by Deck Davis
“Shit, it gets worse,” said Witas.
“Nope - that one’s mine,” said Jakub.
“You summoned that thing?”
“I resurrected it, not summoned. It was dead.”
“Way to go, necro. Now swing that damn sword at anything that moves.”
“It’s useless to fight, boys,” said the woman. “Can’t you count?”
Jakub didn’t need an academy education to know one woman and a dozen dog-sized rats outnumbered him, Witas, and his new gator. He just had to hope they could fight their way out.
31
They were going to need every advantage they could get, and he didn’t have a lot of time to weigh things up.
First, he took his Dragon Ring from his inventory and put it on his left ring finger. There was a snap of mana, and he felt a ridge of hard scales grow over his skin, spreading over his arms, his chest, and his legs, but leaving his face untouched.
“You could have told me you had that,” said Witas.
“It only lasts a few minutes at a time, then it’ll take days to recharge.”
“That’s enough time. Stand in front of me and be my human shield. Keep the rats away for a minute.”
Across from them, the necromancer stood at the edge of the pool of water. She pointed at Witas.
“Kill the cleric,” she told her rats. “Let the boy live. I need him hurt, but alive.”
She’s saying that for effect, Jakub thought. Just because a person resurrected the rat, it didn’t give the rat the ability to understand speech. What resurrection did do was to establish a link between the necromancer and the thing they resurrected.
You didn’t need to tell your resurrected creature to do something; you just thought it.
Well, if she was going for dramatic effect, then he would too. Jakub spoke to his newly-resurrected gator. “Kill the necromancer,” he said. “I need her hurt, and dead.”
Witas flipped open his black cleric tome and thumbed through the pages, stopping at one.
Jakub didn’t have time to see what was on it, because the rats prowled forward now, their tails swishing, claws clattering on the stone.
One leapt at him. Jakub swung his sword and caught its underbelly, spreading a cut through its fur.
The rat cried out, and its brethren answered with squeals. This sparked urgency in them, and they darted forward.
Witas began to chant. “From darkness I call, a black barbed thrall…”
A rat leapt at Jakub. He had barely time to lift his sword, and he only stuck it with the hilt.
Another jumped at him, this one from his left. He raised his arm and felt its jaws clamp on his arm, closing on his scale armor. There was no pain, just pressure, but another rat ran at his feet and chomped on his left leg.
It knocked him off balance, and he hit the ground with a thud and felt air leave his lungs.
Damn, those things are big.
Two of the vermin climbed on him, scurrying to his face where the scales didn’t reach.
He punched one, but no sooner had he swept it off him than another crawled over him.
Before the rats could hurt him, a weighty tail swished out, and his gator tossed two rats off him and into the waters. Water splashed up and pattered onto his dragon scales.
“From the Blacktydes it comes, a wind of black light…” chanted Witas.
Jakub pushed himself to his feet. Across from him, the woman spoke the spellword of her resurrection glyphline, and the waters began to stir again.
How much essence does she have?
“Get her,” he thought, staring at his gator.
Witas slammed his book shut, and a gush of black mist flew from it, seeping out into the sewer. It looked like a coil of rope except made from light, and Jakub saw barbs wrapped in it.
The light spread left and right, tearing at the rats. When it hit them, its barbs eviscerated them, cutting through fur, splattering their blood.
Squeals of pain echoed, so high and so many that the sound sent a shudder through him.
Whatever Witas had conjured with his black clericism, it was keeping the rats busy. Now, he just needed to get to her; to stop the necromancer summoning more. Gods knew how many vermin in the waters.
Jakub ran around the side of the pool and toward the woman. His foot skidded over fresh rat blood, and the fall spread his legs apart. He fought to stay balanced but he’d been running too fast, and he lost himself.
He felt himself fall to his left, toward the waters, and he grasped out for something to hold onto, for anything, but there was nothing.
He landed in the pool with a splash, and then he sunk into it.
The cold water spread over his face. It gushed into his nose and mouth before he could hold his breath.
The taste sent nausea tremoring through him, the smell overpowered his senses.
He tried to swim up, but the dragon scale armor made him too heavy. His arms were sluggish, his legs like lead. Panic rose in him too strong and quick for him to fight it.
Need to surface…
The fetid water wound into his lungs, made him cough, and that made him swallow more, and he desperately waved his arms to try and swim. The threat of death sparked new strength in him, and he felt himself move up, up, almost reaching the surface.
And then something wrapped around his leg. Something coiled his ankle and held him back, dragged him down.
It was a rat tail, one of her newly summoned creatures. With every flap of his arms, it seemed another rat tail wrapped around him.
His lungs ached, the water burned his nostrils, the smell spread haze through his brain.
I’m going to die.
With his last blink of consciousness, he removed the ring, pulling it so forcefully that it fell to the bottom of the pool.
He reached for his sheath and drew his dagger, and he stabbed at where he thought the tails were.
Pain flared in his shin, a sting of it that travelled through his legs.
He’d cut himself.
I’m going to die.
He swung again, again, and he felt the pressure lessen as he struck each rat tail.
With every last trace of energy he had, he swum to the surface, breaching it with a spray of water, feeling the sewer air cold on his face.
He swum to the edge, where hands hooked his armpits and dragged him out.
And then he stared at the ceiling, his lungs burning, his stomach full of bile, his legs singing with agony.
He wanted to move, but he couldn’t.
There was the sound of claws scuttling over stone.
More rats coming for him? Could he even summon the energy to fight them off?
But they didn’t come.
Instead, there was a growl, and then a scream; a woman crying out in agony. And then footsteps retreating from him, travelling to the far end of the chamber.
Health Harvest; it was the only spell that could help him now. He’d earned it when he levelled up in his first assignment, and it could convert essence in his soul necklace to a healing wind.
He heard Witas struggling with the woman, but their sounds were dim because one of his ears had taken in water, and it wouldn’t pop clear.
As nausea coiled inside him, he spoke the word of Health Harvest.
Nothing happened; no healing winds, no sound of essence drifting from his necklace.
He fought his pain and his fatigue to take the necklace out, and he saw that it was empty.
Fuck you, Archibald. You miserable bastard.
He felt his mind snap from its last thread then; darkness swam in his vision, and the sounds of Witas and the woman fell to nothing, to emptiness, and Jakub lost consciousness.
32
A slap brought him back into the world, and he woke to see Witas kneeling beside him. The cleric brought his hand up again for another slap, but Jakub put his arms out.
“I’m awake.”
The sewer was silent now; only dew dripping from the ceiling and into
the pool made any noise.
He tried to sit up, but a wave of nausea flushed through him, and he turned to his side and vomited. It was watery, dark green. The smell made his stomach churn.
“You took a mouthful of that stuff,” said Witas, nodding at the pool.
“What about her?”
“Your gator saw to her; chewed through her leg. It’s hanging off at her knee. And then her rats saw to your gator…and I saw to them.”
“That’s a lot of seeing.”
“Get up. She’s still alive, but she’s gushing blood.”
Jakub scrabbled to his feet. His leg ached from where he’d cut himself, and his stomach felt heavy.
“You need to make yourself sick,” said Witas. “You swallowed a belly full of that shit.”
“We need to talk to her.”
“I’m serious; stick your fingers down your throat; blight water will get you ill.”
Jakub made himself vomit, sending a stream of liquid spattering onto the stone. He tasted it as it came up, and he felt his stomach flip once, twice. He retched until all he got were dry heaves.
Now he felt cold, empty. He needed to sleep for a week.
He took his Bracelet of Rest from his inventory bag and clipped it around his wrist. The trinket cast energy through him, cutting through the ebbing of fatigue.
The necromancer was on the far side of the chamber. She didn’t move when they approached; with all the gator wounds on her, it was all she could do to keep breathing.
Jakub took a few steps and then slumped into the wall. It was no good; between the water and the rats, he was beat. The bracelet helped beat back the ebbs of sleep, but it wasn’t a cure-all.
“Pass me her necklace,” he said.
“I know you academy types love to loot from your kills, but-”
“Just pass it me.”
Witas unclipped the necklace from the woman and gave it him. Jakub held it up.
Empty, damn it.
He looked at the rats corpses laying around the chamber. Most had already been resurrected, so he couldn’t draw essence from them. Instead he looked at the pool and, hoping that more corpses lay in its depths, he spoke the spellword of Soul Harvest.
Streams of blue light rose from the waters, warping in the air and then drifting into his new soul necklace.
Unlike the one he’d gotten Archibald to fix – badly – this necklace was golden, uncracked, and it held the essence firmly within it.
*Necromancy EXP Gained!*
[IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII ]
Next, he cast Health Harvest on himself, letting the soul essence convert into wisps of yellow light, which spread on him. It snaked over his leg, touching his sword wound, and it settled on his thigh where the crossbow sniper had hurt him near the academy.
He opened his mouth to breath it in, but the light dispersed without going into his mouth.
“Your spells won’t help if you’ve caught the blight,” said Witas. “You’re gonna feel it soon. Gods, I hope it hasn’t happened.”
“What can we do?”
“Get you to a mender; see if they can fix you.”
“You’re a cleric. Can’t you do anything?”
“I’m a black cleric, Jakub. Healing isn’t one of my gifts anymore.”
As the light of his Health Harvest disappeared, wispy text replaced it, hovering in his eyeline.
*Necromancy EXP Gained!*
[IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII ]
He had almost levelled up, and even in his condition, he could feel excitement building in him. He was a level 3 novice, and the next level would bring…
No time to think about that.
He kneeled beside the woman. Jakub knew what death looked like, and he knew when someone was staring over its precipice. He needed answers now.
“Who are you?”
“Queen Patience,” she said, then spat blood onto the ground.
“You stupid cow; think this is the time for jokes?” said Witas.
“I can heal you. You know what the Health Harvest spell is, so tell me what I want to know, and I’ll heal you,” said Jakub.
“I’d rather not.”
She reached to her side and drew a dagger. Before Jakub or Witas could react, she pulled the blade across her throat, tearing an arc through her own skin. Blood spat from the wound, gushing over her robes.
Witas grabbed the dagger from her and threw it away. He put his hand against her throat and pressed against the cut. Her blood seeped over his fingers, pooling over his wrists and trickling to the ground.
“Crazy bitch,” he said. “Get me a cloth. Something to press the wound.”
Jakub shook his head. “She’s gone. Look at her.”
“You’re a necromancer; bring the bitch back.”
“I’m not strong enough. I can’t do that.”
“Fuck!”
He let her go, and her head smashed against the stone. Jakub watched blood spread around her, he watched it trickle over the stone and to the pool, where it dripped over the edge and into the blight-ridden water.
33
“Who in all hells is she?” said Witas.
“That’s exactly the thing she didn’t want us to know.”
“There must be something you can do; what about that Last Rites? Show us what she saw.”
“That’ll only show how she died, and we don’t need a repeat of that, do we?”
“She’s a part of whatever the hell this is,” said Witas. “She changed the sewer markings and led us here, into a trap.”
“How would she even know we were coming down here?”
Witas punched the wall. “Damn it. It was Archie; he was the only person we told. You old artificing bastard, I’ll ram that duck straight up your arse.”
“You were right, though. She’s part of it. Whoever wanted to take me, she’s one of them.”
“And now we’ve got nothing. She’s dead, you’re too much of a pussy necromancer to bring her back and…” he stopped talking now, and he composed himself. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.”
“Why are you so worked up? I’m the one they want,” said Jakub.
“Because whatever this is, whoever they are, they’re bringing others into it. The pickpocket boy, your girlfriend, you. When I think back to the Last Rites, seeing that smug bastard hiding behind his mask and showing off his coins, it makes me want to tear Dispolis apart finding him.”
“There might be something we can do,” said Jakub.
“You said it yourself; she’s dead.”
“And you know as well as I do; there are places people go when they die.”
“The seven afterlives?” said Witas. “I commune with the Blacktyde, but I can’t go there. And what about the other six? We don’t know where this bitch went.”
“No; until the resurrection window closes, she’ll be somewhere else. Somewhere I’ve been before.”
“Where?”
“The Greylands.”
34
He was crazy to even think about it. The Greylands wasn’t a cosy tavern with a roaring fire and a gentle lute music; it was where a person went when they died, but before the cosmos had picked one of the seven afterlives for them.
A person being there also gave necromancers time to resurrect a body, but that was out of the question now.
That didn’t mean that he couldn’t go to the Greylands, though. He’d done it once before and lived through it, but at the same time, he’d seen what the things down there could do. He’d held their stares too long, and he’d felt them wrench something from his mind.
He remembered what Kortho had taught him about it. It was soon after he’d joined the academy, before he’d learned any spells.
“When someone dies, they go to the Greylands,” said Kortho, standing at the front of the class.
Unlike Irvine’s matter-of-fact way of speaking or Henwright’s diversions into subjects that had nothing to do with the lesson, Kortho always knew how to keep his students hanging
on his words. That was one thing everyone agreed on – all the students loved Kortho.
“Do we know what happens there?” he asked the class.
Florin, a boy who used to treat every question like you got points for answering, said. “It’s a place you wait while they sort your soul for one of the Seven.”
“Correct. We necromancers call this time the resurrection window, because while a soul is still in the Greylands, we can recall it to its body. But what happens if this window closes, yet the soul refuses to leave the Greylands?”
“They’re stuck.”
“Not just stuck,” said Kortho. “They change. I’m going to project an image in front of you. Soak it in, for it is the last time you’ll be able to look at it directly. If you saw it in the flesh and met its stare, you’d be in trouble.”
Kortho used an artificed picture box to cast a square of light beside him. In that there was a color painting of a giant arachnid; but rather than the graceful body of a spider this arachnid was mal-formed, some limbs longer than others, parts of its body covered in black skin but others with raw flesh showing.
It was sitting on a mound of flesh and bone, writhing its legs, snapping each of its eight eyes in different directions.
“This is what you become when you stay in the Greylands beyond your time. These creatures are to be feared, but also pitied; for as the Greylands changes them, so does it take from them. They lose their minds, and this is what makes them so dangerous to you. You will have to go in there someday to bind a spirit animal to you, and these things will be waiting.”
“What will they do?”
“Eyes are the soul’s window. Meet their gaze, and they will ride your thoughts like a wave, using them to get closer to you, and consuming each thought they ride. They’ll strip your mind to its threads given time.”
Jakub remembered staring at the monstrosity and feeling sick imagining himself having to go down there.
That day had come years later, when he’d gone to the Greylands under the protection of Instructor Irvine and Madam Lolo.
Then, years later, he’d gone again. It was during his first assignment, and he’d gone in with a teen called Rud.
