by Deck Davis
That was what scared Henwright the most. As a master necromancer and an instructor, his mind was everything. He wasn’t a powerful man, he wasn’t quick nor strong, and he didn’t have the reflexes to keep up with the recruits when he fought them in the practice yard.
But knowledge was his strength, and it was something that even grew stronger with age – all he had to do was keep reading, keep studying.
If he lost it, what would he be?
Just an old fool, wandering around the academy as his senses left him and trying to hide it from everyone. People would notice a slip of knowledge here, a mistake there. First, they’d mock him, and then his fellow instructors would notice, and before long he’d lose his place in the academy.
Maybe it’d be even worse than that. A necromancer with dementia was too dangerous to simply lose his job; they’d have to take more from him.
And so, with regret already coiling inside him, he knocked on the door.
He heard shuffling inside; perhaps the sound of something being hidden.
“I’m not here for contraband,” he said. “I just need to talk.”
The door opened and Trouton Wyrecast stood there, the pink of his wobbly belly showing where his pyjamas wouldn’t reach.
“Master Henwright?” said Trout.
“Can I come in?”
“It’s, er, late master. Have I done something wrong?”
“I just need to talk to you, Trout.”
“Damn it. I knew that name would spread.”
Trout moved aside, and as Henwright stepped over the threshold of the door he sensed he was crossing another threshold entirely. There would be no redemption after this.
Just five minutes later, Henwright sat on Trout’s bed. His hands were shaking and he felt cold.
The suitcase was at his feet, zipped up with Trout inside it. Alive – Hackett needed them to be alive – but unconscious. Even if he awoke in the artificed suitcase he couldn’t get out, nor would his shouts penetrate the magic seal.
“What have I done?”
He went to the sink in the corner of the room. The pipes rumbled when he turned the tap, and he splashed water over his face.
“Okay, it’s done now. What’s done is done.”
He told himself that, but he didn’t believe it.
Even so, he had to be quick.
First, he packed some of Trout’s belongings, things a young mage might take with him if he were leaving. These were clothes, his mage staff, books. He shoved them in the suitcase.
Next, he found some of Trout’s homework assignments. Copying his handwriting, he wrote a note explaining, in Trout’s words, how he couldn’t face failing to live up to his grandfather’s legacy. He left this on Trout’s bed.
That done, he just needed to get to the edge of the academy grounds, where Hackett had arranged for the package to be collected.
Hurrying out of the room, through the halls, and down the grand staircase, his pulse beat so loudly he was sure it would wake the whole academy.
But he was being stupid; nobody would hear the innerworkings of his body, just as much as they wouldn’t hear his thoughts which now were telling him, you’ve gone too far, Wayne. This is the end of you even if they remove the curse.
He’d reached the main entrance of the academy when a voice called out.
“Henny?”
A shiver crept through him.
He turned, smiling as naturally as he could. “Ian, how are you? It’s late; going to another poker game?”
Irvine had a book under his arm. “I drank too much coffee with dinner, so I won’t be able to sleep tonight. Going somewhere?”
Henwright held up the suitcase, wondering whether right now, Trout was waking up inside it. “I’m going to visit my sister this weekend,” he said.
“I thought you and Glora didn’t get on?”
“It’s never too late to try. A man needs family.”
“Don’t you have classes in the morning? It’s not quite the weekend yet.”
“I have the day off. Didn’t you get my note?”
Irvine frowned. “I must have missed it.”
The tension was tightening in him so hard that Henwright thought he was going to burst. His brain was telling him to just run, but he knew that was irrational.
Just piss off, Irvine, he thought.
But he kept calm, kept the smile on his face. “I better be off. I have a carriage waiting.”
Irvine seemed to look dep into him then, and the two shared a stare for what seemed like hours.
Finally, Irvine nodded. “Give my best to Glora. I’d love to see her, if you two patch it up.”
“I’ll make sure to do that. Enjoy your reading.”
He opened the door and was about to step out into the night, when Irvine spoke.
“Henny,” he said.
He knows. He knows. Dear Gods, what am I going to do?
Henwright fought with every instinct in his body that was telling him to run, and turned around.
“Yes?”
“I hope you packed some cheese for the journey. We know what you’re like when you haven’t eaten. Best not to turn up at Glora’s cottage all cranky.”
He forced a laugh. “Don’t worry about that.”
And with that he stepped out of the academy and into the darkness, his heart racing, the suitcase feeling heavier than it should.
He just needed to get rid of it, and then he’d go to Dispolis for a few nights. Now that he’d spoken the lie, he couldn’t return straight back to the academy.
Maybe I should go and see Glora, he thought. Go and patch it up.
He told himself no; the time for that was past, and he wasn’t the man that his sister had once known. He didn’t even recognize himself anymore.
That didn’t matter. The only person he wanted to recognize was Hackett; he wanted to know what he looked like. He didn’t know how he’d do that yet, but he would find out. That was what he did, after all; it didn’t matter how hard the knowledge was to find, it if was there then Henwright could seek it out.
As soon as this was over, when he was sure that the curse was truly gone and he didn’t need anything from him anymore, Hackett was going to die.
27
“Don’t worry about the sludge; that’s just the spill-over of two streets’ worth of human shit,” said Witas.
With access to the Rats’ Palace only available to people with permits, Jakub and Witas had ignored the two gated entrances to the Dispolis underworld and instead had found a way in that Witas assured him was secret.
The only problem was, there was an actual working sewer under Dispolis, and the Rats’ Palace intersected it. The only way to sneak in was to climb through a crap-crusted manhole.
Witas took the ladder first, descending into the darkness until he called out to Jakub and his voice sounded miles away. “Come on; it’s lovely down here.”
Jakub joined him until he was standing below the streets of Dispolis. Even though he knew he’d just descended into a sewer, he couldn’t believe what he saw.
“Rats’ Palace? Sewers? Are those names ironic, or something?”
“Dispolis wasn’t chosen as the capital city because it happened to be close to the Queen’s castle, no matter what the books say. This isn’t a chicken and egg scenario; do any real research, and you’ll see that Dispolis was here first, and they chose to build the castle near it.”
It was less a sewer and more a forgotten city, one buried under the capital city itself. The lack of daylight gave it the feeling of a mausoleum, but there were stone walls and stone buildings down there, each carved with care and attention. There were archways, rock statues, vaulted ceilings.
“They say there’s a tunnel that leads to Queen Patience’s castle. Four in fact, all of them secret. Venture too far into the Rats’ Palace and it becomes a labyrinth. There’s only one map, and it’s in the castle. Even with a map, though, take one or two turns without checking your place, and you’d
be lost down here.”
“I bet. The question I have is, who the hell would want to come down here if they didn’t have reason to?”
“Curiosity, stupidity, drunkenness. They say a little girl found an unsealed entry way, and being a scamp, she climbed in. Guess her bones will be around here somewhere.”
“Right…good thing we’ve just come down an unofficial entryway without a map,” said Jakub.
“Good thing we aren’t all complete fucking idiots who have to rely on scraps of paper made by other people who, by the way, could easily lie and make a false map. They say there was a guy who used to do that; sell his own unofficial maps which got people lost. Then he’d follow them down and murder them here. They called him Big Hands.”
“Because he used to strangle them?”
“Actually, he used a knife. His hands were really, really, tiny, like a doll’s. The name was a joke.”
“Let’s get to the damn artifice gum makers, find out if they know anything, then get out of here.”
“The good thing about business like that,” said Witas, “Is that they have two fronts. One is up above us on the Royal Mile, where they sell artificed gum to anyone. Then, you have their business down here, where they make the stuff. The thing about the gum is, you use it to seal stuff so secret that you don’t trust the regular post. And if you’re someone who lives out of sight of the eye of the law, you don’t wanna be seen buying vats of gum intended to seal suspicious mail.”
“So, outlaws come down here?”
“Not just them; a lot of noblemen send their servants down here to buy gum so their wives don’t know that they’re sending love letters to their mistresses, or conspiring against Lord Bastard-Face or Baron Pale-Arse.”
“You’re telling me there’s a system to find our way through?”
“Just follow the red dragon.”
28 – Studs Godwin
Studs Godwin and Ella-Faye Harlahan were half a mile deep into the Rats’ Palace. Studs back was wet from where ceiling dew had dripped down on him, hitting him on the back on the neck and snaking under his boiled leathers, rolling down his spine.
When drips hit Ella, they bounced away, repelled by the magic of her necro robes.
“It stinks down here,” he said. “I don’t know how you put up with the smell of the bodies.”
“You get used to it. I’m sure you must smell worse things than rot; I’ve seen what people do when you torture them.”
“I rub a salve on my nose. Mint scented. Makes my eyes water, but keeps the aromas away.”
Ella was painting a little shape of a red dragon on the wall. Studs watched her work, staring at the way she bit her lip as she concentrated, and how her tongue poked out a little.
He gazed at her hair, at the way it trailed down past her chin, her neck, over her breasts.
I was an inquisitor in the queen’s army, and I’m scared to say anything to her, he thought.
She was just such an angel; sure, her hair might have been pond-water brown, but he loved it. She might have had a dent in her jaw, but he loved that dent. Truth was, he didn’t know what the hell a necro like her was doing with him and Hackett.
Well, he did, but he still didn’t quite believe it.
Hackett had a point to prove about the academy and the way the system treated magic users, while Studs needed gold, and what better a reason could a man have? He was a trained torturer, so there was no sense letting his skills go to shit.
But Ella? If she was to be believed, her reasons were something else, something worse. Ella had a disease of the mind, something in her skull that made her enjoy this.
That was what Hackett believed, anyway. Studs didn’t know, and every time he tried to speak to Ella about anything other than their work, she brushed him off.
“Finished,” said Ella.
“That the last one?”
“There’s going to be chaos down here, Studs my sweet torturer. When are the novice and his cleric friend coming?”
“Archie said they were going to see a corpse in the guardship, then they’d come down here to see Teller and Turlock.”
“The gum makers? What are they up to?” said harper.
“It has something to do with the letter, that’s all I know. I’ll get more out of them when they follow our new dragon trail and find out it isn’t going where they expected. You sure you can handle them?”
“They’ll be surprised and alone, so I wouldn’t worry. Besides, Hackett said he needed you; Henwright sent a new one.”
“Stay safe, girl,”
Ella punched him playfully on the shoulder. “I’m more worried about you, you lug. Come find me if you don’t wring enough magic from the new one Henwright sent before he snuffs it; I’ll come and resurrect him.”
“It’s a miracle!” said Studs, raising his hands up in a mock-preacher way. “Praise the Gods!”
Ella laughed, and it was a beautiful sound. “Idiot,” she said.
Studs left her and walked toward the laddered exit with a smile on his face. Sure, he had an afternoon of torture waiting for him, of flaying and cutting until all the magic was teased out of the new boy, but Ella was worried about him.
That was what she’d said; I’m more worried about you, you lug.
Studs felt so light he could almost float out of the sewer.
29
“I thought you said it’d be a quarter of a mile? It feels like we’ve been walking for hours,” said Jakub.
Witas pointed at the red dragon painted on the wall. “I’ve followed the signs; you can see them as much as I can.”
“I know. Just, this place is a little dark. A little cramped.”
“A necromancer who doesn’t like the dark? I thought your kind spent their days in crypts?”
“You’d be surprised; you should see what your brother has done with the necromancy wing. It’s the brightest place in the academy.”
“Yeah, Ian always hated it when people called him gloomy. Come on, we’re nearly there. I can feel it.”
“What’s with the dragons, anyway?”
“I told you; people conduct some shady shit down here, and shady though they may be, they still need customers. What good is a business if a customer gets lost and dies before they can even visit? Here’s a tip; if you see anyone up top with red paint on them, they’ve probably been drawing dragon markers. They show the way.”
Witas led him through the sewer, and Jakub couldn’t believe that this underground city had been forgotten. So much attention had gone into constructing the stone buildings, into carving the statues and the archways, that it seemed a crime to waste it.
Then, there was no light, it smelled like a dying rat, and every foot deeper they went into it made despair grow in him.
Maybe that, coupled with the fact people started using it to tunnel under business and noblemen’s houses and rob them, meant closing it off was a good decision.
Witas turned a corner. “Holy hells,” he said.
When Jakub rounded the corner too, the sentiment echoed in his head.
It was a dead end. A wide-open dead end, almost a cavern with a vaulted roof, but they were closed in.
In the centre was a wide pool of fetid green water, which flowed deeper into the sewers through a narrow tunnel that too small for a person to climb through.
Floating on top of the water were rat corpses. Not just ordinary rats; these were as big as dogs. They were freshly killed judging by their fur which, although sopping wet, hadn’t rotted.
“The water is full of blight,” said Witas. “So diseased even the rats can’t take it sometimes. Don’t go getting thirsty.”
Jakub grimaced at the idea of drinking from the water. “I’ll bear that in mind.”
They heard someone singing. It was a high voice singing a song in a language that Jakub had never heard.
A figure stepped out of the shadows in the north east corner. A woman wearing a robe, with long, dirty brown hair.
“R
essurano,” she said.
Witas stopped. “What?”
Jakub went rigid. “It’s a spellword. A resurrection glyphline. She’s a necromancer.”
“Well spotted, novice,” said the woman.
The rat corpses began to stir in the water. One rolled over, while another stretched its paws, cutting through the water with its claws. Soon the mass of them writhed in the pool, paddling toward the sides.
There must have been a dozen. As much as it sparked a glimmer of fear in Jakub, he was in awe of the spell. He could resurrect minor beasts too, but he was such a low-level on the necromancy ladder that bringing back a few rats would have depleted most of his essence.
This woman, to bring back so many so quickly…she must have been a master.
And he doubted the rats were a welcoming party for him and Witas.
30
Witas opened his coat and reached inside but instead of drawing a weapon, he pulled a black book from his pocket. It was tattered, old, with the print of an upside-down triangle printed on it.
The upside-down triangle was a symbol of the Blacktyde; the book must have been black clericism.
The rats swarmed now, six rounding one edge of the pool, six on the other, scurrying to fence him and Witas in.
Even with her newly-resurrected army, the woman wasn’t done; the pool water stirred, and Jakub sensed more rats were coming.
“We need to go,” he said.
“We missed that chance,” said Witas.
The tunnelway behind them was blocked by four of the rats now.
He had to even it out. With no time to check how much essence he had, he focused on the pool of water and imagined the dead creatures in his depths.
He spoke the spellword of his resurrection glyphline and cast it at the pool.
His essence left him, and the water bubbled.
*Necromancy EXP Gained!*
[IIIIIIIIIIIIIIII ]
Instead of another rat swimming to the top, Jakub saw the ridged snout of a gator; six feet long, scaled, its yellow teeth poking out from its mouth. It reminded him of the gators at the academy, but this was a sewer gator, one that lived in the depths of this stinking hell.
