Awakening: (The Necromancer's Legacy Book 1)

by Henry Andrews

  The man was about to release his sword when an excruciating pain prevented him from continuing. He lost all his strength and dropped it. He looked down. He had a mystical sword stuck in his lower leg muscle. It irradiated a golden light.

  "I'll take care of her," Liu-Ken said to the fox, guessing her purpose there. If she had not intervened before, it was because she knew that the men could never hurt her forest, but now the situation was dangerous to her and those she protected.

  Aurora had not moved yet. The man before her cried, begging for mercy, saying he would never hurt anyone, his pants already soaked.

  "I have a family," he said. "I'll pay you whatever you want," he added as his despair grew.

  Aurora, or that version of her, did not care about anything. She wanted revenge, purely and simply, to show that she was unhappy with the course that the world had taken. That she would no longer accept being stripped of what was dear to her, that she would no longer let injustice slip by or ignore it as she had done until then. And yet, she was not capable of killing him.

  "Aurora, free yourself from it. Let's go. I know that you are still there, resisting. This is your chance to prove that you have the strength to conduct your revenge the way you want," Liu-Ken said, "I can't stop you this time. You're too advanced. If I do, I'll just erase the part of you that's still conscious. It must be you. If you kill him now, you lose everything you have achieved so far. You will stain your hands with someone else's blood when you could have avoided it," he said.

  "The girl was not trained for this. You should have never agreed with old Bardolph. You should have known that a necromancer would attract death wherever she was," Kagu's voice was heard in Liu-Ken's mind.

  "Maybe. But now there's not much we can do. We have to wait," he replied.

  Aurora still had her sword above her head. Nothing had changed. Within, Aurora's conscious and kind version had not yet given up. The girl clung with all her might to the memories that reminded her of a happy past.

  "It is time to take charge of my body. To change the world, I must start with myself. Anger and fury need to go. I need to wash them away, to let them go," she said, before taking a deep breath and calming down.

  She did not try to run away from the dome or break her black armor anymore. She sat cross-legged on the floor, her hands lying on her lap.

  Finally, she knew what to do. She could not possibly get out of there if she remained angry, desperate, harassing the dark side that had taken possession of the body in which she was now only a host. She had to go back to the basics. Simple breathing exercises. Exhaling the black chi, the impurities leaving her body, and inhaling the forest mana, the fresh breeze acting as a diluent.

  Slowly, small cracks began to appear in the shield that had permeated her body. They widened, black pieces falling to the ground, breaking and turning into black powder. Aurora regained control of her body, her eyes whitening, her miasma flooding the ground. It was she who now grabbed the sword. She stuck it in the ground, close to the man's ear. A string of piss moistened his pants, and only then did he breathe a sigh of relief.

  "You look worried," Aurora said to Liu-Ken, who was now next to her.

  "I thought you weren't coming back," he said.

  "Shouldn't you have more confidence in your pupil?" Aurora said, her hands still clinging to the handle of the sword.

  "I used to have a bit more," Liu-Ken replied, unable to hide his relieved smile. "I'm glad I brought a rope. I'm going to tie them up. You sit down and rest," he said.

  "Is the boy still alive?" Aurora asked, looking at the boy’s body still on the ground. He couldn’t be much older nor younger than her.

  "Surprisingly, yes. He may not know it, but the chi that runs through his meridians is above normal. He could have made a good cultivator. His body went into shock and to survive he absorbed part of the mana around him. He was lucky that you did not succumb to anger. If you had done that, you would have sucked all the energy out of the forest until neither you nor he could take it anymore," Liu-Ken explained.

  "Does he have a strong chi? And he did not know that? I wonder who he reminds me of," Aurora spat out, the sarcastic tone getting a disapproving look from her mentor.

  Aurora sat down. The fox approached her. She, too, had cooled down. She lay down next to her, rubbing against her clothes, orange saliva running down her sharp teeth.

  "Does this mean you believe me now?" Aurora asked her but did not get any more of what seemed like a short nod.

  She ran her left hand through the fox’s fur for a few minutes until she went back into hiding in the bushes. Liu-Ken had already tied the three men to one of the thickest tree trunks and was now on his knees, next to the boy, pouring a yellow liquid into his mouth. The boy's lips moistened, as some of the color ran down the corners, a trail finding its way into the small hole in the center of his mouth.

  "This will heal most of his superficial wounds," Liu-Ken told Aurora, "but if we don't take him to a healer, he won't have much of a future. The bleeding will destroy him from the inside," he said.

  "Then we better get going. If they were here, the city must not be that far away."

  "I suppose so," Liu-Ken added and yawned. "You're going to take one of my backpacks and I'll take the boy and the three men."

  "Can you handle all of them?" Aurora asked, surprised, wondering how the mentor was going to do it.

  "Yes, I'll carry the boy on my back. Give him a few minutes and he should regain consciousness. He just needs to hold onto me. As for men, I will pull the rope. If they don't follow me, I'm going to drag them,'' Liu-Ken said, raising his voice so that the three men could hear him.

  They gulped dryly. They feared both the boy and the man before them. One had black chi, illegal throughout the continent, and the other carried a flying sword, an instrument used only by cultivators of or above Level Two. They mumbled among themselves, asking what such two peculiar characters were doing in that forest. The little one grumbled, among clenched teeth, that he could face the boy now that he knew what to expect. The others let out a muffled laugh and one of them, the one with X on his arm, slammed him in the forehead and told him to shut up if he was going to talk shit. He spat on the floor but did not dare to answer.

  Minutes passed, as Liu-Ken had said, until the young man finally opened his eyes. At least as much as he could before an overwhelming pain overwhelm his body. If before, death had already embraced him and appeased his pain, now life accepted him, and the pain welcomed him back. He moved his hand slowly, pressing his fingers against the swelling in both eyes, the view resembling a window covered by a curtain of thick threads. With each motion, he unleashed an agonizing grunt, and drops of blood covered his chin. Liu-Ken wiped his face with a wine-colored silk that he had hidden in a secret pocket.

  "Can you talk?" he asked the boy. Aurora walked up to them, sitting next to the body. The backpacks were still in the same place, sheltered behind the bushes where they had hidden them before.

  "My..." the boy started, pausing with every word he said, spewing more blood, "…sister and friends. I have to help them... please," he said.

  "You're not going to help anybody in that state. Let us take you back to the city and to a doctor. Then you can tell us everything."

  "After all, you do have a heart," Aurora said, winking.

  "I don't think you'd like me to dump him in some alley. We are going to waste time that may become essential, but it is your choice. It is your journey. You have proved to me that you can deal with your power." Liu-Ken replied.

  He was going to pick up the boy when he felt a hand grabbing his clothes, "The orphanage...save them," he said, his bloody, gray fingers slipping through the cheap, inelegant fabric, with a blemished color.

  "We'll do the best we can," Aurora said and grabbed his hand. "You'll be walking soon. What's your name?"

  "Bo," the boy replied, as Liu-Ken took care of getting him on his back. He wrapped his legs around Liu's torso and folded his hand
s around his chest.

  "Well, let's get going then," Aurora added and glanced at the three men. The one in the middle, still having apple chunks trapped in the sole of his shoe, straightened his rigid mustache that still had some breadcrumbs from his lunch.

  They had already seen what Aurora was capable of. They would not dare to face him, even if they wanted to punish him for his boldness. However, they rejoiced in knowing what awaited them. A gang of about thirty members whose sole purpose was to cause havoc in the city. As soon as they noticed three of their own being treated as a joke, they would be forced to meddle, to show people that no one could stand up to them.

  They might make the streets weep with blood until fear settles on everyone's face; men will tell their children and women to hide and will shout for forgiveness. Some will even offer more money in exchange for protection. The city’s guards were not allowed to get involved in city squabbles.

  They walked back to the city. Aurora struggled to smile. She was disappointed and frustrated with herself for having lost one of the duels within herself, but something kept telling her she would have more chances of regaining her pride. She now accepted that she had a bad side and promised herself that she would no longer succumb to it, not even for a second.

  But the promises made so far had been nothing more than words blown by the wind.

  A drizzling rain descended upon them. The water washed the blood from the girl's clothes and her muddy hair. Plants dripped, thin rivers of water trailing toward the ground. The smell of white musk sweetened their tongues. In the faraway mist, geometric shapes unfolded, making room for the sparse rays of light to pierce the squares and triangles and warm up the six shadows that now traveled that path, stepping and breaking the branches and lianas that stood along the way.

  Only after about ten, maybe twenty minutes, did the nebula scatter and unveiled a man-made slope before them. The rain had already stopped, and a rainbow stood in its place. The dry land still had wet spots. Aurora looked back. Dew dripped from the trees.

  Amidst dense darkness, a gateway to a world of wild animals, and poorly slept nights, two red circles flickered. The fox waved goodbye to them.

  A city of merchants awaited them. From afar, they could only observe that some of the roofs had a thin layer of white on top and that, on the other side, a slope, flanked by cropland, led to a dark-colored castle.

  "Let's get going. We have a lot to do," Liu-Ken said and pulled the rope. The three men almost tripped over each other. They jostled and punched each other's shoulders.

  "It's true. You still haven't told me what we came here to do. Why this city?" Aurora asked him, her forehead glowing due to the sweat, a narrow line splitting it.

  "I'll tell you when we get rid of these useless people," Liu-Ken said and cast a dreadful glance at the men. "But there's a good reason we came here. There's an old friend I need to talk to. He might be able to help us."

  Chapter 23

  They began descending the beaten earth slope. The boots marks indicated their slow steps, breaks to inhale clean air and the size of each one's feet. Liu-Ken stopped and again pulled Bo up on his back. The boy's wet fingers were slipping down his clothes. The three men did not exchange a word with each other again. Aurora held a serene smile. She glanced at the rainbow. It calmed her to know that there was a world where karma would reward her for what she had suffered, a world where her father and adoptive parents would already have been reborn as happy humans or as a deva, a non-human, androgynous and immortal being with a physical presence in the earthly world. Yes, that was what they deserved after a senseless death, after sacrificing themselves so that she would have a shot at life.

  At the end of the slope, a sort of cobblestone bridge led them to the city. There were no gates, except for two soldiers, one on each side, and a sign on the right indicating that they had reached the town of Shikosi.

  They crossed it and, as soon as they set foot on the other side, the guards ordered them to stop. Their armors were made of wooden plates and painted red. There were still spaces unpainted and one or two cuts in each one. They had no mask or helmet. They were shallow soldiers, used as cannon fodder. They stretched their spears, the iron so rusty that it didn't even shine when the sun rays peeped through the greyish clouds.

  "Who are you? What do you think you are doing?" one of them asked. His hands trembled and his spear did not hold still.

  "We don't want any trouble," Liu-Ken began. "we just want to take this boy to the doctor. I hope you can arrest these three men, too. They almost killed the kid. I assume you have a guard who can handle them, right?"

  The guards took two steps to the side, tilting their heads to better see the faces of the three men behind Liu. Their faces withered, their cheeks losing color, a steady exchange of glances between the two, as they thought about what to answer.

  For a long minute, nobody spoke. The morning breeze caressed their faces, wiping the sweat from their faces and bodies, the clothes detaching from the fabrics. They were surrounded by dozens of adult peasants who were working in the wheat and potato fields. The wrinkled, dark faces and the dry blood scars of the lashes told a heavy story. Aurora had never seen anything like it.

  In her village, they worked in the fields for their benefit, so that not only would they have something to eat, but also so that they could sell to nearby towns and buy instruments, spices, and a few other things. But not there, there they worked out of necessity, the sun-burned body, scarred at the hands of the foremen who forced them to work, shouting at them if they fell to the ground due to tiredness. Aurora closed her fist. She knew she couldn't get angry again, but now that she was being challenged with the cruel reality of the world in which she lived, far from the pacifism she had grown up in, she couldn't keep calm. She had to do something; correct the injustices, teach the men and women that they had to rebel and fight for their freedom.

  "Did you do that to these men?" the other soldier asked. His shriveled gray hair swung to the right, the sun shining on his thin, dry, wounded lips. As soon as he had finished speaking, he bit them, tearing off a skin patch.

  "Yes, we were forced to do so. Is there a problem?" Liu-Ken asked, never raising the tone of his voice.

  "No, no," the same man answered and looked at the other. "You can pass. Just... be careful," he said.

  "Careful of what?" Aurora asked. "What's going on here?"

  "Nothing, nothing. Enjoy the city," the other replied, elbowing his colleague.

  They walked away, each going their way, and made it clear that the group was free to move on. A long, dry, sandy corridor ran for meters until the first houses arose, skewed by the sun that had reached its climax. The hail that once stood on the roofs was now on the ground, slowly melting. The merchants walked from place to place, trading on one side, buying on the other, always with their mouths covered by a durag, a scarf with the tips tied on their backs. With dozens of people wandering around the city, no one was surprised that a wave of dust had flooded it.

  At that time of year, the small city was a little box of surprises. The north winds, blowing from a world beyond the mountains, met there with the south and east sun and the west rain. They switched seats, punishing the inhabitants and travelers who met in the large main square. All the arteries of the cities drove them to that ample place; the meeting point and the culmination of the city's life. The taverns, which opened to the early morning sun rays, or rain, on grey days, now welcomed dozens of those who were interested. The wooden doors were never closed for long. The crowd was absurd. Men came in sober and cheerful, while others left with rosy cheeks, alcohol dripping on hard beards and clothes, singing epic songs in groups.

  On one of the corners, protected by a wooden awning covered with moss, a blacksmith hammered red-hot pieces, oblivious to the sweat that turned his bald head into a damp mirror. Women wearing cheap kimonos with rips in the cloth that covered their legs and big cleavages, blended among the inhabitants and foreigners who toured the crowde
d market's tents. Different colored tapestries separated each seller. Even though it was morning, the streets were already full. Some people carried their groceries, while others headed for the tents.

  Liu-Ken listened to a group passing by, one of the men saying that he had to take care of his son after lunch. The woman, as usual, would meet with her friends to discuss the latest news in the village. It was a peaceful place, even if the high-pitched screams clanged in their ears.

  The city was made up of parallel rows of traditional houses, only separated by the blood and alcohol stained streets. The front row buildings were not as big as Liu-Ken's house, nor did they have a balcony, but they were not far behind either.

  "I'm going to ask that man where the doctor is," Aurora said and walked away from the group. She made her way to a man with rigid features, small but expressive eyes, and wrinkles on his eyelids. He had just trimmed his beard with a razor. The cuts were still visible above the upper lip,

  "I'm sorry for the inconvenience. Can you tell me where the city healer is?" Aurora asked him, smiling and fixing her clothes so that a bloodstain that had survived the rain would be hidden under her armpit, as well as pulling her collar up so that the tattoos wouldn't be exposed.

  "Who's asking?" the man questioned her and stepped forward. "I've never seen you around here. And you... oh. What are you doing with those three men? Stay away from me. I don't want anything to do with you. The doctor is in the last house on the right, the one that is ajar. Now go away," the man said and shoved her, losing his temper, turning away and baffling an unrecognizable conundrum of words.