Necromancer

by Graeme Ing

  His smile faded. “I was never here. Understood?”

  I nodded and he left the room, closing the door quietly. I returned my gaze to the city outside. This day was fast becoming interesting.

  My plans to sneak out after breakfast to find Babbas went horribly wrong when Ayla snitched on me to Mother B., who insisted I stay home and rest another day. Only by letting Ayla join me had I escaped. The utter shame of it all.

  The tall, ramshackle tenements and warehouses of the Waterfront District offered shelter from the biting wind coming off the harbor, but made the narrow streets gloomy and oppressive. Most stood three or four stories high, leaning out over the cobbled street. The air was heavy with a pungent miasma: lantern oil, candle wax, cooked meat, fresh dung, and a salty sea mist. Dogs barked, people argued, livestock grunted, and from the distance came the muted but unmistakable clash of steel upon steel.

  Ayla and I turned aside from Moor Street into Pie Alley. Without cobbles, the surface was muddy, and more than once my bad leg slipped and I stumbled. The stench of decay and rat poison filled the cramped space, and I longed for a breeze. A mangy cat yowled and fled, almost tripping Ayla. She scanned the shadows, scrutinizing every detail, grimacing at piles of dead rats.

  “You said we were going on a boat. The harbor’s the other direction.”

  I limped around the corner and gestured to the tiny canal running at a tangent to Pie Alley. Narrow enough to jump over, its soiled, trash-laden water flowed lazily past. It smelled unwholesome but free of sewage.

  “On that?” She sniffed.

  “Patience.”

  She kicked a pebble and it plopped into the water.

  I led her along a narrow walkway between the canal and the windowless rear of a building, until an iron gate barred the way, its lock rusted closed. To one side, a set of worn, moss-covered steps descended beside the building we had been following.

  “You should go back,” I said.

  Her steely glare said it all.

  I led the way, wincing with each step of my bruised leg. Ayla moved up beside me, seemingly intrigued by the diffuse, sourceless light that held back the darkness at the bottom. A narrow passage ran beneath the canal, following its course downstream. Rushing water roared from somewhere ahead, and the faint glow provided enough light for us to navigate between stacks of bric-a-brac arranged to either side along the tunnel. It was the most unlikely collection of toys, statuettes, pottery, broken furniture, and discarded items I had ever seen.

  “What is all this?” Ayla shouted above the din of the water.

  “It’s mine, that’s what it is,” a scratchy voice said from inside a doorway. The unseen man cackled.

  Ayla stepped inside and I followed. She scanned the bizarre chamber that resembled the inside of a huge stone barrel, and gasped. From high on the curved right wall, the black water of the canal fell six feet and plunged through a grate in the floor, creating a spray that soaked the room, leaving every surface slick and glistening. Algae and moss invaded the circular walls and furniture. An assortment of broken objects surrounded the grate, pushed aside from the cascade that thundered into the depths below.

  In the driest part of the room, beside a table laden with half-gnawed bones, upturned beer flagons, and a spluttering lantern, Babbas rolled back and forth in a rocking chair. His beard resembled a shrub of thistles on the moors, yet his head was completely bald, devoid of eyebrows. Beer dribbled down his stained shirt. He turned his rheumy eyes on Ayla.

  “What d’we have here? Such a sweet thing. Come to barter yer body for me ’elp?” He grabbed his crotch and his gaze devoured her.

  “Try it, grandpa,” she said, “and I’ll make it so you have nothing to squeeze down there.”

  Now I didn’t feel so bad about bringing her.

  He uttered a deep belly laugh. “A feisty one. Shame. I prefer ’em demure and afeared.”

  His chair groaned as he pushed himself to his feet. Unable to straighten his crooked back, he snatched a flagon from the table and crossed the room, getting drenched by the waterfall in the process. He jammed the flagon into my bruised ribs. I winced and stepped back. His eyes twinkled and a crooked grin spread across his gnarly face. Now he’d think me weak.

  “Second corpse-licker in as many days,” he muttered. “Babbas can retire early, perhaps.”

  Another bass laugh.

  Everything I’d heard about him was true, then. Best get this over with.

  “Three gold Malks to guide us to Gold River and back. I want to see where the bargees died. Pay my respects.”

  “How touching.” He made a hawking sound and spat at my feet. “Five.”

  “Three.”

  He stared at me long and hard but I met his gaze, studying his milk-white eyes.

  “Five. You be too weak to make it down there without Babbas.”

  “Three now. Two when we return.”

  I handed him three coins. He cackled and turned toward another passageway that I hadn’t seen earlier.

  “Let’s be going.” He clutched the beer flagon to his chest. He had no other equipment or weapons that I could see.

  “Do you trust him?” Ayla whispered.

  I shook my head and gestured for her to go next.

  The passage sloped down into the darkness and turned a corner, cutting off most of the light and thundering roar of the water. We negotiated a short set of stairs, following the grunts and wheezes of Babbas. Ayla bumped into him at the bottom, squealed, and then squeezed back beside me. I wasn’t keen on being down here with him, either.

  Babbas chuckled and winked at her.

  I barely made out a table in the near darkness, upon which stood a series of flagon-shaped objects covered by a blanket.

  Ayla stood on tiptoe and cupped her hand to my ear. “I’m not going to carry extra beer for him,” she whispered.

  Babbas’s hand snaked under the blanket and he pulled out a small cage the size of a lantern. Inside, a fist-size red beetle bounced around, banging against the bars, its wings a blur. An angry droning noise accompanied its futile attempts at flight, and its abdomen glowed, bathing us in soft, red light. Those things always reminded me of a brothel.

  “What’s that?” Ayla peered closer, jerking away when the beetle flew at her, rattling the cage.

  “Glow beetle,” I said.

  Babbas belched, and with his beer flagon clasped in one hand, he held the cage aloft and crossed the room to another set of steps. Down we went, one staircase after another. The beetle settled, and its drone lessened to a hypnotic humming. Babbas ignored all side turns and passageways and then suddenly decided to take a turn to the right.

  Was he playing with us? How did bargees remember which passage went where?

  More steps down, these covered in algae and slick. We exited into a sewer and sloshed onward, splashing excrement all over our clothing. I breathed through my mouth. Ayla took a small vial from her pocket and dabbed its contents liberally on her dress and under her nose. We walked on in a haze of perfume, and I breathed deep of the fragrance.

  The sound of running water grew louder once more, becoming a deafening roar when we turned a corner and emerged at the lip of a vertical shaft, fifteen feet across. A cascade of water plummeted from above to form a frothing maelstrom of water, forty feet below. A narrow rope bridge led to a ledge on the far side.

  You’ve got to be kidding me.

  “One at a time,” Babbas said.

  The bridge bucked and bounced with his every step. I studied the frayed and sodden rope stays rubbing against the wall. Lovely. Babbas stopped midway to take a long swallow of beer. The beetle buzzed furiously as the spray drenched it.

  Ayla turned to me, one eyebrow raised. I shrugged.

  When Babbas had reached the other side, I sent Ayla over while I held the bridge to dampen its movement. I nonchalantly sauntered across. All right, so I limped and tried not to look down.

  “I had no idea so much was below the streets,” Ayla said
as we trudged along a new, drier tunnel.

  “Malkandrah is ancient,” I said. “Each city built on the ruins of the previous. See these glyphs?” Faint carvings were barely visible on the gray wall tiles. “We’re down to the level of the ancient Iathic metropolis now.”

  “What’s down here?”

  “Sewers. Tunnels. Tombs. Smuggler hideaways and ruined temples, and who knows how many secret lairs lost to time.”

  She flicked rat droppings from her boots. “And shit.”

  I laughed.

  “And the bargees know every passage?” she asked.

  “Yep,” Babbas said from the front, his shadow rippling along the uneven walls as if we shared the tight tunnel with a wraith.

  I shook my head. “He’s exaggerating. Maybe the uppermost levels and sewers. Enough to ship illicit goods under everyone’s noses, and—”

  “—and to guide idiots the likes of you.” He frowned, which looked odd since he had no eyebrows.

  The tunnel turned to the right in a long, graceful arc. It was dry and smelled of musk and dirt. I sneezed and wished that Ayla would spray some more of her perfume.

  “I bet none of the bargees know what lies below, in the deep,” I said.

  “What does?” she whispered, eyes wide.

  Babbas uttered a haunting moan that echoed into the distance. “Nasty things that eat little girls.”

  “Shut up,” she said.

  I nudged her. “I bet he’s more afraid than you are.”

  The bargee wheeled about, bathing us in red light from the glow beetle.

  “Oh, Babbas knows, all right. Stuff best left alone. Stuff you lot—” He waved his flagon toward me. “—keep dredging up with yer tristak shadow hexes. Damn you all to Lak!”

  “Oh, shut it.”

  “I’m done with ye and yer bossy mouth, boy.” He shoved us against the wall and stomped back the way we had come.

  I sighed and rattled my purse. “Stop behaving like a kalag. No Gold River, no gold coin.”

  We faced off for several moments, during which he chugged from his flagon, and then he came back, huffing and mumbling. He kicked aside a dead rat, and yanked on a tree root dangling from a crack in the ceiling. Part of the stonework broke loose and a mildewed skeleton dropped down, its bones held together by leathery tendons and patches of mummified flesh. It hung itself on another root and dangled, grinning at us. Babbas cried out, slipped, and landed on his butt, where he cowered, hands raised in front of his face.

  I laughed, and the tunnels laughed back, mocking me. Ayla remained quiet, studying the skeleton, which exhibited teeth marks and the patina of age. Did nothing frighten this girl?

  “Get up,” I said to Babbas. “We’ve been down here two hours. How far’s the river?”

  “Not far,” he replied, voice wavering. “You lead for a bit.”

  Ayla caught my eye and grinned.

  I winked back at her and readjusted my robe, brushing away the dust. Yes, I should control this sorrowful outfit.

  We emerged into a semicircular tunnel, forty feet across and with a ceiling twelve feet above the full-fledged river that flowed along it, inches below the narrow landing upon which we stood.

  “Gold River,” Babbas said with a sweeping wave of an arm, as if opening the door to a treasure vault.

  The water was ruddy brown in color and laden with mud and silt. A metallic stench stung my nostrils, which I found a teeny bit preferable to the reek of sewage. The river flowed swiftly and silently, scraping the sludge and moss from the tunnel walls.

  A low, flat barge lay tied to a bollard on the far side, at the foot of worn steps leading up to another passageway. Huh. We were on the wrong side of the river. No way I would swim in that. Babbas could do it.

  “It’s brown, not gold,” Ayla said, hands on hips. The wide tunnel echoed her words.

  Babbas and I stared at her. What had she expected, a river of liquid gold?

  If I hadn’t seen the melted manholes in the street, I’d never have believed this chill river could get hot enough to boil. I rubbed my nose. My plan had a flaw—if I searched long enough, I was bound to come face-to-face with whomever, or whatever, had caused the fire, but then what? I’d been so caught up in the search, I hadn’t thought through my endgame. I cast Perception so that I wouldn’t miss anything.

  “Take us to the section that boiled the other night,” I said.

  Babbas fished a sludge-covered rope from the water. When he pulled, I saw that it ran under the surface to the boat. He gave a sharp tug and the rope slipped the special knot on the bollard across the water, allowing the barge to float free. He hauled it over against the persistent current, then placed one foot in the barge and held it against the side.

  Ayla’s hand slipped into mine. My stomach fluttered at her warm and soft touch. She stepped gracefully into the boat, using me for support, and then pulled me after her. I rocked the boat enough for me to tumble into the middle, and she kept a firm grip on my hand. Babbas kicked off from the side and sat. The river swept us away. He painstakingly coiled the rope, and then picked up a short pole and punted from a sitting position. The barge leaned precariously with each thrust. He slowed us to a stop and then propelled us upstream, grunting with each push on the pole.

  “This is great,” Ayla said, her gaze flicking everywhere.

  I pried my hand from hers and shot her a long, hard stare. She wasn’t supposed to be enjoying it.

  “Are we going to find more skeletons?” she asked. “Moving ones?”

  “Undead. They’re called undead. Skeletons aren’t usually a threat.” I left the follow-up unspoken, glad that she didn’t pursue it.

  “Can you teach me some spells?”

  “No. You’re nowhere near ready for that.”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “You’re not. I say when you are. But since you asked: lesson one—”

  “Great!” She sat up straight and leaned forward.

  “I’m known as the teacher. You are known as the apprentice. My job is to set the rules. Your job is to stop arguing and do what I say. End of lesson one.”

  She glared at me, pouting like a child. It was an unattractive gesture for the daughter of an aristo.

  The tiled ceiling slid by endlessly above our heads. There were few cracks and no root damage. The glow beetle cast deformed, shadowy copies of us across the curved walls. History had forgotten the reason why Gold River had been constructed. The only thing we really knew was that its color came from slag flowing from the copper mines.

  Soon, black soot replaced the brown silt on the walls. Burned rats lay on the side paths, entombed in a sludge of ash. The blackness seemed determined to absorb the beetle glow. My grip on the gunwales tightened. There was no doubt that whatever had burned the street had been here too. Why the sewers? Were they being used to move around the city unseen?

  The only sounds were the drip-drip of water and the splashing of the pole into the murky water. The effort of pushing us against the current had covered Babbas in sweat. We didn’t pass or meet a single other boat or human. So much for my mental picture of waterways crowded with boats trading illicit cargo.

  Something tickled my Perception, so I pushed my spell out further. There! The same magic residue I had felt from the Probe. Its faint presence permeated everything, even the water. We’d come to the right place, but I needed a stronger clue.

  A landing stage appeared out of the darkness, and Babbas steered us effortlessly up to it. I glanced at his hunched form as he wrapped the rope securely around a charred pole. How did bargees remember where they left all the boats?

  “There’s sumfing you should see.”

  “What?”

  “You’re the expert,” he said. “Babbas is just the idiot, remember? Down the stairs, first chamber on yer right.”

  “You’re not coming?” I narrowed my eyes.

  “I’ll wait ’ere.”

  “But you’re our guide.”

  “Bargee gui
de. I stay with the barge. Go do yer business.”

  I joined Ayla on the charred landing. A dozen steps led down to a narrow hallway running in both directions. Dried stains of bronze ran like snakes down the steps, evidence of previous floods, but the stonework bore no evidence of fire damage. Inches of brown sludge coated the floor, and algae clung tenaciously to the smooth walls.

  We descended and I peered into the darkness. Why had he brought us here? All I could hear was our breathing. I struck a lightstick against the wall and a fierce red light erupted at its tip, illuminating the hallway.

  “It’s silly that a necromancer doesn’t have a light spell,” Ayla whispered.

  I scowled at her. “It’s not the nature of necromantic magic. Apparently Elik Magi could manipulate light.”

  “How do you know? No one’s seen one in forever.”

  “Their magic was different to ours. They manipulated the elements directly and their magic had no effect on the dead. In any case, shush.”

  Something wasn’t right about this place.

  I held the lightstick low and scrutinized the rubble at my feet. A section of the ceiling had given way. A hot wind blew from the gaping hole above me, ruffling my hair. Far ahead on the right, a crumbling archway provided access into a dark chamber.

  What could possibly be in there that Babbas wanted me to see? I increased the sensitivity on my Perception and pushed it stealthily forward. Sharp, staccato jabs rippled back through my spell, a sensation I’d never felt before. Not good. Whatever was in there had a strong aura.

  My arm tingled without warning, as if something invisible had passed through it. I twirled my index finger and cast Shadowsee.

  A spectral, undulating rope of ectoplasm became visible, writhing in midair next to me. Nothing physical held it aloft. It snaked ahead of me and arced directly into the suspicious room. Behind me, the translucent umbilical cord pierced Ayla’s chest and stretched far into the hallway beyond the steps.

  Lak and all his demons!

  I laid a gentle hand on Ayla’s shoulder and channeled my Shadowsee through her so she could see it too.

  She leaped aside, clutching her breast, but the thing had left no mark. “Gods. What’s that? It’s not real, is it?”