Mortal Rites

by Melissa McShane

  “Sorry,” Alaric said. “You’re right. Take your time.”

  Sienne looked out across the grassy meadows, shielding her eyes against the bright sun. It was hard to believe in necromancers, or the undead, on a day like this, when the air smelled of wildflowers and even the shadows seemed cheerful.

  She turned her back on the fields and studied the dark forest. It didn’t look ominous at all, despite the thickness of the tree growth and the way nothing moved beneath the pine branches. What disturbed her was the lack of roads heading into it. They hadn’t searched for one the previous night, because they’d wanted solitude, and a road invited travelers. Now she wondered if they’d have to forge a path eastward until they caught up with Murtaviti. That sounded unpleasant. Probably she was worried over nothing. Murtaviti would need a road, too, and it was just a matter of finding the one he’d taken, something she was certain Perrin could do. If Averran ever answered his petition.

  The smell of jasmine and mint brought her back to herself. Turning around, she saw streams of white smoke arising from the rice papers on Perrin’s lap. Perrin opened his eyes and sorted through the blessings, setting aside the unmarked papers. “Healings,” he said, “but no more than usual. Several protections. Two scryings, not one. And something unfamiliar to me, with markings to suggest it is related to sight in some way. I will have to study it as we go.”

  “I always get nervous when Averran gives you mystery blessings,” Dianthe said. “It’s like he’s testing us on our cleverness. Suppose we don’t figure out what it’s for, and either misuse it or fail to use it at all?”

  “Averran does not think that way, I assure you,” Perrin said. “He has tremendous patience and a desire to watch humanity grow in wisdom and understanding. When he gives me an unknown blessing, I see it as an opportunity to learn something new. There is nothing to fear.” He extended a hand to Dianthe. “The map, if you please.”

  The scrying showed Murtaviti hadn’t moved far from his last location. Alaric took the map and examined it closely. “We’ll take the highway south for…probably a mile and a half. There’s a road there leading east that matches this path Master Murtaviti has been taking. As far as I know, it doesn’t lead anywhere but to a before-times ruin, that and a settlement that was abandoned about twenty years ago when the water supply failed.”

  “More mysteries,” Sienne said. She hefted her pack to her shoulders. “Let’s get this over with.”

  As she followed Alaric down the highway, she reflected on the revenant and how hard it had been to kill. She regretted as she never had before that she lacked so many of the deadly spells. Burn was effective, but she didn’t have scorch or ice or shock, or any of the spells that did damage to a group as opposed to the targeted ones like force. Not that force worked on the undead. She found herself imagining an army of undead, or a host of ghouls, and made herself think of something else.

  The road, when they finally reached it, was surprisingly well-traveled. Sienne had pictured a game trail, with trees brushing them on both sides, but this was wide enough for two horses to pass each other going opposite ways. Even so, the trees grew tall enough to overshadow the road, and the temperature dropped several degrees when they left the sunny highway behind. Despite this, it wasn’t eerie or frightening, just cold. Birds sang in the trees, though the needles were thick enough Sienne didn’t see them, and the sound of her friends’ footsteps on the hard-packed ground was familiar and comforting.

  They rested at noon and ate fruit and dried meat and soft bread cadged from the outpost’s kitchen. Sienne sat next to Alaric with her back against a tree and thought, as she often did, of how content she was in her new life. Even without her relationship with Alaric, she felt this was where she belonged—independent, growing in magical knowledge, surrounded by friends who knew her worth…so much better than the life she’d left behind.

  “You said you had another scrying, right?” Alaric said. “Any chance you could spy on Master Murtaviti, and give us a sense of his surroundings?”

  “I could certainly see our quarry, yes, but I am afraid I would see little more than that,” Perrin said. He bit into his apple, chewed, and added, “I would need something else to focus the scrying on to perceive the area in which Master Murtaviti is. A particular stone, or a house. And without knowing where he is, I cannot choose the right stone or house.”

  “Too bad we don’t have one of those location blessings,” Dianthe said. “It would lead us right to him.”

  “Yes, that occurred to me, but I think the shortness of its duration means we would have to go quite a distance before using it, and at that point we would be close enough that it would be unnecessary. We know we are going in the right direction, and that is valuable enough.”

  “It’s disturbing, though,” Dianthe said, rising and pacing a few steps eastward along the road. She had her attention on the scuffed earth. “We should have seen more travelers, for a road this heavily used.”

  “There’s nothing out this way for anyone to care about,” Alaric said.

  “But a lot of people have come this way recently.” Dianthe dragged her toe across the road. “I can’t tell which direction they went, east or west. It doesn’t make sense.”

  “An army?” Kalanath said. “But an army would not take such a small road, they would approach from the south.”

  “And we’re not at war with Omeira,” Alaric said. He stood and dusted himself off, then offered Sienne his hand. “More mysteries. I hate mysteries.”

  “Let me think on the problem of gathering information,” Perrin said. “There may be a use for this scrying blessing I have not yet discovered.”

  They walked on through the afternoon. Sienne began to feel uncomfortable, and it took her some minutes to realize the birds had stopped singing. “The birds,” she began.

  “I know,” Dianthe said, “but I can’t perceive anything out of the ordinary. It must be a fluke. Or there’s a storm coming.”

  “There aren’t any clouds,” Alaric said.

  “I know. I was being optimistic again. It unnerves me.”

  “We should be near the abandoned settlement,” Alaric said. “Stay close together. It may not be as abandoned as we hoped. It would be perfect for bandits to hole up in.”

  “Maybe bandits are who passed this way recently?” Sienne said.

  “Could be. I’d rather face bandits than the undead. I don’t suppose it’s true the undead only come out at night?”

  “That is, unfortunately, not true,” Perrin said. “The myth that they are nocturnal comes from the practice of necromancers to do their foul rituals under cover of darkness. However, undead eyes are sensitive to light, so they seek shadow when possible.”

  “That’s good to know,” Alaric said.

  “A signpost!” Dianthe said. She trotted forward to peer up at it. “Fairglen. That’s the abandoned settlement, right?”

  “It is.” Alaric joined her and looked up at the sign. “We’ll need to search the place to be sure Master Murtaviti isn’t holed up somewhere. We’re very close to the last location the scrying revealed.”

  A dozen or so yards down the road they found a side road branching off to the south. Dianthe looked grim. “Whoever made those tracks on the road either came from here or went toward Fairglen. In fact…” She ran onward for several paces, then turned and came back. “There’s no sign that anyone has traveled the road farther east for weeks. We might be in for a nasty surprise.”

  “Stay alert,” Alaric said. “Sienne, switch places with me. Dianthe, be ready to move when Sienne calls a warning. Not too fast now.”

  Sienne opened her spellbook to force, changed her mind and turned to burn, then went back to force. Cradling the book in her left hand, she rested the fingers of her right hand lightly on the edges of the pages and prayed they weren’t about to encounter an army of the undead.

  Ahead of her and slightly to the right, Dianthe paced as silently as a cat, her attention flicking in every
direction. “A lot of people have come this way in the last few days,” she said. “I don’t like this.”

  “Let’s not jump to conclusions,” Alaric said. “And be ready for a bandit attack.”

  The side road was narrower, barely wide enough for two of them to walk side by side, and the pines seemed to lean in, forming a tunnel through which only a sliver of cloudless blue sky was visible. The only sound was the wind blowing the tree tops in a great swoosh now and then, stirring the branches enough that loose needles sifted down to land on Sienne’s head. She didn’t take the time to brush them away.

  The road widened, or the trees fell away from it, and the forest opened up into a long, broad plain. Houses, decrepit but not falling down yet, lay at regular intervals over the near end of the plain. The far end was nothing but fields, green with the new growth of first summer. Dark pines hemmed the plain in on all sides like watchful sentinels and spread out across the miles beyond for as far as Sienne could see. It was easy to imagine the forest going on and on until it fetched up against the Bramantus Mountains.

  “I don’t see any movement,” Dianthe said. “And whoever took this road last spread out once they got this far.”

  “We check every house,” Alaric said. “Kalanath and Perrin, you investigate, and the rest of us will guard your backs. Make it thorough, but don’t dawdle. We want to eliminate this settlement as a possible hiding place for Master Murtaviti.”

  Kalanath nodded and walked swiftly to the nearest house. Perrin followed and held the door open for him while Kalanath looked inside. “A single room, and there are no people,” Kalanath said. “There is nowhere for someone to hide.”

  “Good. Let’s keep moving.” Alaric turned his back on them to watch where they’d come from. Sienne raised her spellbook and scanned the path ahead. Nothing moved. The houses were built of logs with pine shingled roofs, most of which were still intact. A few had holes, and Sienne felt unnatural relief at seeing a squirrel scurry across a roof to one of these holes and dart inside. She’d begun to fear there was nothing living left in this settlement, and that the men and women who’d used to live here had met some evil fate rather than simply moving on when their water supply ran out.

  They went from house to house, not speaking except for Perrin or Kalanath saying, “All clear.” Sienne relaxed her grip on her book for the tenth time and wiped her sweaty right palm on her trousers. Her neck ached, and there was a headache beginning between her eyes. “Are we going to feel stupid if it turns out there’s nothing here?” she said in a low voice.

  “We never feel stupid about taking adequate precautions,” Alaric said. She glanced back to see him still watching the rear and was comforted.

  Dianthe swore. “Something moved.”

  Sienne whipped around. The settlement was as placid and unmoving as ever. “Are you sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure. There, beyond the house with the tattered oilcloth in the window.”

  Sienne followed the line of her pointing arm. “I don’t see anything—”

  Something lurched into view from around the corner of the house. It moved haltingly, like someone finding their footing in a dark room, but with great deliberation. It was far enough away that Sienne couldn’t tell if it was male or female, just that it was an adult and that it didn’t seem to have noticed them.

  Sienne brought her spellbook up just as Alaric put a hand on her shoulder. “Wait,” he said. “He’s not coming this way.”

  “We’re not hiding. He has to see us,” Dianthe said.

  “I don’t think it’s human,” Alaric said. “Perrin?”

  “I cannot tell at this distance, but you may be right,” Perrin said. “It is no ghoul, that is certain, nor a revenant. But it could simply be someone whose joints pain him into slow movement.”

  The man, or undead, or whatever it was, finished crossing the road ahead of them and vanished behind another house. Sienne relaxed fractionally and lowered her book. “What now?”

  “I think…one moment, please…” Perrin took out his riffle of blessings and tore out one smudged purple. “I am almost certain this mystery blessing enhances sight. I think it will allow me to perceive the presence of creatures animated by dark energy within quite a large area.”

  “Is ‘almost certain’ good enough to justify using it?” Alaric asked.

  “It cannot hurt, and if I am correct, it will help a great deal.” Perrin pressed the blessing to the same spot between his eyes that pained Sienne and muttered, “O Lord, have patience in your crankiness, and grant me this blessing.”

  Perrin had pressed the paper sigil-side to his forehead, so the lines were invisible until purple light traced them to show through the paper. The light leaked between his fingers like glowing water and dribbled down his hand, evaporating before it reached his wrist. Perrin opened his eyes, and Sienne held back a gasp: amethyst light covered both eyes completely, hiding his irises and pupils and making it impossible to see what direction he was looking. When he blinked, his eyelids were pale purple from the light shining through them.

  “Astonishing,” Perrin said. “I can see whether my eyes are closed or open. There is the creature, passing to the left. My range of vision is increasing as time passes. There, I see another, ahead and to the left, and—”

  He stopped speaking, closing his eyes and shuddering. “Dear Averran,” he said faintly. “They’re everywhere.”

  Instinctively the rest drew in close around him. “Where?” Alaric said.

  “They are some distance away. I cannot see mundane objects, nor can I see any of you, but it is as if I were looking at a contour map edge on, the kind in which heights of terrain are represented, and each undead stands out as a gleaming pillar. And there are dozens, perhaps hundreds of them. It explains the condition of the road, but even so, I cannot imagine how they came to be here. Surely someone would have noticed their passing.”

  “We need to get out of here,” Dianthe said. “We can’t destroy hundreds of undead.”

  “It is peculiar, though,” Perrin continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “Their numbers grow greater as they approach a certain point, which is itself almost empty of undead. It is as if something draws them close, but repels them at the last minute.”

  “It’s Murtaviti,” Alaric said. “What else could have such an effect?”

  “It hardly matters,” Dianthe said. “We can’t reach him.”

  “Are the undead moving?” Alaric asked.

  “Less so the farther they are from the central space, but yes.” Perrin blinked again, slowly, making the light dim. “They shift at random around that area until they are within…I cannot tell the distance, precisely, but there is a point after which they begin moving toward it. And then they stop.”

  “Then we can get close enough to reach him ourselves,” Alaric said. “We just have to get past them.”

  “Is that a good idea?” Sienne said.

  “If Murtaviti has an army of undead, that means nothing good. The fact that he’s here in this backwater says he hasn’t yet implemented whatever his plan is. We still have a chance of stopping him, or at least of finding out his plan so we can figure out how to stop it.” Alaric let out a deep breath. “If Perrin can guide us, we can avoid the undead.”

  “It is not such a mad plan,” Perrin said. “A necromancer keeps a tight rein on his creations. They have no volition to attack unless he has specifically given them that command. Master Murtaviti likely came to this location because it is secluded and free from interlopers. If he was not expecting visitors, he might not have given his undead the command to attack intruders.”

  “I don’t like the amount of ‘might’ and ‘if’ in that statement,” Dianthe said, “but you make a good point. And I don’t want to let Master Murtaviti get away with whatever he’s planning.” She shuddered. “He made hundreds of undead. Where did he find that many victims? He couldn’t have killed hundreds of people without someone noticing!”

  “Necrom
ancers can raise people who’ve died of natural causes to unlife,” Sienne said. “It’s faster and easier than killing people, though they do that too.”

  “Let’s go,” Alaric said, “and save that discussion for some other time, like never.”

  10

  This time, Sienne walked behind Perrin, who was guided by Dianthe and Alaric. Kalanath paced behind them, watching their rear. Perrin moved as confidently as if he could still see conventionally, which led to Alaric and Dianthe having to steer him out of the path of houses and, once, a long-dry well. He kept up a murmured stream of instructions that seemed not to make a difference, though if he was taking them well out of the path of any undead, it wasn’t as if they’d see their enemy to know it was working. They certainly saw nothing, not even any more squirrels running along ridgepoles. Sienne, holding her spellbook open to burn, wondered if she ought to be in the lead, just in case. But they had enough trouble keeping Perrin on his course without worrying about him tripping over her.

  The afternoon felt timeless, as if the world were holding its breath, waiting for them to make a mistake. Sienne’s shoulders ached with tension. Sweat slipped down her back, and she surreptitiously moved her arms to get air circulating to dry it. It wasn’t that hot a day, but the sky remained cloudless and there was almost no shade provided by the low log buildings.

  Perrin stopped. “Directly ahead,” he said in a low voice. “We must wait for them to move on.”

  Sienne practiced slow breathing and tried not to imagine how many “them” might be. Two? Three? A dozen? Her lack of scorch, a mass of fire that could burn multiple creatures at once, suddenly seemed a serious oversight.

  “Move on,” Perrin said in a low voice, then “No, wait!”

  A person came into view not ten yards away. It was clearly dead, yellowing flesh sagging from its bones, and completely naked, so it was obviously female. It walked slowly, but otherwise its tread was normal. Tangled, matted hair obscured its face. Sienne felt rooted to the spot, terror making her forget her spellbook. No one moved as the undead woman crossed their path, moving from one house to another.