A Different Kind of Deadly

by Nicole Martinsen

  She had survived the fall. I admit, a part of me was disappointed -it's not every day one gets a chance to study such a rare specimen... but I found myself desirous of company. That old Crone Mahlah isn't much good for anything beyond academic discourse. If the girl is willing, she can have a home here. Perhaps then Nethermount's dark halls will have a bit of life in them.

  She has no name, or so she told me. If she is willing, I have one in mind.

  Diana.

  -Inval's Diary

  Year 844 S.E.

  16: Three Days

  I gaped at the tattoo that had spontaneously appeared on my arm, dismayed to see that it moved. The snakes twirled around like a mobius strip, an impossible structure that had somehow found a home on my body.

  Diana's features were more human, and more terrifying, than ever before. But rather than anger, she looked helpless... helpless and afraid. It came to me with a measure of shock that this was scarier than her rage.

  Lord Koronos offered up a toothy grin.

  "Naturally, if you don't turn Lady Galatea back into a human, your soul is mine. Standard procedure, really."

  "And what happens once it's yours?" I mustered the courage to ask.

  Lord Koronos motioned to Will. "Well, you become like him."

  "A Doll?"

  "A slave... for all eternity."

  It struck me as funny that my mother had said something very similar just a few days prior. To normal people, I'm sure that necromancers are demons, and indeed, it seems as that we have much in common. The dead are our play things, and afterlives are irrelevant.

  But why I, of all people, deserved this was beyond my ability to understand.

  Leo set a hand on my shoulder, drawing me back to our unfortunate reality. He was the only one brave enough to look Koronos in his inhuman eyes.

  "So what happens now?"

  The demon paused for a few seconds, finally raising three fingers.

  "I give you three days. Whether you choose to stay here, in Krisenburg, research ways of saving Lady Galatea, or seek out the Eyes of the Leviathan, the choice is yours."

  "And after three days have passed?" asked Leo.

  "I set Will free." It was evident by Will's startled expression that he wasn't expecting this either. Koronos snorted, "He's been an entertaining distraction the past several years, but I figure it's more amusing for him to complete his own objectives. Killing you," he said pointedly, glancing in my direction.

  Will seemed elated by the news, which made this bad day even worse -something I wasn't sure was possible.

  So instead of thirty days to become a proper necromancer, I now had three before a killing machine would come after me, and in the (likely) event I died before reversing Diana's Doll Contract, my soul belonged to a literal demon. And in the off-chance I do turn Diana back into a human, there's no guarantee Will won't kill me off anyway.

  I KNEW there was a reason I avoided going out.

  "Ah, but I'm not unsympathetic to your plight." Koronos pressed a hand to his chest, a comical gesture in his bestial form. He produced a sack, roughly the size of a grown man's head, from a hidden compartment in his seat. "The only reason you came to the Harpy Den was for funds, am I correct? Take this, with my blessing."

  I eyed the burlap bag mistrustfully. "It's not cursed, is it?"

  "My good little necromancer," he chuckled. "Are you suggesting you're not cursed enough as it stands?"

  Leo took the sack without prompting. He held it protectively, and Tully sat atop the bag as though also trying to guard the parcel. That money was probably the only handicap we were going to get in any of this.

  Koronos looked pleased as he turned to Diana.

  "I expected more of a reaction from you than that initial outburst, my dear. Or are you overwhelmed by nostalgia?"

  She didn't even look at the demon, walking up to me before jerking my arm so hard I thought it would pop right out of its socket.

  "We're getting Uhh out once he's done with his match. After that, we have some errands to run."

  "Okay," I said, recognizing I was too deep in shit to argue. We left the viewing box, and Koronos behind us. Still, I couldn't shake the feeling that we were being watched. "I'm sor-"

  "Don't you dare apologize!" she screamed, stopping me dead in my tracks. Diana whirled on me and I saw the expression of someone ready to burst into tears of frustration. Only she couldn't, so her eyes just shined in their pale, pale, pink. "This isn't something a simple sorry can fix!"

  My mouth drooped.

  "Look," said Leo, cutting in between us. "What's done is done. And either you can sit here bitching at Marvin for a bone-head move, or you can both focus on outsmarting that horny bastard."

  I grimaced at his choice of words, but couldn't argue with Leo's logic.

  By the irritated look on Diana's face, neither could she.

  Leo looked between us, at Tully, and nodded to the air.

  "Now how about you," he said to Diana, "tell us what you know instead of keeping everything a damn secret. And you," he said to me, "listen to her so you can avoid running into malicious Dolls and demon contracts, got it?"

  "Got it," I squeaked, looking at the floor.

  "Alright," Diana sighed, calm enough to speak without yelling, "I'll tell you more, but first we get supplies. We now need armor on top of fire retardants, an enchanter, and weapons for the two of you."

  "Weapons?!" Leo balked. "But we're necromancers! Undead fight for us!"

  "Your undead will have their hands full," she muttered dangerously. "Either you put weapons in your hands and use them, or you'll lose them and whatever other limbs you hold of value. That Doll back there is not a joke. Had he been serious, he could have killed me in that pit without batting an eyelash."

  I recalled Diana's first match against the minotaur, and suddenly my veins ran thick with ice.

  She dispatched that giant monster while practically dancing through the air.

  True, her brief fight with Will was less flashy, but I didn't think for a second that she wouldn't win.

  By her own admission, this was as shocking as it got.

  "A Doll you can't beat?" I asked. "But you're a living legend!"

  For the first time since we came to Krisenburg, Diana cracked a smile.

  "Dolls have components; we can only be as advanced as the general technology of any given era in the region we were made. Will, if I'm not mistaken, was forged in a place much different from Nethermount. He's as strong as a devil. At best, I can hold him off, but in the end... I will lose."

  17: In Loving Memory

  Uhh had fought off four heavily armored skeletons. Diana, Leo and I just narrowly missed the fight, catching the snippets of awe as the crowd wondered who owned him.

  It made my heart swell with pride, pride that quickly turned to worry as Uhh met us back in the lobby.

  Deep gashes tore across his chest cavity. He was a golem, so naturally there wasn't any blood, but acid was leaking out of him.

  "Uhh, mind telling me how I can fix you?" I asked, surveying the damage with an appalled frown. He cocked his head to the side, grabbed fistfuls of Krisenburg rubble, and pressed them into the deepest of these cuts. We waited while listening to a rumbling hiss as it melted and solidified back into place. My eyebrows shot up in interest.

  "Undead are suited to the regions they're made in," Diana reminded me. "Uhh is a powerful construct, thanks to your rune recital; given enough time between fights to recover, he's immortal in the Moor of Souls."

  "Wow." I had trouble coming to terms with the fact that I created him. Golem making wasn't something I thought I had a talent in; then again, neither was rune recital or necromancy in general. Uhh was an example of those skills put to good use, but Diana was a reminder of its follies.

  "Hold on," I heard Diana say. Leo, Uhh, and I took a step back, watching as Diana approached a vulture-human hybrid perched atop a high podium.

  "Diana Galatea wishes to withdraw her sum
from her two battles."

  The vulture released an astoundingly human sigh, turned to face a giant abacus, and tallied the beads with his beak.

  It leered over its shoulder, feathers raised at the back of its neck in a sign of displeasure. The vulture shifted his weight, stepping on some sort of pressure plate beneath him. A moment later, coins dispensed into a stone collection dish at the base of his stand. He make an irate squawk, as though to say, "Take your money and scram!"

  Tully flapped his wings wildly, issuing a silent challenge at his rude cousin. Leo waved a finger at him to settle down.

  "Mind your manners."

  Tully looked between the vulture and his master, scratched the money bag he was standing on, and nestled himself in its folds like a petulant child.

  "Marvin," Diana called. "Now you do the same for Uhh."

  "Me? I didn't fight."

  "He's your golem; it's the same thing in Krisenburg."

  I stepped up the podium, where the vulture-attendant narrowed his beady-eyes on my head of gray hair.

  "Did you catch all that?" I asked him.

  He squawked. It seemed he didn't need to calculate my sum.

  "Deduct some coins for a sack!" Diana shouted as an afterthought. I was almost certain that the vulture rolled his eyes. He rummaged behind him and tossed a large cloth bag down to us.

  The remainder of my winnings pooled together with Diana's in the dispenser dish below.

  It was an impressive amount, the pale-green coins reminiscent of oxidized copper.

  Diana swept our earnings into the bag, effortlessly hoisting it over her shoulder.

  "First thing's first," she announced, "We're getting you boys some armor."

  Leo laughed under his breath, "Armor? Not for me. I'm built like a mountain."

  "Fall into an acid vat and the biggest mountain will crumble all the same," she shot at him. "My strength is in my mobility, but in the event Marvin needs protection, you need heavy gear."

  Leo hissed in the back of his throat. "I hate the sound of that."

  "I bet you'll like it better than being dead."

  He raised a finger, poised with an objection, but I held up my hand for him to stop. Leo squinted, waiting until Diana was ahead of us.

  "Bit of a banshee, isn't she?"

  "I heard that," she interjected, not missing a beat.

  "She can be," I admitted, still not the happiest with Diana's attitude now that she had the ability to speak. "But she's our best chance of surviving the Moor."

  "Well if we want to be technical, the quest, demon contract, and the Will situation are all on you. I can walk out of this whenever I want."

  "Not helping, Leo."

  "What? I'm just saying I can come out of this smelling like a rose while you're neck-deep in shit."

  "Leo..."

  Tully clacked his beak together in what I took for laughter. One look at Leo told me that he was just saying these things to mess with me.

  "Here we are, boys." Diana held the door open to a shop. A shrunken head let out a shriek at our entrance.

  "C-coming!" someone stuttered.

  Leo and I stood awkwardly at the side of the narrow space, with little room between a long counter, door, and wall not four steps away.

  A woman emerged from behind a curtain, shockingly normal in appearance until I noticed she was soaking wet. Ashy blonde hair stuck to her bluish complexion, and she moved while making shallow, labored breaths.

  "Diana?" she gasped. The woman transformed into water, lunged across the counter, and landed again in her human form. "Oh Diana, it is you!"

  "Jiki!" Diana returned Jiki's enthusiasm with a hug. "Long time no see."

  "It's been c-c-centuries," Jiki nodded. "What brings you in today?"

  "Need to get these boys outfitted." Diana pointed a thumb in our direction. "Sturdy for the big one, light yet tough for the other."

  "Big one," Leo grumbled.

  "Other," I agreed.

  Diana placed her hands on her hips in an unmistakably female gesture.

  We had no right to complain -she had all our money.

  Jiki looked Leo up and down, but paused when she began to survey me. Her eyes, milky blue against bloodshot veins, went wide and still. Whatever she saw she decided to keep to herself, motioning Leo to the back of the shop.

  "I have two s-s-suits that may work for you," she said breathlessly. "C-come with me."

  Leo followed her to the back, leaving Diana and me to sit at the counter.

  "I have to ask," I started, unable to help myself. "But what is she?"

  "Jiki is a rusalka."

  "A what?"

  "A rusalka," Diana repeated. "She's the spirit of a woman who died drowning."

  "Death by drowning can't be that uncommon," I replied dubiously. "If that's true then why haven't I heard of rusalka before?"

  "Rusalki."

  "Huh?"

  "Rusalki is plural," Diana corrected me. Her lips pursed as she gazed on the back door of the shop. "Let me be specific. Rusalki are spirits of women that have been violently drowned, and often hold a powerful grudge which allows them to live as undead in their own right."

  I considered the stuttering, sopping wet woman from a few minutes ago.

  "Jiki doesn't exactly look powerful."

  "Neither do you."

  "Fair enough," I conceded. "So how did she come to run an armor shop?"

  "She's a smith," Diana explained. "There's a forge in the basement. Jiki is essentially an endless supply of water, so she's the only one who can cool and temper metal properly."

  I blinked. "So she's the only smith in Krisenburg."

  "The only master smith." Her eyes gleamed with pride. "I can't begin to tell you how many scrapes she got me out of with the armor she made me back when..."

  The sentence trailed off, falling into silence along with Diana's expression.

  "Back when you were alive," I finished for her, and watched as she nodded her affirmation. I shifted my weight at the counter, mustering my most understanding glance. "Diana, is it true, what Koronos said at the Harpy Den?"

  "Yes." She said the word so quietly that I had to strain to pick it up, and even then I wasn't sure if she actually spoke at all. "I was young, arrogant, and in love -dangerous qualities in and of themselves, and disastrous altogether."

  "But it was a mistake."

  "Mistakes don't kill people, Marvin. Murderers do." Her lips formed such a crestfallen smile that it was a wonder her face didn't fall apart. "Inval paid for my mistake with his life."

  "You couldn't have known-"

  "-does it make a difference?" Her voice spiked with outrage. "Inval is dead. I'm a Doll, and Koronos is somewhere laughing at all of it."

  "Does it bother you?" I asked. "Being a Doll, I mean."

  "Bother me?" She repeated the question as though she never considered it before. "Yes, but there's no point in me complaining."

  "You're young, beautiful, and eternal," I said to her. "What don't you like?"

  "I can't dream."

  "What?"

  Diana shook her head at her own statement. "Dolls don't sleep; therefore we don't dream. Memories fade, Marvin. Dreams at least give a sensation of familiarity." She set her fingers on my open palm. "A day will come when you'll forget how many bearings there were in my joints, or the direction they faced in my fingers, but in your dreams you'll have the illusion of the memory of how they feel in your hands." Her pink eyes met mine. "I don't have that, Marvin. I can't remember Inval. He will never be real to me again, not even in the ghost of a memory."

  "I didn't realize you loved each other that deeply."

  "We didn't," she smirked. "It was entirely one-sided on my part. The unrequited love of a student for the teacher who took her under his wing."

  "I don't think Inval would've gone all the way to the East for someone he didn't love."

  "But that's the thing, Marvin," Diana said. "He would have gone for someone he just met, because
that was the sort of man he was."

  "And you're still in love with him." The sentence numbed my mouth as soon as I said it, oddly irked by the sound of it floating in the air. Diana and I said nothing after that. I saw her expression in its most human form yet, tenderly gazing at a memory lost in time.

  "If I was Inval, I never would've left you like he did."

  The words escaped my lips before I even realized it was me who said them. Diana's lips parted in a taken aback manner, but before she could say anything Jiki appeared through the door.

  "You next, Marvin," she announced. Jiki probably got my name from Leo while she was working with him.

  I dutifully followed her back, stunned to discover that this was where the real store began.

  From the outside, the narrow front was all we could see, backed against a cavern wall. I have no idea that the space could be hollowed out this way.

  Candles lined arched recesses in the walls, lending a majestic feel to the otherwise frigid cave. A stairwell led down another level from where Jiki and I were standing, and what I first took for a pool of fire was actually a giant forge. I followed the rusalka to a raised platform surrounded by mirrors. She had already set aside a suit of armor on a nearby stand.

  The metal looked like gray, beaten bronze, consisting of miniscule scales atop a leather foundation. Jiki slipped off the jacket I'd borrowed from Duck so quickly that I shivered at her wet and clammy hands.

  "This is a good enchantment," she noted, feeling the material. "Purilo's work," Jiki determined.

  The water woman reached under my shirt, feeling every muscle and joint she could reach. I did my best not to shudder as her cold hands roamed my torso. She finally nodded to herself.

  "Your friend Leo was c-correct in his assessment."

  "What would that be?"

  "You're a weakling."

  I felt as though she dropped an anvil on my head.

  Damn you, Leo.

  Seriously, just damn you.

  "But your definition is good."

  "Duck said the same thing," I said, thinking of the zombie keeper of The Dead Man's Tale.