“Master Iltar,” a feminine voice beckons.
Turning toward the doorway of the estate, Iltar tiredly glances to the maid who is stepping toward her employer; she is a woman of plain features with dull brown hair that is pulled back.
Once at her employer’s side, she asks, “Do you need anything?”
“Yes, clean clothes and some food,” Iltar grumbles as he walks toward the gates of his tower.
The maid hurriedly follows Iltar to the metal gates, and she rushes to push them open for the necromancer before he reaches them. She eyes her employer with a look of uncertainty as she walks side by side with Iltar into the tower and they ascend the three flights of stairs together.
Once in the anteroom atop the third floor, the necromancer removes a key from his robe; he unlocks the doorway in front of the top stair adjacent to his study, the same which has formerly been a scene of plotting between himself and Cornar.
Upon entering the room, Iltar moves immediately to the far circular wall where a stair curves along it and leads to the fourth floor of the tower. The room they cross takes up over one fourth of the third floor; it is a small sitting room with a fireplace on the wall next to the doorway. Throughout the space are luxurious pieces of furniture, akin to those found in Cornar’s city estate.
The stairs leading to the fourth floor open into a semi-circular bedchamber. It takes up nearly half of the floor and houses a large lavish bed, situated against the straight wall of the space. Opposite of the bed and near the only window in the room is a deep high-back chair and end table. On either side of the bed are two doors, evenly positioned between the corners where the curving wall meet and the edges of the bed.
As Iltar reaches the fourth floor, he removes his battle-worn robe and tosses it on the ground.
“You can get rid of that,” Iltar says as he crosses the room, moving around the bed and toward the far doorway.
“I can mend it–”
“No!” Iltar snarls, “Just get rid of it!”
“As you wish,” the maid reluctantly states then says, “I’ll have your fresh clothes on your bed.”
As the maid says the last, Iltar reaches the far doorway and passes through it, entering a room covered mostly in granite-like stone.
Once inside, the necromancer removes his clothes and walks naked toward a stone alcove tucked into the far corner of the room. Standing at the niche’s entrance, Iltar touches a stone that protrudes from a wall in the alcove and turns it.
In response to his touch, water drips from small holes recessed into the ceiling and Iltar steps into the stone enclosure.
When he built the tower, Iltar had constructed a means to pull water from the well of his estate and store it within the fifth floor of the structure. By magical means, from devices he had found in previous adventures, the water is pumped through metal pipes. This method of moving water was common among Kalda, but not so much by magic.
After cleaning himself, Iltar quietly retires to his bed chamber within his tower and struggles to fall asleep. Despite his success that day, it’s a restless night, full of nightmares and vivid life-like dreams.
Within his mind, countless battles are fought. Their combatants are the dragons of legend, both breeds of platinum and red. The battles culminate in which Iltar sees from a detached view, himself riding a top of a red dragon, leading his vast army into battle through the sky.
Iltar’s view shifts from spectator to participant as a new scene plays out: In the distance in front of him, a platinum dragon appears, flying through the air at great speed; it abruptly stops by spreading its wings, causing them to fill the view of Iltar’s vision.
In response, the crimson scaled steed upon which Iltar is riding slows his flight and the two creatures collide.
As the majestic dragons grapple each other, the platinum dragon wraps its head around the neck of its opponent, nearing Iltar at the base of the crimson behemoth’s neck.
The platinum dragon’s nearest eye fixates on Iltar, blinking once; within the dragon’s gray iris, flecks of red and black strain in a swirling pattern as the dragon’s pupil expands.
In this same moment, Iltar can no longer feel anything; the gaze of the gigantic dragon strips him of his freedom, both mentally and physically. All Iltar can do is helplessly watch the horrific scene before him.
Particles of magical energy cluster into the aperture of the gigantic eye, causing the swirls of the iris to expand and stretch. The pupil shrinks into almost nothingness and then in an instant it violently expands; rays of magical energy erupt from the surface and race to the necromancer, blinding Iltar’s vision in a brilliant display of white light.
The words resonate with strong emotion in his mind, “Your reign of terror ends now!”
Violently awaking, Iltar’s sapphire eyes flash, and he abruptly sits up within his bed, gasping heavily; he clutches his chest and leans forward, bracing himself with his other free hand.
“Too real…” Iltar mutters and groans. “That eye, i-it’s like that beast’s from the island. Although this one’s gaze was full of other emotions…”
Taking a deep breath, Iltar examines himself: His body is covered in sweat, and beads of the liquid drip down his extended arm. It is already well past sunrise and the Kaldean sun beams through the closed glass panes of the window of Iltar’s fourth floor tower bedroom.
After several moments, Iltar gathers his wits and tosses the covers of his bed aside while saying, “It was just a dream. What have I to fear from a night’s vision?”
Damp garments stick to Iltar’s skin as he moves himself off the bed.
Soft gray fur slippers await the necromancer’s feet, and Iltar gently slides into them. He steps toward the chair and the small end table where a tray containing warm but cooling pastries and some fruit native to the isle of Soroth await him; this fruit resembles an apple but with a lightly fuzzed covered skin, called a furnapel.
Iltar grumbles as he looks at the food then takes a pastry. His brow furrows as he chews on the baked food; however, the sweet taste of the delicately prepared bread doesn’t distract his mind from the lingering nightmare.
A moment later, Iltar takes the last pastry and one of the fruits in hand then heads for his study on the third story of his tower.
Once inside, a smile smears across Iltar’s face; the spotless room is a welcomed sight. Stepping forward, Iltar sets the two edible items on the cleared table, then continues forward to the closed window and opens it; fresh fall air fills the room as the two panes of glass swing outward.
“Belsina!” Iltar calls out from the window and waits.
After almost a minute later, a door is heard opening from the estate. The woman who had run to Iltar’s assistance the night before appears again at the gates of the stone wall. She hurriedly opens them and quickly treads across the stone path toward the tower.
“Yes, Master Iltar?” the maid replies promptly as she nears the tower, stopping almost directly beneath the window; Iltar had not been one to yell orders across the grassy expanse to the estate.
“Send Delrin into the city and you go with him. Tell him to take Cornar’s horse back and to seek out two men at the Order of Histories, Kilan and Midal. I want them here now, tell them to drop everything.”
With only a nod of the head, the plain maid runs back across the stone path leading to the gate and disappears into the stables.
Turning away from the window, Iltar sighs and moves to the chair on the right of the table; he slumps into the seat and grabs the pastry. The flakes break apart as he bites down and some linger on his thick but neatly trimmed hair around his lips.
Through the window, the sounds of horses galloping away reach Iltar’s ears, causing a smile to form across his face.
* * * * *
A little over two hours later, the sound of rushing horses reaches the necromancer’s ears. Iltar’s attention is drawn away from a thick leather bound tome in his hands, which he carefully marks the current pag
e with a velvet like strand. Closing the book with the two ends of the material hanging out from both top and bottom, the necromancer sets it on the table and moves to the window.
Two men dressed in tanned clothing are walking across the stone path towards the tower and disappear from view as they reach its base.
“They took long enough,” Iltar snarls as he returns to the chair and sits down, slowly tapping his fingers on the leather tome.
After a moment, several rapid knocks at the door alert the necromancer and he replies with a single phrase tainted with impatience, “Come in!”
The door opens and both men walk through. They are of average height, shorter than Iltar, with short dark hair and gray strands. The man on the right has a clean shaven face while the other has a long mustache that curves around his lips down to his chin; it ends in a point with two small leather clasps binding each strand of hair together. Both of their lightly tanned complexions are wrinkled with age. The man on the right’s eyes are a dull blue and the other’s are a vibrant green.
“I’d ask you to sit but there is only one chair,” Iltar muses at the thought, “I have a certain task for each of you.
“Kilan,” the necromancer shifts his focus to the man on the right. “I want to know everything you can find about the isle of Merdan and the city of Merda. I want to know when it was settled, everything about that place to the present time.”
“That will take awhile, but I will do my best,” Kilan responds in a callous tone. “When do you need it?”
“I have no time constraints, but don’t work at it leisurely,” Iltar snarls and waggles his forefinger as he leans forward, staring at the historian with his sapphire eyes. “But I don’t want this to be a priority that will consume your work either. In fact, I want the both of you to undertake this work with some degree of secrecy.”
Both historians glance at each other and raise their brows in response as Iltar reaches beneath the desk.
In the necromancer’s hands are two palm-sized bags; the fabric is tight with outlines of small coins. Iltar sets them down on the wooden table upon the stone inset and looks at both of the historians in silence; after a moment Iltar continues.
“This is a payment for your discretion. When you return I will pay you for the information. Take it,” the necromancer nods his head toward the two bags midway between him and the two historians.
With an intrigued expression across his face, Kilan reaches his hand forward and grabs one of the bags, lightly bouncing it in his hand.
“This is quite generous Iltar,” Kilan says then smiles to the historian next to him, “About enough to subsist upon for nearly half a year. I assume you’re done talking with me?”
“Yes. Now go, and you know what will happen if I discover either of you have talked about this to others,” Iltar looks to Kilan at the door and then to Midal in front of him. “Both of you will regret it for the rest of your lives.”
“There is no need to threaten us Iltar, that’s already implied by your summons,” Kilan remarks as he walks toward the still open doorway.
The necromancer waits as he listens to Kilan’s footsteps fading from the anteroom and down the stairwell. Once satisfied that Kilan cannot hear Iltar’s instructions to Midal, the necromancer continues.
“As for you my friend,” Iltar motions for Midal to sit, and the scholar with the mustache pulls out the chair and sits down, intently listening to his host. “I have a very important requisition for you. I want specific details, and I don’t care if you have to leave the island to do so.
“Now, here is a list,” Iltar removes a roll of parchment from a bag on the ground next to his chair, handing it to Midal.
Without a word, the historian takes it and slips it into the top of his tunic.
“I have specific questions written on that parchment. I expect detailed answers for each of them. The same charge applies to you. No one is to know what you are researching, and if you have to leave the island do it under a guise of personal venture. Do you understand?”
Midal silently nods his head as Iltar stares deep into his emerald eyes. Without a word, the historian reaches for the sack of coins and holds them tightly as he stands from the table, bowing to the necromancer.
Watching Midal leave the study, Iltar nestles himself into the chair, leaning his head against the high-back cushion.
“Now to face Igan’s wife,” Iltar mutters as he turns his head and looks out the window. “And that foolish P.M.”
* * * * *
Almost an hour later, Iltar rides his steed through the edge of the woodland; he is dressed in his typical black garb of a tunic and breeches. Sight of Soroth’s walls reaches the newly ascended guild leader as he races toward the city; seeing the towering buildings of his new order brings a smile to his face.
Once inside the city gates, Iltar travels south for several minutes and then west. The gait of his horse is quick and steady as Iltar moves along roads filled with estates similar to Cornar’s; city manors with high walls and homes nestled back from the street.
The necromancer stops and dismounts at a gray gate made of metal and prindelin, a type of tree with gray inner bark. Taking his horse by the reigns, Iltar uses his other hand to open the gate.
To the right of the gateway is a stone peg, about the height of an average man’s waist, buried partway in the ground. Iltar casually ties the reigns of the horse around the two stone rails that branch out at the top of the peg.
With his horse bound, he turns back to close the gate, then walks around the front of his horse and toward the home.
Like the walls outside, the home is made of the same gray stone. The front part of the home is a single story, with an upper level covering the rear half of the dwelling.
An archway, several phineals deep, covers the porch leading to the main entry way of the house. On the left side of the home is a long room that stretches from the house and nearly a quarter of the way toward the front wall. On the opposite side of the dwelling is an almost square shape room with two tall windows at the far right front corner.
As Iltar walks up the first of two steps to the covered landing, the door quickly opens and a matured woman stands in the doorway: She is of shorter than average height and a slender build. Her face is thin, with high cheek bones and a pointed chin. Creases mark her face between the edge of her long pointed nose and her thin lips. Long locks of light brown hair rest on her shoulders and part way down her chest. Her dark brown eyes glare at Iltar as he steps closer.
“Get in here!” the woman scowls in a rumble under her breath.
Without acknowledging her anger, Iltar steps past her into the home’s foyer.
The foyer is an average height for a single story home in Soroth, rising eight phineals tall. In front of Iltar is another hall leading to the back of the home. Midway down that hall and to the right are stairs leading to the upper level.
With her right hand on the edge of the open door, the woman points to a parlor to Iltar’s right with her left hand, “There, now!”
Casually nodding his head, Iltar moves toward the parlor; it’s one step below the entry hall with several bookcases adorning the wall opposite of the street-side exterior. Two plain yet elegant ivory hued sofas line the outer walls with a low table in front of them.
Once inside, Iltar silently moves to the long seat nearest him and sits; all the while, he listens as the woman slam the door and walk behind him into the parlor.
Across the room, the owner of the home walks around the table and to the other sofa; her silk clothing creating a soft shimmering sound as she adjusts herself atop the fabric seat.
“Where is Igan?” the woman demands, her voice trembles as he further inquires about the aforementioned wizard. “What happened to my husband, Iltar? I heard that you and the others returned yesterday, why wasn’t he with you?”
“Baekal…” Iltar pauses as he takes a deep breath, attempting to conjure a sense of remorse within himself. “Igan was kil
led on an island the council secretly sent us to; by a large beast, a dragon we think.”
“Don’t jest with me Iltar,” Baekal’s eyes flare with anger, “You know as well as I those things are just legend!”
“No, I do not jest. Listen to me…” Iltar recounts the false story about the hidden charge him and Cornar were given to discover the Dragon’s Isle and the subsequent need to deal with the council fatally.
After hearing the tale, Baekal sits with her legs crossed on the cushions of the sofa.
With a distracted tone she vocalizes her interpretation of what Iltar said, “You’re telling me my husband saved everyone? It sounds like him…” the words trail off as she looks out the window to the walls of her estate. “I hope you made them suffer for sending him to his death.”
“Oh, I did,” Iltar says with a perverse tone. “But I am also here for another reason Baekal. With the council reduced to only myself, I am tasked with rebuilding our Order at the core. You are an accomplished wizard, with powers that exceeds any of those dead fools. Your expertise in the magical arts of arcane and elemental destructive powers is what our Order need.”
Jarred from the thoughts of her husband’s demise, Baekal abruptly turns her head to face Iltar; an expression of focus mixed with sadness over her husband’s loss fills her visage. Tears brim her eyes as she thinks over what Iltar is eluding to and what he had said about her beloved Igan.
“I want you to occupy a seat on the council, Baekal.”
“Why me?” tears stream down Baekal’s face, and she wipes them away as she looks at the necromancer.
“Because you are the wife of one of my dearest friends. I trust you… to an extent. Like I said before, your skill is vital to rebuilding the Order.”
“Who else?” Baekal asks as she looks down at the floor and sniffles slightly.
“Arintil has already accepted. He will oversee the conjuration arts,” Iltar’s eyes squint as he looks out the window to his right, “As for the other seats I don’t know. I will be paying everyone a visit that was recorded as a student and awarded the mark of completion.”
The Dark Necromancer Page 29
