by Icy Sedgwick
“You’re going to experience the World Beyond a lot more, Jyx. I promise you that,” said Eufame.
The Wolfkin hoisted the cage onto its back and carried it across the chamber to an empty alcove. The cage slid inside, surrounding Jyx on three sides with solid black marble.
“Forever?”
“Well…probably not. So it might be worthwhile for you make mental notes while you’re there.”
The Wolfkin left the chamber. Eufame stood in the centre beside the slab, and produced a small silver globe from inside her sleeve. She balanced it on its pointed tip on the slab, and set it spinning. Sparks scattered across the marble and sounds issued from the globe. Jyx winced as he recognised Eufame’s awful profane chant. White light sparked from the tip of the obelisk as the recorded chant grew louder. Jyx pushed to the front of the cage and looked up; for the first time, he noticed strips of metal running from the tip of the obelisk up to the ceiling, and around the walls to the alcoves.
The necromancer general’s globe let out a primal scream and the energy raced down the metal strip to Jyx’s alcove. It made contact with the iron cage, and enveloped Jyx’s hands, still wrapped around the bars. Jyx’s scream joined that of Eufame’s as, for the second time that day, he ceased to exist.
To be continued…
Get more of Eufame Delsenza
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The Story Continues…
The events of The Necromancer’s Apprentice continue in The Necromancer’s Rogue. Keep reading for the first two chapters of the next instalment in the Underground City series!
CHAPTER ONE
The Almighty Crack, as the sound would be known in the days and weeks after the dust finally settled, was first heard by those waiting to petition the priestesses at Beseda’s Shrine. Being in the catacombs below the Underground City, they were closest to the epicentre, and reported the noise as being like that of the Great Cannon of the City Above. Several visitors chose to remain in the shrine to claim Beseda’s protection from the unseen foe they believed was attacking the city. When no pillaging forces appeared, the priestesses ushered out the petitioners.
The inhabitants of the Underground City heard it next, and later described it as a muffled roar that roused the sick and drunk alike from their beds. Many of the slum-dwellers believed it to be the gates between the cities finally rolling shut, and prepared to raise their voices in protest. Calm was restored when they reached the mighty Lockevar’s Gate and realised it was still open, and they drifted away to return to their subterranean lives, the mysterious noise forgotten for the time being.
Those in the Canal District of the City Above heard the crack and thought the foundations of their homes had burst at last. They believed they would be flooded, and scurried around the lower storeys of their homes until they noticed no intake of water, and went back to their daily business.
The Almighty Crack was quietly observed in the Magickal Quarter, where the Academy’s diviner ominously proclaimed the beginning of a period of mourning. The rest of the staff ignored him and instead blamed an experiment gone wrong in one of the classrooms, and the diviner failed to realise it was the only time in his life that his prediction had been right. The staff couldn’t find the source of the noise and promptly returned to lessons.
Yet in a forgotten tomb below the Underground City, beyond the catacombs of Beseda’s Shrine, a statue adopted a new pose. Long ago the figure had stood tall and proud, a warrior goddess enjoying the glory of her city, but now she pressed her back against the wall, stone arms clasped around cold knees. Her mane of hair curled in limestone tendrils around her forehead, hiding her fearsome face from view. Her discarded spear lay on the floor, its shaft split down the middle. A plumed helmet rested on its side near the door. Few would have recognised the fragments of chipped stone at her side as being a heart.
None would have remembered the name of this being, once terrible and formidable, yet they would eventually come to share her pain as the Heart of the City finally broke.
CHAPTER TWO
Monte McThwaite sat at the table in the pub. A book lay in front of him, bound in leather so black it absorbed all of the feeble light that flickered in its direction. No name was emblazoned on the spine or cover.
“Seems like a pretty big book to be lugging around everywhere.” He knocked back the last of his whiskey, winced, and put down the glass.
“Important things are no burden.” The man across the table smiled, displaying ferocious rows of dagger-like teeth.
Monte shuddered.
“You won’t find many down here wanting to read.” Monte gestured to the pub’s other patrons, a motley crew of drunks and fishwives back from the coast. A troll in the corner threw him a hard glare, and Monte looked away. His last encounter with a troll had left him without a sense of smell for an entire month.
“Good. The contents of this book are not for them.” The man returned the troll’s glare, apparently less worried about its strength than Monte.
“So why are you telling me about it then?”
“Firstly, you are familiar with death, and have a certain tolerance of it. This is helpful to my cause. Secondly, I get the sense you can actually read.”
Monte tried not to beam with pride. He’d always wanted to be seen as an educated man and not the gravedigger he actually was. This stranger, this man, had noticed what everyone else ignored.
“I can read, but I’m not the only one in here – you see that guy by the bar?” Monte pointed out a tall, gaunt man with long grey hair and a matted beard. His hangdog expression told Monte that the four pints of Bezziwig’s Broken Heart Basher had not yet begun to work.
“I do.”
“That’s old Crompton Daye. He’s a wizard.”
“Ah, a wizard will not suit my purposes. I need someone who can read but is not keen to use their mind unsupervised. Someone who will not think for themselves.”
Monte scowled, his previous pride deflated.
“Oh don’t look so piqued, my good man. I simply mean that wizards are too unpredictable and contrary. Their moods change on a whim. No, I need someone solid, and dependable. Reliable. The salt of the earth.”
“What do you need this someone for?” Monte tried to recall how the conversation had started, but he could only remember arriving at the pub at the end of his shift, and then the book, that awful big black book. A gaping hole opened in his memory between the two events. Had the man approached him, or was it the other way around?
“I’m currently conducting what you might call an experiment, although it’s also a bit of a quest, in its own way. Whatever you call it, it is vitally important, and could very well change the course of these delightful twin cities.”
Monte raised his eyebrow in reply.
“You see, my strong friend, that is a book of last words, and I need someone to help me once I’ve heard the last words I’m listening for.”
“Eh?”
The man leaned closer and lowered his voice. “I visit the dying as they lie on their death beds, and I collect their last words before they fade from the air and disappear into nothingness. My work is partly out of a desire to record for posterity the final statements of the dead. You could consider it a work of social history.”
“But which ones are you looking for?”
“Excuse me?”
“You said you needed my help once you’d heard the ones you were looking for.” Monte looked down at the book, wondering how many of those pages had been filled – and with what.
“Ah, my good man, you are sharper than you appea
r.”
Monte beamed again. His smile widened when another drink appeared on the table before him. He looked around to thank the waitress but saw no one.
“Well, I need your assistance because I believe that among the citizens of this great city is one who knows the location of a certain artefact. It goes by many names, but the one I prefer is the Heart of the City. He who possesses the heart –”
“Possesses the City. Well, Cities,” finished Monte.
“Exactly. You know the story, then?”
“Every child in the Underground City does, though I can’t speak for Above.”
“Indulge me.” The man smiled again.
Monte forced himself not to look at his teeth. Why did a man need so many teeth?
“When the Underground City was first hacked out of the earth, a warrior goddess protected them from the things they awoke in the depths. She loved the city fiercely when it was finished, and she died in battle, fighting a fearsome hydra. She killed it but she left her Heart to the city so that it may always be protected. My old mum always said if we need her again, we just need to find her Heart and she’ll come back. But no one knows where it is anymore. I thought it was a bedtime story for children.”
“Many men do, Monte. That is precisely why no one knows where the Heart currently rests – no one believes it exists. But I do.” The man tapped himself on the chest with one long, skinny finger.
“So what has this got to do with your book?”
“I began my project in order to gain access to people on their death beds, which is ultimately the only place where man will speak the truth, and I’m yet to hear what I’m waiting for. Though I believe I shall, and soon, and I shall require your help once I do in order to locate the Heart itself.”
“Say it does exist. What do you want it for?” asked Monte. Rumours tore around the Underground City about people disappearing from the street, the City Above Militia conducting beatings whenever they felt like it in the slums, and even wholesale demolitions near Lockevar’s Gate, but surely things weren’t so bad that anyone was looking for the Heart of the City.
“I told you, I’m a historian. An artefact like that should be on display. It shouldn’t be hidden away in some cold hole somewhere. So, can I rely on your dogged determination and admirable assistance?”
“I’ve already got a job, though,” replied Monte. He’d heard stories about the type of work men could find in the pub – and the trouble that usually followed. Besides, Myrtle would kill him if she found out he’d given up the grave digging for nothing. The work didn’t pay well, but any salary was worth having in the Underground City.
“I realise that, which is why I shall pay you more. How about a gold crown now, and a half crown for every week that you are in my employ?”
A flash of gold streaked across the man’s knuckles. Monte’s gaze followed its every movement.
“I’ll do it.” Monte agreed before he’d even made up his mind to do so. The man reached underneath the table to pass Monte the coin and he shoved it into his trouser pocket. Myrtle would be so pleased that she might even be nice to him.
“Excellent. My name is Mr Gondavere.” The man held out his hand across the table. Monte shook it, feeling its cold, papery texture beneath his own flesh.
“When do we start, sir?” he asked.
“How about now? I do believe there’s a man upstairs who won’t be in this world much longer.”
Mr Gondavere rose and headed towards the bar before Monte could ask him how he knew that. Mr Gondavere stopped to exchange words with the barkeeper, who widened his eyes and nodded. Mr Gondavere gestured with a nod for Monte to follow, and Monte passed through the hatch in the bar and up the back stairs, wondering exactly what he’d gotten himself into.
* * *
The Necromancer’s Rogue is coming soon!
MEET THE AUTHOR
Icy Sedgwick was born in the north east of England, and is currently based in Newcastle. She has been writing for more than ten years, and had her first book, the pulp Western adventure, The Guns of Retribution, published in September 2011. When she isn’t writing or teaching advertising, she’s working on a PhD in Film Studies, knitting, exploring graveyards, or watching history documentaries.
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