Code of the Necromancer

by Deck Davis

  His long black hair was oiled and swept back, and his beard was brushed. His pure white eyes looked clear of the bloodshot veins you usually saw on a person who’d drunk enough beer to put a barracks to sleep the night before. His clothes, if a bit tattered, were perfectly-tailored around his big frame.

  “Looks like I might have a quick job for you after all,” said the cleric.

  “I’m glad you pounded on my door to tell me. How did you find out where I was staying?”

  “I asked around. I know a lot of people.”

  “Good to know I have my privacy. What do you want?”

  “Let’s talk over breakfast.”

  Breakfast, it turned out, meant the one that Jakub had already paid for as part of his room board. It was a cooked breakfast with sausages, egg, bacon, and beans. The innkeeper set it down, and as soon as he was gone, the cleric helped himself to a slice of toast.

  “They found a dead body last night,” said the cleric, dipping a piece of toast in an egg yolk.”

  “They? Is that the royal ‘they’? That undefinable group of people who everyone seems to get advice from? Like, ‘they say you shouldn’t eat cheese before bed’?”

  “You’re funny first thing in the morning,” said the cleric. “Come on, what was it? A spell? Some kind of necromancy?”

  Was he talking about the body? Did he think Jakub had something to do with the dead body?

  “I’m too groggy for riddles,” he said.

  “I know I’d had maybe one too many ales yesterday, but I’m sure that when you came to see me, you looked like an old man.”

  “Oh, yeah. That.”

  “Irvine learned a strange spell once. This is back when we were still talking, back before…but anyway, he’d only just started getting field assignments, and he came back from one so excited that it was like he’d shat a diamond or something. He’d learned a necromancy spell that let him take over a corpse and sort of wear it like a…like a …what’s the word? Yeah – meat costume.”

  “It’s called Death Puppet,” said Jakub.

  “Is that what you were doing?”

  He didn’t want to tell the cleric what spells he did or didn’t know. He had always found it difficult to trust people - having your father force-feed you dead flesh had that effect.

  That meant that when he met a guy they called the Black Cleric, a guy who didn’t carry any of the clerical religious symbols nor did he act like a divine healer, Jakub’s guard was up.

  He still wasn’t sure whether he was going to take any work from this guy, nor did he want to tell him too much. He had to give him something though.

  “It wasn’t a spell,” he said.

  “For a guy sharing his breakfast, you’re cagey. But that’s good; you need to look over your shoulder when you deal with the guardship. You’ll see.”

  “You said they found a body?”

  “A kid. Little urchin. Nobody knows his name, where he’s from, or why he decided to sleep on the train tracks. They found him cut in half. The driver who ran over him, they said he had a heart attack after he saw what he’d done, and now the poor bastard’s dead. That’s not the corpse they want us to look at though – it’s the kid cut in half.”

  “Yeah, I guessed that.”

  The cleric, finished with Jakub’s toast, reached for a sausage. He paused, his hand hovering in mid-air. “You mind? I didn’t have time to eat this morning.”

  “Go ahead,” said Jakub.

  “I like to dip the sausage in the egg yolk. Do you do that?”

  “We’re two peas in a pod,” said Jakub, picking up the other sausage and dipping it. “What’s your name? I’m guessing your surname is Irvine, like your brother.”

  “Witas,” he said, devouring the sausage in one bite. “Though the Black Cleric has a better ring to it than Witas Irvine. You?”

  “Jakub.”

  “Jakub and Witas, necromancer and cleric dream team,” said Witas.

  “We’re a team now?”

  “Let’s just say if you need coin, I might have something for you. I need a necromancer, and the last kid Ian sent me, well, he wasn’t too hot. He threw up when he saw a corpse. You ever heard of that? A necromancer scared of death?”

  “It happens more than you think,” said Jakub. “And the guardship, do they always come to you for this kind of thing?”

  “When they find a boy severed on a train track? Not usually. Winos, people with depression, they sometimes end it all in a place like that. It’s sad as hell, but it happens. They call it the draw of the void; suicide by a means most people couldn’t comprehend. It’s sad, Jakub. A sad world.”

  He seemed genuinely upset. Sure, it was sad, but Witas didn’t even know the kid.

  Then, there was a thing such as empathy in the world. Jakub’s problem – his gift as Instructor Irvine would have called it – was that his necromancy de-sensitization training had eroded most of his empathy away.

  Witas straightened up in his chair. “The guardship don’t usually call me about suicides, but when they find a body on the track tracks and they think that he wasn’t actually killed there, the dullards seek a little help.”

  “So this kid was killed somewhere and then put on the train tracks?”

  “Yep. And stranger still…we both know him.”

  “Who?”

  “It’s the pickpocket. Remember? The one who kept walking into tables?”

  “Yeah, he tried it on me, and I snapped at him a little. Shit, now I feel bad.”

  “Do you, or do you think that’s the right thing to say? My brother was a good kid, you know, until they did all their de-sensitization shit on him, and he changed. He tried to act like he cared when bad things happened, but he had this look in his eyes that screamed he was lying. Kind of the same look you’re giving me.”

  “Maybe I don’t feel the same way most people do when I look at a corpse,” said Jakub. “That doesn’t mean I don’t know right from wrong. I should have known he was from the street, that he was just stealing because he had to. I didn’t need to snap at him.”

  “Dying doesn’t erase all the bad things you did in life. My gut aches for a kid forced to live like that, but it doesn’t just rub it all out. Come on; the guardship get a little pissy when we’re late.”

  “Back at the academy,” Jakub said, “they told us that moonlighting was grounds for expulsion. We couldn’t use soul essence for anything other than academy-approved tasks. Course, the instructors turned a blind eye when their favorite pupils did it. The thing is, when you tell someone they can’t do something, what’re they gonna do? We all knew what kind of jobs out there, what people like the guardship need necromancers for.”

  “Then this will be a piece of cake. You know, the way you speak, the way you carry yourself; it’s like looking at my younger brother. I can see Ian’s teaching coming through you.”

  Jakub had to hold back a grin then, since he wasn’t the greatest at taking compliments.

  He needed work, and Witas was offering him work in his field. That was more than he could have hoped for. But there was a problem.

  “I know what the guardship will want me to do, but there’s a slight issue with that.”

  “Did you forget your spellwords? Are you scared of accidentally creating a zombie? You won’t use your necromancy on Tuesday on religious grounds? What is it?”

  “I need soul essence to use necromancy, and I need a soul necklace to hold it in. Mine’s broken.”

  “Lemme see.”

  Jakub shook his head. A necromancer never gave someone their soul necklace even for a second.

  Then again, that was a rule the academy had drilled into him, most likely because they didn’t want to pay for a replacement.

  If the Cleric could fix the necklace Tomkins had given him, what did he have to lose?

  He showed it to Witas. “See? It’s cracked.”

  “This is artificed?” said Witas.

  “The crystal where the essence gets
stored is artificed, yeah.”

  “No problem. Let’s go and see a pal of mine. Archibald will be able to fix this no problem.”

  “Archibald as in, Archibald’s Artificery and Magical Items?”

  “You know him?”

  “We’ve met,” said Jakub.

  He remembered their last conversation, one that had somehow turned from the old trader trying to gouge him on price, to Jakub almost drawing his sword. All over a letter.

  He sat rigid. The letter.

  He checked his pockets and his inventory bag, but it was gone.

  “I’ll be one minute,” he said.

  He left Witas at the table and rushed up to his room, but there was nothing of his left behind. It was gone - the gods-damned pickpocket had stolen Henwright’s letter from him.

  He went back downstairs to Witas, feeling an emptiness in his stomach.

  18

  It made a horrible kind of sense. Or the beginnings of sense, at least. Henwright had given Jakub an artificed letter. No name, no idea who it had to go to.

  Instead, Henwright had told him that the recipient of the letter would be able to track it by its artificed gum; the same mana-infused sealant that stopped anyone else reading what was inside.

  The pickpocket must have stolen the letter from him back in the Boarhead tavern, and the person waiting for the letter had tracked it all the way to the kid. Then, having found him, they’d killed him.

  The twisting of his stomach made him regret eating his breakfast.

  Jakub was supposed to have the letter; the recipient was supposed to find him.

  It was him who was supposed to end up on train tracks, severed in two, and instructor Henwright was the one who’d sent him to that fate.

  “You’ve gone paler than the moon’s bare arse,” said Witas.

  “I…you ever have one of those sentences you can’t spit out? The words just disappear?”

  “Listen, Archie isn’t a nice guy. I get it, he’s meaner than a dockside cat. But Gods, if I’d known you were gonna react like this, I’d have suggested someone else to fix your necklace. Artificers are ten a penny in Dispolis, it’s just that Archie is a pal, and he does good work for good rates. The guy never, ever misses a deadline.”

  “It’s not that,” said Jakub.

  The barkeep came to collect his empty breakfast plate.

  “Enjoy the grub?”

  “Perfect,” said Witas. “Apart from the bacon. A little crispy for my taste, but your sausages are a delicacy. Nine out of ten.”

  “Can I have a beer?” said Jakub.

  The barkeep nodded. “Rough night? Well, one hair of the dog coming up. And you?”

  Witas shook his head. “I’m working today.”

  When the barkeep left, came back with a pint of amber ale, then left again, Jakub gulped a quarter of it.

  “You gonna tell me why you’ve become a crank all of a sudden?” said Witas.

  Jakub drank another quarter of the beer and then let it settle in his stomach.

  He told Witas about Henwright giving him the letter, how the pickpocket had bumped into him and stolen it, and the conclusions he’d drawn from what happened to him.

  “Does my brother know about this letter?” said Witas.

  Jakub hadn’t considered that. Irvine, Madam Lolo, Henwright, they’d all been in his inquiry. Henwright hinted that he hadn’t voted to expel him, but his word was bullshit.

  Could all three of them have voted for his expulsion so they could set all of this in motion?

  No. Why would they do it? What could they have to gain? If the person tracking the letter had intended to kill Jakub, there had to be a good reason, and he couldn’t figure out why Irvine, Lolo, or Henwright would want that.

  “I don’t know if Irvine was in on it,” said Jakub. “They could all be implicit. Or, it could be a coincidence that the kid who stole from me died the same night. Who knows?”

  “Ian wouldn’t be involved in this. That wasn’t what I meant. What I meant was, did he see Hensworth…”

  “Henwright,” said Jakub.

  “Did he see hen-whatever-the-fuck-his-name-is give you the letter?”

  “No, it was just us, but not seeing something isn’t the same as not knowing.”

  “You can usually trust a bastard who never tries to hide it. And believe me, Ian never, ever, hides what a bastard he is.”

  “I’m sure as hell not going back to the academy for a while, anyway.”

  “It’s just something to bear in mind. Let’s find out more, then maybe talk to my brother.”

  “I need another drink,” Jakub said.

  He raised his glass to finish the beer, when Witas put his hand on the rim and pushed it down.

  “It’s fine to get drunk out of your mind when you’ve got nothing to do. But when you have a job, you work. When you need to think, you don’t send your mind on the merry beer tour, first stop slurred words, last stop a five-hundred-gold tab at a whorehouse that you can’t pay. Come on; sitting on our arses won’t tell us anything. The best thing is to see the kid, so let’s go and get your necklace fixed.”

  19

  Jakub opened the door of Archibald’s shop, making the bell ring and disturbing the old artificer-come-trader, who was sitting behind his counter and fiddling with a wind-up duck.

  “You again?” said Archibald. “Brought more tat for me, or do you want to shake your sword around like a boy bragging about his cock?”

  “Let’s let bygones be bygones,” said Jakub.

  “No, let’s get the guards in here,” said Archibald. Then, he saw Witas enter behind Jakub, chewing on an iced bun he’d insisted they stop for on the way. Archibald smiled. “Witas! This is the lad I was telling you about; the one sniffing around for the Black Cleric.”

  “He sniffed me out, alright. Don’t worry, he’s a pal.”

  “I’ve known you long enough to stop asking questions about the company you keep. You’re old and stupid enough to sort out your own trouble.”

  “And a good morning to you, my friend. Glad we caught you in a cheery mood. You ready for some good old fashioned artificery today?”

  “I have a noblewoman coming to collect this damn wind-up duck at eleven; apparently if the duck doesn’t look and act real, her child will have a fit. Do these people think mana grows on trees? Well, maybe to them it actually does.”

  “This is important,” said Witas.

  “Does it involve your new friend?”

  “Jakub’s got a little problem with his necklace.”

  “Why didn’t you say so? For him, I’ll just drop everything. Never mind that my father built this shop brick by brick, never mind that the only reason I can compete with the hundreds of other artificers in Dispolis is that I finish jobs when I say I will. For your new friend, I’m willing to break my word to a customer who pays full price.”

  “Look, I’m sorry about before,” said Jakub. “I’d had a rough couple of days.”

  “I’ve had a rough decade, and you don’t see me pulling a sword.”

  “You did try and confiscate my stuff.”

  “As an artificer, I have a duty to the guardship to-”

  “Actually,” said Witas, “this is for the guardship. They found a stiff, and they need a necro to take a look at it. This lad is the only one in town, but he’s got a case of essence impotence.”

  Jakub took out his soul necklace and put it on the counter. “I just need it fixed so it can hold essence again.”

  “Fine, since you have Witas with you. Leave it with me,” said Archibald. “Come back in the morning.”

  “No good. I need to get to the body before the resurrection window closes.”

  “I don’t care about your necromancy fiddle-faddle, boy. Tomorrow, and that’s me being nice.”

  “Hey, Archie,” said Witas. “A couple of guards are walking past your shop. You mind if I invite them in so I can explain that we might not be able to help with the corpse they have in their
headquarters? Course, while they’re in here they might glance over the counter and catch sight of your back room, and we know what kind of things you’ve got going on in there…”

  “Give it here,” said Archie, holding his hand out. His nails were unnaturally long, most likely to help with some of his intricate work, and his fingers were covered in grease.

  Jakub pushed the necklace toward him. While Archie examined the necklace, Witas picked up the wind-up duck, turning it over.

  “They really pay to have kid’s toys artificed?” he said.

  “Put the duck down,” said Archibald.

  While the artificer tinkered with the necklace, Witas walked around the shop, looking at the things on the shelves. There were rows of potion vials, enchanted jewellery, some low-level weapons, and even a row of alchemy ingredients.

  Jakub stayed at the counter, because he had a few questions he needed Archibald to answer.

  “I don’t know much about artificery,” he said, “but I know the artificed gum is rare, right? The mana seal stuff is pretty hard to get.”

  Archibald didn’t even look up from the necklace. “There’s only one place in Dispolis that makes it now.”

  “Where?”

  “Teller and Turlock; they have a workshop in the Rats’ Palace.”

  “Rats’ Palace?”

  “He means the sewers,” said Witas, holding a jar of dried bat droppings. “Back before Dispolis was the capital, poor folks lived down there. It wasn’t a sewer then, obviously. The guards turfed them out under royal orders when bandits started using the tunnels to get access to basements, but there are a few businesses that have a license to trade out of some of the old houses. You know; bomb makers, tinkers, alchemists. People who make dangerous stuff that are best left to do their work below Dispolis. You need a permit to even go down there these days.”

  “We need to go visit Teller and Turlock, then,” said Jakub.

  “I’ll need a good reason to go into the Rats’ Palace,” said Witas. “A guy I know lost his arm down there.”

  “Are you talking about Jeremiah? Wasn’t his arm made of wood to begin with?” said Archibald.