Necromancer Awakening

by Nat Russo

  “Rise,” Arin said.

  Nicolas felt a rush of power sweep past him toward Kagan’s body, and a faint blue necromantic link appeared.

  Kagan’s corpse stirred, awkwardly at first, like a newborn horse trying to stand for the first time.

  “I believe this is yours,” Arin said.

  The necromantic link detached itself from Arin and rushed toward Nicolas. When it struck him, it formed a bond in his mind. Kagan was there, at the opposite end of that link, powerless to act against Nicolas’s will.

  “And now you must decide, Nicolas Ardirian,” Arin said. “I would have you inherit your birthright. Serve us as Archmage. Help us restore this broken world.”

  Mujahid turned to Nicolas and smiled.

  “But know this,” Arin said. “The worst is yet to come. The Barathosians will return, and their intentions will not be to teach and guide this time. They will come to kill and conquer because of Kagan’s sin, and I will not take away their free will.”

  “But…can’t you convince them to stop at least?” Nicolas said.

  Arin smiled and glanced toward Kagan and back again.

  Nicolas understood. Even the word of a god wasn’t enough to stop human pride from doing its worst.

  He could turn down the offer and let someone else worry about the future. He could try his best to move on and forge some semblance of a life in this alien world. But Kaitlyn was his entire world, and that world was gone forever. If he was going to pay the price of that future, then he would take nothing less than the salvation of a world in return.

  Shealynd looked down, as if deeply troubled.

  “I’ll do it,” Nicolas said. “But there is one thing I would like to change, if I may?”

  “Give it voice, and we will see if it lends itself to change.”

  “My name,” Nicolas said. “I don’t want to be associated with Kagan or his dynasty. I have no interest in perpetuating that name, and I don’t want to think about him every time someone says it.”

  “And what would you be called?”

  “My name is Nicolas Murray. Murray is the name of a good man. A decent man who didn’t have Kagan’s sort of evil in him.”

  He thought of Dr. Murray and smiled. He bet the old man had no idea he’d be the start of some dynasty on an alien planet somewhere.

  “So be it,” Arin said. “You will be the patriarch of a new dynasty—the Murray dynasty.”

  “Arin,” Shealynd said. Some form of voiceless communication passed between them.

  “I will not,” Arin said. “What you wish is not wise.”

  “Zubuxo,” Shealynd said. “You above all know the intimate secrets of humankind. What is the one thing that keeps the greatest of evil at bay?”

  “Love, Goddess,” Zubuxo said, without hesitation. “Those who require the least purification possess it in great quantities.”

  “Nicolas loved Kaitlyn so perfectly, that he let her go when Love of others demanded it,” Shealynd said.

  “Arin,” Zubuxo said. “You object.”

  “The children were taken for a reason,” Arin said. “But this is your gift to give or take. Not mine.”

  Children? What children?

  Shealynd smiled.

  “Nicolas Murray,” Zubuxo said.

  When the God of Death spoke, a fire rose from the center of Nicolas’s being, and it was as if a red hot brand touched his mind, burning something indelible into the recesses of his consciousness.

  A new symbol of power took shape in his mind in the form of a door. But it was different from the other symbols in more than appearance. It had a power source of its own, like a built-in energy well.

  The fire vanished, and the pain along with it, but the door glowed in his mind’s eye.

  You are a good and faithful priest, and you will rise to heights you have not fathomed, the voice in his mind said. Trust in the Mukhtaar Lord, for your life will depend on it someday. I have granted you a gift given to no other human. Use this gift wisely.

  “I will,” Nicolas said.

  Mujahid looked at him and raised an eyebrow.

  Arin tossed the last remaining piece of the great orb to the floor, and it broke into dozens of smaller pieces with a loud shatter.

  “I will recreate the orb,” Arin said. “Once more will it light the way across a treacherous sea. But it will not be alone.”

  Lamil looked up.

  “Its twin will reside in Aquonome,” Arin said. He looked at Lamil. “Your chimeramancers will not have to make the great sacrifice after all, Lamil Jiskossa.”

  Lamil had never mentioned chimeramancers, although he had implied the orb wasn’t the only way back to Terilya.

  Arin stepped back between Shealynd and Zubuxo.

  “Serve him well, Mukhtaar Lord,” Arin said. “His need of you will be great in the days ahead.”

  There was no sound or movement, or any other indication that they were leaving. They simply vanished.

  “I must return to Aquonome,” Lamil said. His eyes beamed. “The elders must begin work on a new temple.”

  Nicolas glanced up and stared in wonder at the turquoise sky above. The symbol of the door burned in his mind, and he knew it was time to use it.

  “Mujahid,” he said.

  “Yes, Archmage,” Mujahid said, smiling.

  “Oh please. You practically changed my diapers. What’s with the Archmage stuff?”

  Mujahid smirked. “If a diaper is what I think it is, then you exaggerate. That is work best performed by a penitent.” He nodded toward Kagan, who remained expressionless.

  Nicolas sent a series of commands through the necromantic link and Kagan left the room.

  “Where’s he off to, then?” Mujahid asked.

  “I told him to find a broom.”

  Mujahid raised an eyebrow.

  “Someone has to clean this mess up.”

  Mujahid and Tithian chuckled.

  Nicolas smiled. “I need to ask a favor, Mujahid. Will you be my Prime Warlock and govern while I’m away? I may have a lot to learn about politics, but I know this place needs a strong hand on the wheel.”

  “I’m honored by your request. But I would serve you poorly by accepting. Especially when there’s a much better candidate right here in this room.”

  Mujahid reached out and placed a hand on Tithian’s shoulder.

  Tithian gave Mujahid an incredulous stare.

  “I was wrong to doubt you,” Mujahid said. “And I’ve been away from the Pinnacle for forty years. There is no one better suited for the job.”

  “If you will accept, Holy One, I would serve you in all humility,” Tithian said.

  “Whoa,” Nicolas said. “Slow your roll on the Holy One stuff. Talk like that is what started this mess to begin with. If Mujahid says you’re the man for the job, then yes, I accept.”

  Tithian bowed his head. “I only hope you will hold me in the same esteem someday, Holy—Archmage.”

  “About this Mujahid business,” Mujahid said. “I don’t care who you think you are…you’re still my postulant, for Arin’s sake. I’m Lord Mujahid. And that goes for you too, Tithian.”

  Nicolas smiled.

  The orb’s explosion had torn a hole through the wall of the sanctuary more than fifteen feet in diameter. Mujahid turned and looked through it, out toward the Sea of Arin.

  “I can help Tithian hold the Council at bay for a time,” Mujahid said. “But eventually they’re going to want to see their new archmage. There’s a coronation and installation to consider. Where are you going?”

  “I think I’m going home. But I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  “You make it sound as if you’ll be gone a long time.”

  “I’m only twenty-one years old, Lord Mujahid. Maybe twenty-two—I don’t know what month it is anymore. But to you I’m forty. For all I know I’ll get back home and…I’d rather not think about it.”

  “Be well, Nicolas…Archmage,” Mujahid said.

  Nicolas
nodded. He was about to extend his hand, but he was overcome by the urge to give Mujahid a hug. He stepped forward and embraced the startled Mukhtaar Lord.

  “Thank you, Mujahid,” Nicolas whispered. “I owe you my life.”

  Mujahid smiled and stepped back, leaving his hands resting on Nicolas’s shoulders.

  Nicolas gazed once more at the turquoise sky, marveling at its rich color. Light reflected off his robes and he remembered he was wearing the robes of a priest of Arin. He had experienced so much in these last few months that he never stopped to consider how his appearance must have changed. He was leaner, with more muscle tone, and his hair and beard had grown out. He doubted Kaitlyn would recognize him…if he managed to find her again.

  His thoughts turned inward to the door in his mind. He took one last look around the sanctuary and his eyes came to rest on Mujahid. He smiled and imagined the door opening.

  The Pinnacle vanished as he fell into blackness.

  CHAPTER THIRTY THREE

  The darkness exploded in a cascade of light and sound.

  Nicolas squinted in pain and blinked to clear the blurriness from his eyes. There was something soft underneath him. A cushion of some sort.

  He shifted his weight and heard a squeak.

  I know that squeak.

  It was his bed in Austin.

  As his vision cleared, he could make out the figure of someone facing away from him.

  Why would someone be inside my apartment? Wait…is this even my apartment anymore? Oh, damn, when’s the last time I paid rent?

  The blurry image resolved into a girl in a black dress. The feelings came flooding back in a rush as if he’d never left.

  “Kait,” he whispered.

  “Nick?” she said as she turned around. Her eyes were bloodshot and her makeup was running.

  She drew back and covered her mouth when she saw him.

  An intense wave of hunger hit him and he doubled over.

  “Food,” he said.

  Kaitlyn reached around the corner into the kitchen and grabbed a banana from the fruit bowl.

  He almost forgot to peel it.

  “Nick? Oh my god!”

  Time rushed back in a torrent. His internal clock told him he’d been gone no more than a moment, yet every experience he had in Erindor remained.

  “I’m so sorry,” he said.

  “What just happened? God, your hair. That’s it. You’re going to the hospital.”

  He’d been gone a year and she was worried about his hair? It took a moment for him to realize she was wearing the same black dress as the last time he saw her, all those months ago.

  No…just a moment ago. Damn, this is confusing.

  He stood and drew her into his arms. “I thought about you every day.”

  She pulled back and stared at him through narrowed eyes, placing a hand on his cheek as she felt his beard.

  “What are you talking about?” She said. “You get pulled through that thing over there, wind up behind me, and now you look like Jesus! What’s going on?”

  Paws against his hip announced Toby’s presence.

  Energy filled his well of power from the direction of the window that looked out over the street.

  The accident. Mr. Landing.

  He approached the window and drew the curtain aside to get a better look. The paramedics were covering Mr. Landing’s corpse and shooing bystanders away.

  The visions he experienced when Landing died, before he had awakened to his necromantic power, were as vivid in his memory as if they had just occurred. He remembered the goodness of the old man, and the love he had for his grandchildren.

  Then he recalled the horror in the jungle, the decades of guilt and self-loathing. Landing never forgave himself for shooting that child. He spent most of his life keeping people away, because he believed he was unlovable, unworthy of forgiveness.

  The Prime Duty of a necromancer is to raise the dead and help them achieve purification.

  Nicolas invoked the skull symbol and channeled power into the lifeless corpse.

  The namocea released him, and Nicolas commanded the corpse to rise. The sheet stirred as if by a breeze and the corpse stretched its legs.

  No one noticed at first.

  But they noticed when the dead man stood up.

  Several onlookers screamed as the once-lifeless corpse stood staring at Nicolas’s window. The paramedics hesitated at first, seeming confused, then rushed to Mr. Landing’s side. One of them shouted for a stretcher.

  Nicolas commanded Landing to be still and allow the paramedics to do as they would. It wouldn’t matter in a few minutes anyway.

  Toby growled a low growl.

  “It’s ok, boy,” Nicolas said.

  He opened the window and leaned out into the fresh air.

  “What’s happening?” Kaitlyn asked.

  He smiled at her and held up his hand. “I’ll explain everything, babe. I promise. I just need some fresh air.”

  Two necromantic links existed in his mind now. He still had a connection to Kagan, but communication was impossible. He focused on the second link instead, and probed it for the penitent’s first name. It was always there, in the dark corners of their consciousness, even if they had forgotten. Landing wasn’t dead long enough to have forgotten, though: Paul.

  Paul, Nicolas said. The child wasn’t your fault.

  What are you, said Paul through the necromantic link. How is this possible? Am I dead?

  I’m your guide, nothing more. The child wasn’t your fault. You need to forgive yourself, or you’ll never have peace.

  Nicolas sensed great loss and sorrow returning from the link.

  It was evil, what I did. Pure evil! I don’t deserve peace. I’m the worst sort of evil. The child killin’ sort.

  You don’t know pure evil. I do. I’ve seen it. Let me show it to you. Forgive me, but it’s the only way I know.

  Nicolas called to mind images of violence and evil that he had witnessed first-hand through the namocea. Some were of the greatest evil Nicolas had ever experienced. He cast those aside. They would be too much for Paul, and the man would have no context in which to understand what he was seeing. He gathered all of the images together—images of genocide, rape, murder, torture, betrayal—and sent them, as one, through the necromantic link.

  Fear and horror returned from the link.

  Dear god. Make it stop, Paul said.

  Nicolas withdrew the images.

  I’m sorry, Paul. But you needed to see true evil to understand that you’re not even close. What you did was an accident. The child wasn’t your fault.

  It wasn’t my fault?

  No.

  A flood of relief passed down the necromantic link into Nicolas, and he knew Paul’s time was drawing close. He’d succeeded.

  The child wasn’t my fault. I wasn’t much more than a boy myself. I tried to make up for it. I tried to give my kids, and their kids all the love that precious child never had the chance to receive. Something’s changing.

  Nicolas smiled. For you, everything is changing.

  “I want you to see this,” Nicolas said to Kait.

  She seemed hesitant.

  “Please, trust me.”

  She glanced out the window and covered her mouth with her hand.

  “He’s alive?” she said. Her hand muffled her voice.

  “Of course he is,” Nicolas said and smiled. “There is no death, Kait.”

  She looked at him as if he wasn’t speaking English.

  “I release you from your penance, my friend,” Nicolas said. “Go on to your reward.”

  Paul’s body transformed into pure spirit, radiating a heatless, painless white light.

  “Are you seeing this?” He asked.

  At first Kait didn’t answer, but the truth was apparent as soon as he saw her face.

  “He was a good man. He understands that now. I helped him to understand. That’s what I do. That’s what this was about.”

  �
��Help me understand,” she said in a whisper.

  Paul’s spirit smiled. “Thank you.”

  Toby stood on his hind legs and placed his front paws on the window sill. He bayed in Paul’s direction.

  “For what it’s worth,” Paul said, “Toby’s a great dog.”

  And with that the spirit of Paul Landing vanished, leaving no corpse behind. The crowd was silent, and many stared at the place Paul had been standing.

  Kaitlyn looked at Nicolas with wide eyes, her mouth hanging open.

  Nicolas took Kaitlyn by the arm, led her back to the center of the room, and held her close. She melted into his arms. All he wanted to do was stand there forever, but that wasn’t possible. He had a lot to say, and it would be a long story.

  There was no way to explain it all without sounding like a crazy person.

  But there was another way.

  “I have something amazing to show you.”

  She looked up at him with those wide, almond eyes, but her body stiffened.

  “Do you trust me, babe?”

  She relaxed and nodded.

  He stepped back and took both of her hands in his. “Get ready for a wild ride.”

  Toby barked.

  “You too, boy,” Nicolas said. “Come here.”

  Toby grabbed his gatorpickle toy and jumped up on Nicolas’s leg.

  Nicolas put one hand on Toby’s head and willed the door in his mind to open.

  Once again, Nicolas tumbled into blackness. But this time, the blackness seemed just a little brighter.

  EPILOGUE

  Admiral Unega stood upon the foc’sle of the Barathosian man-of-war Vengeance, surveying the horizon.

  The Land of Cowards, as his people knew Erindor, was no longer protected by its shield. And now the false archmage would pay for his crimes against the empire. He would answer for the death of Yotto, the Glorious One’s son, with his own life. The Barathosian navy would descend upon Erindor with the fury of a thousand red dragons, laying waste to everything in its path. No building would remain standing. No person would remain alive. Not even their livestock would survive. Such would be the Glorious One’s orders.

  “Inform the chimeramancers,” Unega said in his barrel-chested voice. “It’s time.”