Scholar of Decay

by Tanya Huff

  In the hollow breast of what had once been a powerful and feared man, a red heat began to burn. Too many years had passed, forgotten in the catacombs, for him to recognize anger now that it had returned to him, but he welcomed the warmth that burned away the confusion.

  He reached out and grabbed the unyielding flesh of his companions’ arms, yanking them to a halt by his side.

  They would wait and, when they could feel their master’s stolen property, they would move quickly. He would not allow it to disappear again.

  His heel compressed something soft against the slippery surface of the rubble, and Aurek nearly lost his balance as he dropped to more-or-less solid ground. He straightened in almost full darkness, as what little daylight there was seemed unwilling to enter with him. Using the sound of his entrance to define the dimensions of the room, he determined it was larger than he’d thought from outside, the gray light of his exit was farther away, and he wasn’t alone.

  He could hear something breathing, noisily sucking moist air in and just as noisily blowing it out through phlegm-encrusted passageways. There might have been more than one, but the noise he heard was too diffuse to tell for sure. Preparing to defend himself, he decided that light would probably be his most potent weapon.

  Slipping his hand into the pocket of his coat—the items it held would be less than useless tucked safely away in his pack—he rummaged among the possibilities until his fingers touched an oilcloth-wrapped lump about the size of his thumb. Drawing it out, he quickly unwrapped it to expose a whitish, waxy substance that glowed faintly in the dark. Although the spell he was about to evoke was extraordinarily simple, finding phosphorus in large enough pieces to make using it worthwhile was not. Under normal circumstances, lanterns made much more sense, used no power, and were infinitely easier to replace. Today, however, he wanted his hands free.

  At any other time he’d have drawn in a deep breath to help his focus, but the stench surrounding him made shallow breathing much healthier—even the thought of a deep breath turned his stomach. Holding the phosphorus on his left palm, he closed his fingers around it, spoke the necessary words of command, and threw it into the air. The speck of light whirled about his head and divided into eighteen specks that grew brighter with every revolution. On Aurek’s command the eighteen became six, then three globes of light, each the size of a man’s fist.

  “Spread,” he said curtly. Each globe moved about three feet away—one in front, two behind—in a triangular pattern. In their clear white light Aurek finally saw where he stood.

  Before the house had collapsed, the area had likely been part of an attached coachhouse; now it was a long, narrow cavern. Rising just barely higher than his head, the ceiling looked ready to collapse at any moment. Moisture glistened on the rubble, collecting on low points and dripping into foul puddles. The stink rose from piles of rotting garbage and excrement and was strong enough, in such close quarters, to make his eyes water.

  Edik is going to have a fit about the condition of my boots, he found himself thinking as he took a cautious step forward. He could still hear the moist and labored breathing, but had no better idea of where it came from than he’d had while in the dark.

  Then one of the larger piles of garbage moved. Something whimpered as it squinted at him through red-rimmed, rheumy eyes. It had been human once. Perhaps it still was, under a looser definition of human than Aurek used. A second pile of garbage lifted up to the light a face covered in oozing scabs. A third scuttled back into the shadows.

  He’d heard of these. The other residents of the city named these pitiful refugees the lost ones. They were the people who had seen one too many horrors. Had fought one too many battles. Had been forced to endure more pain than they were able. Had finally surrendered to horror, to defeat, to pain. Lost ones.

  They were well named, Aurek acknowledged as he walked carefully among them. They cowered as he passed, but that could have as easily been from the unaccustomed light as from any threat he presented. They’d gone far beyond caring for their own safety; all that remained was the lowest, most bestial level of survival. They lived, but that was all. The worst of it was, when he forced himself to look closer, he could see the atrocities that had driven them to surrender lurking behind the blank despair in their eyes. Because they’d stopped just short of death, they hadn’t found the forgetfulness they sought.

  One of them sucked something dark in between cracked and bleeding lips and began to chew. Aurek gave thanks he hadn’t seen what it actually was.

  Once these people had lives, loved ones.

  Natalia …

  She had brought light and love and laughter into his life, and all three had been taken from him as she had been, trapped with her. If he couldn’t save her, could he, even he, fall this far?

  His mouth went dry, and he began to shake, fighting a wave of despair that threatened to drag him under and throw him up as wreckage on a not-so-distant shore. He would save her! He would! This was not his future!

  Gradually, he fought his way back to calm and found himself with one hand up on the damp lip of the exit hole with no memory of how he’d crossed to it. I will save you, Natalia, he promised, as he had a thousand times before. I will never surrender. He took a deep, steadying breath of the cleaner air pouring in from outside and silently cursed his imagination. He was an intelligent man, a strong man, yes, even a powerful man. He would never come to this.

  His lip curled in disgust—at the weakness of others, at his own momentary lapse—as he started to climb out into the rain. A noise behind him made him turn, unable to deny curiosity. The third of the lost ones, the one who had originally moved away from the light, crept toward him on hands and knees. The tangled remains of blonde braids and a face clear of beard suggested it had once been a woman, though its condition destroyed any claim to gender and it could have as easily been a beardless boy. When it felt Aurek’s gaze upon it, it lifted its own sunken eyes to his face and stretched out a filthy, almost skeletal hand.

  Save me.

  He could hear it as clearly as if the words had been spoken aloud.

  A moment later, the hand fell and eyes stared at nothing, said nothing, wanted nothing.

  Aurek climbed out into a garbage-strewn cul-de-sac, dimmed his lights, put the wrapped phosphorus back into his pocket, and threw up until his stomach twisted painfully around nothing.

  “But, Aurek, you could do so much with the power you have.” Natalia’s voice rang in memory.

  “I’m a scholar, Lia. Try to understand.”

  She put her hands on her hips and sighed. “Actually doing something will make you no less a scholar.”

  I’m doing something now, Lia, but I can’t save everyone who needs saving.

  Aurek spat and straightened. With trembling fingers, he pulled out the amulet and followed it farther to the east.

  Although he tried to turn his thoughts in other directions, they kept returning to the lost ones. Burying his emotional response in scholarship, he tried to work out how something so uncaring of personal safety could possibly survive in such a hostile environment. The Narrows were reputed to hold packs of wild dogs as well as wandering undead, giant spiders, a variety of snakes, and the ubiquitous rats—sewer and otherwise. The lost ones would be easy prey.

  Unable to find an answer, he decided that the dominant predator of Pont-a-Museau would consider them poor sport—wererats liked to have more fun with their food.

  Wererats. He wiped the rain out of his eyes and found himself considering Louise Renier and his brother without rage or disgust for the first time. What, besides the obvious, did she want with Dmitri? Or was that all she wanted? Perhaps she had no interest beyond the physical. Wererats were, after all, in the habit of concerning themselves with self-indulgence and little else. If that was the case, Dmitri was in no real physical danger until she tired of him.

  But other dangers …

  Aurek shook his head, rainwater spraying off the ends of his hair. His w
arnings had gone unheeded. What was he supposed to do? Keep his brother locked in the house while he searched the ruins for magic to free his Natalia? He would not sacrifice his wife to Dmitri’s stubbornness.

  “If he still doesn’t see what Louise Renier is,” Aurek muttered to a cold autumn wind, wondering how anyone could be so willfully blind, “then perhaps his naiveté is protection enough.”

  The chain tugged at his finger, and he followed the pull down a narrow alley between two buildings still miraculously intact. Stepping over the gnawed bones of a cat, he considered recalling his lights, then decided not to waste the power. Except for the three lost ones—who were definitely no threat—he’d seen none of the creatures supposedly so prevalent in the Narrows. Granted, a number of the hunters were nocturnal but a few were not, and the appearance of prey should have brought them out. Perhaps the rain kept them from hunting; it was certainly unpleasant enough.

  Shoulders hunched against the wet, Aurek picked his path with care. His map of the city had indicated there were underground canals cutting through the area, and he had no desire to find himself suddenly swimming. As his eyes grew accustomed to the lack of light between the buildings, he saw that the amulet seemed to be glowing faintly.

  He wasn’t surprised, given the power it held and its current proximity to the place it had been found.

  “A cousin of mine heard you were searching for magical artifacts in the ruins.… He gave me something to give to you. Says he found it under the city in some sort of ruined workshop.”

  “Why did he give it to you?”

  “I expect it’s because your brother and I are such friends.”

  Why are you giving it to me?

  He hadn’t asked her that and, all at once, he realized he should have. Why would Louise Renier give him anything? Certainly not merely because a cousin had asked her to. She’d hated him even before the cellar had collapsed beneath her, and he couldn’t see how being thrown into the sewers could’ve changed her opinion.

  Why hadn’t he asked her?

  Why hadn’t he seen anything unusual in her even speaking with him?

  Because he’d been thrown off-balance by what had happened in the cardroom. Because once he’d seen the amulet, he could think of nothing else.

  Aurek stopped where he was and stared at the surrounding shadows. He was walking into a trap.

  Louise Renier had lied to him: that was a given. Her feelings about him aside, he doubted she was capable of telling the truth. But in all his long years of study, Aurek had never heard of a true lycanthrope being a wizard, nor could he imagine a wererat, for all they were probably the most intelligent of such creatures, having the necessary discipline to study the art.

  For all the lies that had come with it, the amulet was real. It had been created by a powerful wizard, and wizards had workshops. Even now the amulet was drawing him toward the place it had been found. He had to follow it. Whatever the risk, he couldn’t chance missing the one opportunity he might have to return his Natalia to life.

  “And surely,” he allowed, as the amulet led him deeper into the alley, “I can overcome any trap devised by a wererat.” If he had no answers, at least he had faith in his own abilities.

  The alley continued, offensive to eye and nose both, for another thirty feet, then opened out into a ruined courtyard. Aurek stepped out from between the buildings, relieved at being away from their oppressive bulk even though he now had no protection from the nearly opaque sheets of rain. He had no idea he was no longer alone until a gray hand wrapped around the amulet and yanked the chain from his finger, ripping off skin and the fingernail with it.

  Aurek’s jaw dropped, but no sound emerged. He had nothing to fuel a scream; the sudden pain had forced all the air from his lungs. He struggled to fill them, injured hand cradled against his chest. Then he realized …

  … he’d lost the amulet!

  That which had been lost was found. With it clutched in the more functional of his hands, he led the other two back toward the entrance to the catacombs. The living thing he’d retrieved it from was not their concern.

  Handkerchief wrapped awkwardly around his bleeding finger, Aurek followed the power signature of the amulet just as he’d followed the power signatures of a dozen pieces of junk he’d found abandoned in Pont-a-Museau. He squinted through the storm’s sudden fury, saw three shadows rounding a distant corner, and pounded after them as fast as he was able.

  Splashing through the gutter, he slipped on a cracked paving stone. Without thinking, he threw out a hand to catch himself and slammed his injured finger into the ground. This time, though he had breath enough to scream, he didn’t have the energy to waste.

  He had to get the amulet back; without it he’d never find the shielded workshop.

  Lunging around the corner, he could barely make out his quarry crossing a flooded street.

  There was something about the way they were moving.… The more analytical part of his brain worried at it while the rest concerned itself solely with recovering Natalia’s best chance.

  He caught up to them as they passed under a narrow portico. Out of the obscuring storm, there could be no mistaking what they were.

  Undead.

  Zombies.

  His studies having made him familiar with the theory of necromancy, it never occurred to Aurek that he should be afraid. He could, if he so desired, create similar creatures. Better creatures, he observed disdainfully, noting how every step seemed likely to shake the trio apart. Under tattered clothing, gray skin had cracked in a number of places like badly tanned leather. He could see the amulet swinging from a rotting hand, but two of the zombies were between him and the artifact. Rage propelling him over the last few feet, he grabbed the closest arm and threw the zombie out of his way …

  … intended to throw the zombie out of his way. The arm ripped right off the shoulder, ball and socket separating with a brittle cracking sound. Beetles that had been living in the joint scurried away from the sudden wet. Aurek stared down at what he held, noted how his fingers made no impression on the woodlike flesh and, with a grimace of disgust, flung the arm away.

  The remaining arm caught him a glancing blow on the side of the head. Ears ringing, Aurek staggered back, tripped, and fell under a second swing that would have opened his throat had it connected.

  I haven’t time for this!

  He kicked out and, off-balance, the one-armed zombie stumbled back against its companions. The staggering dance that resulted as the three tried to keep their footing would have been funny under other circumstances. As it was, Aurek used the time to collect his scattered thoughts.

  Unlike Dmitri, who’d wasted countless hours practicing with an ugly assortment of weapons, he was no fighter. It was obvious that in order to get to the zombie with the amulet, he’d have to fight the other two. Their apparently fragile condition aside, Aurek doubted he’d win and, even if by some wild chance he did, during the time it would take him to destroy the first two, piece by piece, the third zombie could easily disappear with the amulet. Once the amulet was in the workshop, he’d never find it through the protective shielding. If he couldn’t find the amulet, he couldn’t find the workshop.

  He couldn’t risk it. He had to settle things definitively before that could happen.

  As a scholar, he’d had little use for the more aggressive spells, but he was glad now that he’d taken the time to study them—both in Borca and early this morning when he’d prepared weapons for the day’s search through the Narrows. Rolling the tiny ball of sulfur and bat guano against the palm of his right hand, he found his focus, pointed, and shouted out the range.

  He hadn’t expected them to burn with such violence.

  Perhaps the blood, inadvertently added to the spell by his damaged finger, gave it extra power. Perhaps the three had been undead for so long the years had sucked all moisture from their bodies, leaving them tinder-dry. When the fireball exploded, all three zombies were instantly consumed. The rain
hissed as it hit but had no effect on the roaring ball of flame.

  On his knees, Aurek shielded his face with his arm. The wet cloth steamed. He could feel his forehead tightening from the heat.

  One heartbeat. Two. Then it was over.

  Aurek staggered to his feet, coughing and choking. His throat burned from the heated air he’d inhaled; his head pounded from the unanticipated power surge; tears poured down his cheeks as his body attempted to clear the acrid smoke from his eyes.

  The heat had been so intense that the stones in front of him—pavement, building, and portico—were white, not black. All three bodies had been so completely consumed not even ash remained.

  But where was the amulet?

  Barely noticing that the rain had once again become a constant, soaking drizzle, he circled the parameter of the fireball, desperately looking for a glint of gold. It took all his strength to wait, but the stones were still too hot to walk on. Not until the rain began to make a darker pattern against the blasted white did he step forward. He could feel the results of the fireball through the soles of his boots, but he couldn’t hold back any longer.

  Where was the amulet? Had the zombie carrying it thrown it aside at the last minute?

  Palms clapped to his throbbing temples, Aurek reached out and searched, power to power.

  Down?

  How could it …

  His gaze dropped to the crack between the pavement and the building. A howl began to build in the back of his throat as he threw himself to his knees, ignoring the pain as the stone scorched his seeking hand. A faint residue of gold remained on the crumbling marble edge of the crack. He picked at it, unable to make the hole any larger, unwilling to acknowledge the horrendous result of his attack. Unable to ignore it.

  The heat of the fireball had melted the soft metal, and the molten gold had poured through a crack in the stone sheath that enclosed the city. In a thousand places a strong kick would’ve opened up a way to retrieve it. In a thousand places … but not this one. Aurek flung himself against it, but blood and bone lost the battle to stone. He could sense where the gold had gone, knew it still held power enough to lead him to the workshop, but try as he might, he couldn’t reach it.