest of his bed-ridden hair. I sat back beside him on the moss, motioning for Diana to do the same. Leo readied his explanation.
"This happened way back when the Houses were formed. It's called the Dollhouse Incident. We dabble in bodies, right? Transplants, grafting, that sort of thing."
"Right."
"Well, a Doll is basically a soul transplant. In order to make one the necromancer and the candidate need to draft it in paper."
"So a Doll Contract is a physical contract?" I asked.
"You got it." Leo waved a fork at me. "It can have any number of clauses and stipulations, but once its agreed on, the Contract can't be amended. But it requires a vocal component -both parties have to agree to the conditions aloud."
"Okay. I'm still not seeing a problem."
"The problem," Diana interrupted, "is that a Doll Contract only recognizes an agreement, which means that someone can scream 'no' all they want, but it'll take just one 'yes' to seal their fate. A number of necromancers took advantage of the critical flaw. In the worst cases, they raided the surface to drag people beneath the sands, where they extracted cooperation."
I swallowed hard. "You mean that we... tortured people?"
Diana lowered her head. "It was a dark time in our history, Marvin. All Contracts shared some commonalities. First, a Doll couldn't speak unless they had a Contractor. Second, if one Contractor kills another, then that Contractor owns the Dolls of his opponent. The conditions of previous Doll Contracts continue to apply, or in the case of conflict, the condition will change in favor of the new owner."
"Wow," said Leo. "I didn't know that."
"Naturally," Diana scowled. "I eradicated every Contractor left in Nethermount."
My eyes bulged to the size of saucers.
"But Diana... The Crone said you formed a Doll Contract. How can you do that if you're a Doll?"
"My Contractor died, Marvin." She closed her eyes. I heard the springs of her joints winding taunt as Diana squeezed her fists against the earth. "It made me a Rogue Doll. I could choose to make anyone a Contractor without their agreement by pledging myself to their service. Unlike the Contract made when creating a Doll, this kind of vow has only one condition: the Doll and her Contractor share one life, and all its consequences."
She turned her head at Leo. "Could you ask your bird t
o peck my cheek?"
"Sure." Leo fanned Tully off of his head. "Give her a smooch."
The parrot skeleton hopped up Diana's arm and perched itself on her shoulder, doing as it was asked.
Somehow, I felt its beak against my face at the same time.
"So if I die then you die as well?"
"Correct." Diana smirked. "Why do you think Mahlah sent us down here on this fool's errand? Killing you would be the only way to kill me."
"Then why didn't she just cut him down back in the Hall?" Leo asked before I could pose the same question.
"Because anyone I chose to be my Contractor would be the Inheritor," Diana explained. "The equivalent of becoming Inval's heir. If Marvin wanted, he could abolish the Houses, disband the necromancers of Nethermount; ban the act of raising the dead altogether."
Leo scoffed. "That's barbaric. Marvin is too cultured to do something like that."
Diana and I exchanged concerned glances.
It was because I was cultured that I would do something like that.
"Hold on." I shook my head. "If that makes me Inval's heir then was your Contractor..."
Leo and I stared at Diana for a long moment. I saw memories swimming in her eyes. The humanity of her features added a haunted element to her expressions. Her smile only reached half her face, and for the first time, she looked as fragile as the pale porcelain she was made of.
"Yes." The dark lashes framing her eyes fanned down to the floor. "I was sickly, you see. I caught an illness that for all his effort, Inval couldn't cure. He said that he sensed a new power in the East, and he was convinced that it would hold the answers he didn't have."
"So he made a Doll Contract, to preserve you until then," I finished.
"But the Houses were newly founded. Its necromancers were young, naive, and dangerously ambitious." She grimaced. "Inval left me to watch over their growth, but their fascination with the Contracts forced me to tear Nethermount apart before this epidemic spread even more out of hand."
"So how did you end up in that coffin in the attic?"
Diana jerked a bit.
"Mahlah placed me under a spell while I was in shock."
"Shock?" Leo and I asked together.
"A Doll..." she began, with evident difficulty, "can sense her Contractor. I sensed Inval. I felt him die."
I looked back on the first time I'd met Diana. I jumped halfway across the attic when she sat up and began to look around. Her painted mouth parted as though trying to speak, and then she went very still.
A Doll without a Contractor couldn't speak, and she didn't attempt it again for many long minutes.
Diana trembled, and I listened to her joints rattle. In my childish naiveté, I thought that she was broken, never realizing how right I was until now.
"Diana..." The question came before I had the chance to register that I was asking it. "What were the conditions of Inval's Contract with you?"
"There was only one."
"What was it?"
She looked at me like she did that first day we met in the attic, her petal pink eyes swimming with tears of light.
"He'd come back."
9: Uhh
I wish I could say that I registered everything Diana had told us, but it was too much to take in all at once.
All this time I'd been whining about being a disappointment and a coward, while she was the one that had suffered the most. A Doll couldn't cry, but I had a feeling that even if she was able to, Diana wouldn't. She was brave, and strong, and I was...
Marvin.
I barely touched the food Leo gave for me to eat, so it wasn't long after Diana finished talking about her origins that we started off into the Moor. I was tired after the first five miles, which said a lot about my endurance. Leo, being a member of monstrous House Soma, hummed and moved without ever having to catch his breath. Diana didn't know the definition of fatigue, thanks to her immortal vessel.
She noticed when I started to fall behind them, and without a word, picked me up so I was now riding on her back.
"This is so embarrassing," I muttered into her hair.
"You're going to have to put up with it," she replied practically. "True necromancers need to have good stamina to reach their full potential."
"One little problem, Diana; I'm not cut out for it."
"It's because you're cut out for it that I became your Doll, Marvin."
I opened my mouth to say something, but closed it after some consideration. Diana knew better than anyone how terrible I was in this field. How could someone like me, who couldn't look at a corpse without it being caked in cosmetics, be a necromancer?
At the same time, I felt a measure of disappointment. I loosened my grip around her neck, sinking further down Diana's back.
"I thought you saved me because we were friends."
"You decided that on your own."
Ouch.
She may as well have kicked the air out of my lungs.
But... it was only natural for Diana to think that way. After all, she was the disciple of Inval himself. She was a match for the Crone of Astheneia, and then there was me, a pathetic worm who spent his free time daydreaming about gardens and pissing about because I wasn't happy with my life.
My face burned with shame, thinking of all the times I'd spent talking to a Doll who was probably sick and tired of hearing the same old story. Diana's philosophy had always been, "if you don't like yourself, then change."
I wished I was at a point where I could apologize. As it stood, anything I could say now would only serve as an insult to the both of us.
As much as I don't like the path I'm on at present, I know that the only way I can make it up to Diana is by becoming a necromancer.
"Leo," I said aside.
"Yeah, Marvin?"
"Do you have any bones on you? Besides Tully, I mean."
He scratched his matted hair. "I should."
"If its bones you want," Diana chimed in, "We're nearly at the Ivory Arch. Look over the top of my head, it's right down the next hill."
I craned my neck, and spotted brilliant white against our dark environs. Diana upped her pace, leaping like a gazelle over gas and steam fissures. Several times, when I was convinced she was going to trip, her joints bent at impossible angles to get the necessary traction without sacrificing hardly any speed. Even Leo, modified monstrosity that he was, had trouble keeping up when Diana moved this way.
Sure enough, the Ivory Arch was an arch made of bones. Bones the size of mighty oaks, and bones the size of nails. Skeletons of a number of races hung from the top of the Arch, meticulously pieced together in chains, forming the most outlandish beaded curtain I'd seen in my life.
"Diana... how dangerous is the Moor?"
"Extremely."
That technically answered my question, but not nearly as well as I would have liked. She set me down on a bed of dirt that smelled heavily of rust.
"What's this?" Leo asked, pinching the earth.
He rubbed his fingers and I watched as granules fell like chalk powder.
"Marrow," Diana answered in her nonchalant way.
It was almost comical how Leo's expression lit up with wonder at this discovery, while I gripped my stomach in disgust. More concerning was the fact that something could crush these bones so finely that only powder remained.
Well, I suppose it could be useful.
"Leo," I said. "May I borrow a knife and some water?"
"Sure thing." He set the objects in the palm of my hand.
Leo stepped back, no doubt having an inkling of what I was going to do.
I may have serious problems with the practical aspects of necromancy, but I knew the ins and outs of how the magic worked. Like any sort of spell-smithing, there are as many ways to go about it as there are magicians. The only component required in spells of life and death was a drop of the caster's blood. In necromancy, this is called the Anchor. It binds the target to the one performing the ritual.
And
because bone powder was still technically bone, I could customize the appearance on a miniscule level.
I drew a glyph in the powdered ground with the tip of my finger, poured drops of water at points of intersection, and ran the edge of Leo's knife against the outer side of my palm.
Blood trickled onto the powder, bringing out the rusty hues of the marrow like a stroke of scarlet paint. Now came the hard part: rune recital.
"Reha em oyu'fo slehfeh nad taerh. Deln em royu h'getsernt; royu r'wohpoe."
The center of my sigil began to shimmer red.
Runes were dangerous when used improperly. They are the universal language of magic, and in a way, alive. The nature of runes, besides being words of power, was to impede those who would use them. I felt them trying to twist my tongue into a knot as I spoke them aloud, my voice becoming less familiar by the second.
"Tatse shti, ym'cesesne, nad hurthog'ti, ym'letomra losu."
The diagram glistened like crushed rubies, branching throughout like pulsing veins. I needed to go on as long as I could; the longer the rune during the summoning process, the more efficient the summon.
"E'atk shti, het pehsae ni'ym'dim'n eey. E'atk royu clehpae ta'ym'eisd!"
That was all I could manage. I felt faint, and dug the heel of my palm into the earth to prevent myself from falling face first into the ground.
The water I'd poured on the circle of power worked as an adhesive agent that bound the crushed bone powder together. The golem that emerged from the marrow looked on its hands, and quickly found an emerald chemical pool.
I didn't have a very specific notion of what I wanted from this golem, but I did require that it be capable of protecting me, and by extension, be an able fighter in the Moor.
Leo, Diana, and I watched this humanoid figure step into the corrosive liquid, and I was a bit appalled at first. Did my spell backfire? Or was it that there was no way a pile of marrow could be capable of fighting anything we might find in the Moor?
We saw something emerge from the viridian vat less than a minute later, hot steam rolling off its surface. My golem was in the shape of a man, and my twin in height and frame. Its skin was like a sheet of smoldering embers, but in the place of flame there was the corrosive substance of the pool. The acid ate away at my creation, only for patches to grow back just as fast. This gave his body the appearance of a sea of tiny tectonic plates, with the solid bits floating amidst veins of poison gas.
A Different Kind of Deadly Page 3
