by Deck Davis
As he and Hosandra carried Witas across the church and to the steps leading to the cellar, Jakub looked at Hosandra. The more he looked, the more his memories came back.
Memories of he and Hosandra, seven years old, sitting by their camp fire and holding hands. They whispered about their parents, about running away.
He remembered their talks, their games, their promises that they’d always be best friends, but with the childish declarations that they’d get married when they were older.
Then a memory of Kortho and the academy soldiers storming the camp. Kortho coming for Jakub to take him away. He remembered looking around madly, trying to look past the fighting and carnage to see where Hosandra was.
Then the dead flesh his father forced him to eat started to work in him. Its effects were strong and they were sudden, and then next few months blurred by and then Jakub settled into academy life, and by that point his past was a shadow that he wanted to, and the instructors encouraged him to, forget.
Looking at her now, at her as a woman, all his old thoughts flooded back. He could even smell the incense that the camp used to burn constantly, he could smell old Tarnbuckle’s beer that he brewed.
Hosandra was an embodiment of everything he’d worked to forget. A beautiful reminder, but a reminder nonetheless.
“You want to talk, but you’re not sure you want to ask the questions, aren’t you?” said Hosandra.
“Clerics can read minds now?”
“I feel the same. So many times I think back to those days. Once I even crossed the city and went to the carriage station; I knew you were at the academy, and I thought they’d let me see you.”
“There were times I could have used a friend,” said Jakub.
“This stream flows both ways. We each wanted to leave it all behind. Watch your head now; the ceiling is low down here.”
It was a cellar by name, nothing like it by nature. It was so illuminated by torches and mana bulbs that Jakub felt dazzled. He smelled fruit, honey, spices, and the walls were painted in beautiful murals.
Witas had worked here once, down in this place. It couldn’t have been any different from where he’d spent his last few years; in the cellar of the guardship headquarters, looking at dead bodies.
As clerics, Witas and Hosandra had the same gifts, but this was a testament to how different your life could be depending on how you used them.
“What now?” he said.
“Now you leave me, and I’ll call on the divine. Don’t expect miracles though.”
“Isn’t that exactly what this is? Calling on the deities for a miracle?”
“The divine; not the deities. There’s a difference, though non-clerics barely ever hear about it. There’s no miracle, Jakub. If you stood in this room, you could call on them until your tongue swelled and they wouldn’t answer. It takes mana and practice. Clericism is just as much a learned skill as whatever you studied at the academy.”
“I’ll wait up top, then. Just, whatever you can do, I’d be grateful.”
“You’re close to this man?”
“Not close, but he’s a friend.”
Hosandra touched Jakub’s hand. “I’ll do my best.”
Jakub walked to the steps and went up them. He almost wanted to turn around and get another look at Hosandra, and not just because of how pretty she’d grown up to be.
He’d always known that the other kids were out there. That after the academy raided the Imbibist camp, they’d liberated the kids from their parents, from that life, and then sent them across the Queendom.
He’d just never expected to meet one of them again. He’d never expected to want to; he’d always been happy to put all of that behind him.
But here was Hosandra, a cleric, hot as hell…
…and he was a drop out, sick with blight, aching all over, and just one slip of his Bracelet of Rest away from collapsing. To top it off, he’d chosen the most distasteful of mage disciplines – the art of raising the dead.
He needed to forget about her and think about what he was going to do next.
He started walking up the stairs and toward the church atrium.
When he was halfway, he heard a noise from above.
It was the sound of something crashing, maybe even of wood splitting.
He drew his sword and sprinted up the steps until he reached the door, and then he was in the church itself.
The church door was a mess of splinters on the church floor.
Standing amidst the wreckage was a man; short, full of muscle and completely drenched in blood.
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The man was in a rage. It wasn’t just the blood that gave Jakub this impression, although a drenching of the crimson stuff was a giveaway.
It was the spit that formed over his lips when he breathed, and it was his breaths themselves – shallow and making his chest shake.
He held a morning star in his left hand; a stick of wood with chains attached, and on the end of the chains were iron balls with barbed hooks on them.
In his right hand he held a knobkerrie. Jakub recognised this from a demonstration that quartermaster Tomkins had given their class once, where he’d shown off his collection of exotic weaponry. The knobkerrie was a club which was rounded and weighted at the end, designed for the sole purpose of bludgeoning through a skull.
The man gripped his morning star and knobkerrie like he was trying to bend the metal itself. If the weapons weren’t enough, there was so much fury in his eyes that Jakub felt like his robes were a fire risk when the man stared at him.
“Where’s the cleric?” he said.
His voice was unusually high, and completely out of fitting from how terrifying he looked.
Wood scraped on the floor as Henwright stood up from one of the church pews. Priest Mossaraya approached from the end of the church, near the altar.
“Studs?” said Henwright.
The instructor and the blood-covered man locked eyes, and Jakub was surprised to see just as much anger in Henwright’s.
“Found the Gods, Henwright? A man like you needs them.”
“You two know each other?” said Jakub.
“This is Studs Godwin. For my sins, I know him.”
“Where’s the cleric?” asked Studs.
Mossaraya crossed his arms. “I do not know what’s happened to you, good man, but Hosandra is occupied, and today is not a healing day. You will have to come back on-”
Studs took two steps and then lashed his morning star at the priest. The metal balls collided with his cheek and the barbs dug into skin, and when Studs pulled the weapon back, it tore off a chunk of flesh.
Mossaraya screamed and fell to his knees, holding his hand to his face as blood rushed over his fingers.
Henwright backed away, further down the wooden pew.
Jakub eyed the exit. It was behind Studs, and with a little luck he felt like he could avoid getting his face torn off as he made toward it.
That’d leave Hosandra and Witas here with Studs. She was a cleric, not a fighter, and Witas wasn’t going to be any help.
This man, though. Jakub knew his limitations, and he knew he couldn’t take him.
Mossaraya sobbed now. He backed away so he was sitting against the pew, staring at Studs out of his uncovered eye. His hand was stained red, and the trickles had reached his wrist and then disappeared under his cassock.
“Gods,” he whimpered. “This is a church.”
Studs pointed his morning star at Jakub. “You,” he said. “Who are you?”
Henwright joined studs now, standing beside him. “He’s the necromancer I sent to you. The one you evidently couldn’t collect.”
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The bastard of an instructor had cast his lot with the blood-covered, high-voiced berserker, and the two of them stared at Jakub now.
Part of him couldn’t blame Henwright; part of him would have been tempted to do the same. He guessed there was a survival instinct in everyone that would make them act in an appal
ling way in the right circumstances.
He knew there was a version of himself that would have been just as reprehensible, the version that would do or say anything to protect himself. Maybe everyone had that part of themselves.
The difference was that he’d have fought through it, beaten it down, and figured out a way to stop this.
Studs was becoming angrier now, his cheeks flushing red, his grip on his weapons so tight his knuckles were pure white.
“You killed her,” he said, pointing his Morningstar along with the accusation. “You and the cleric bastard.”
Her?
It took Jakub a few second to wonder who he was talking about.
“You mean the woman in the Rats’ Palace? The necromancer?”
“Her name is Ella-Faye.”
Mossaraya was crawling away now, holding his hand against his face as though it would fuse his torn skin back together, leaving a trail of blood over the church floor.
Jakub noticed that Henwright had backed away from Studs. Henwright knew him but he was scared of him, and Jakub felt the same.
It was one thing looking at death after the fact, at studying corpses on a gurney or in the academy. It was another thing entirely to face death head-on; death had two sides – the before and the after. The after was calm, it was the afterlives, the journey of the soul.
The before terrified him, and even more so the idea that he’d face it at the hands of this lunatic.
“Now listen,” said Jakub, holding his hands up in a defensive gesture.
“Don’t tell me to fucking listen.”
“Okay. But we went into the Rats’ Palace to find a shop. We followed the red dragons, and she was waiting for us. She attacked us.”
Studs waved his Morningstar at him. “I know she fucking did! We set it up! I should have stayed with her.”
He was on the edge of explosion. All it had taken was one word from Mossaraya and the priest had taken a morning star to the face. It was only their distance away from each other that kept Studs from trying it on Jakub.
What would he use on him? The morning star and its skin-ripping barbs, or would he beat him to mulch with his knobkerrie?
Either one made him want to back away as far as he could. Shamefully, it made him want to leave the church, leave Witas and Hosandra.
“The things I’ll do to you,” said Studs. “I’ll save some of my special routines for you. The real nasty shit that they never let me use in the inquisitors, things that Hackett didn’t even let me use.”
“She was special to you. I get it, you’re angry. Did you expect us not to defend ourselves?”
“I should have stayed with her. But you’ll answer for it now.”
Jakub realized then that Studs had sought him out for revenge, but his anger was really about himself. He seemed to be furious that he’d left Ella alone to face Jakub and Witas.
Well, she was a master necromancer. She should have been able to take them in theory, but even masters weren’t invincible.
That was it; that was why Studs was so enraged.
“It’s not your fault,” said Jakub, unable to believe he was trying to comfort a man who had set up his own ambush. “There were two of us, it wasn’t a fair fight. You’re not to blame.”
Just calm down, he thought. Lose a little of your steam.
“What’s this all about?” he continued. “You’re taking glyphlines, I know that much. But why?”
“Simple,” said Studs. “The academy controls half the mana, essence, whatever the hell you want to call it, in the Queendom. They give it only to their students; to the ones whose minds they have shaped from a young age, to the ones they’ve indoctrinated so they will use their magic in the way the academy, and the Queen, wants.”
“And what’s wrong with that?”
“If a child has the potential to use magic, but is more of a free-thinker than the academy would like, he is either not accepted to the academy, or expelled. Then, his gift withers.”
“It isn’t about free-thinking,” said Jakub. “It’s about weighing the dangers. That why they do their tests – if they think a kid could turn out dangerous, they don’t give him potentially destructive magic training.”
“And who decides that? Who in your academy can possibly know how a child might turn out?” said Studs.
“Well, they have plenty to draw on, don’t they? Mage Terren who went crazy and burned down half of Dispolis sixty years ago. There are others, too.”
“It’s bullshit. The academy will only train those they can control, and that is on the orders of the Queendom. Trust me; I know all about that.”
“So, what, you think killing a bunch of students makes this right? That having less magic in the world is going to even things out?”
Studs smiled. “Less? There won’t be less; we are just tipping the scales a little better. Men and women of our choosing, and not the academy’s. Those who were rejected from the academy for pathetic reasons, who we will give a chance to use their magic again with the glyphlines we give them.”
“You can’t just give them the glyphlines. That’ll never work.”
“Oh, but it will.”
“And then what? You’re going to take on the whole Queendom?”
“Don’t be so stupid,” said Studs. “We don’t care about that. Bendeldrick wants the glyphline apparatus your academy guards so carefully. He couldn’t care less about the Queen. Once Hackett takes the glyphlines to him, your academy won’t be able to do a thing.”
“You’re deluded.”
Studs gripped his morning star harder. The chains rattled when he pointed it. “Perhaps, but I don’t mind if I am. I’m here for Ella, now. For what you did. One death pays for another.”
There was no reasoning with him, but maybe he could reason with someone else.
“Henwright?” Jakub said. “You’re a master too. You can do something.”
Henwright wouldn’t take his eyes off the short man. “Studs knows which side I stand on.”
“You should stand with the academy.”
“When a man has a morning star and a club, you stand with him.”
Jakub ran through his inventory in his mind; there was nothing. Nothing that would help except his sword, and he wasn’t stupid enough to think he was a match for Studs.
What about spells?
Summoning Ludwig wouldn’t help, and there weren’t any creatures to resurrect.
Maybe there was something, though.
He focussed on the floor under Stud’s feet and he spoke the spellword of Summon Bound, hoping to conjure a portal to the Greylands right underneath Studs.
As he did, Henwright spoke a spellword of his own.
Where the portal had started to appear, a black tar now dribbled over, covering it. Studs stepped out of it, and when he lifted his boot a long trail of black gloop stretched with it.
Jakub had no idea what spell Henwright had used, but it had stopped him opening his portal.
“Thanks,” said Studs. “Is there anything else I should worry about before I tear this lad apart?”
“He’s a novice; he barely knows anything.”
“I’m a journeyman, actually,” said Jakub.
“You’re sure he can’t hurt me?” asked Studs.
Henwright shook his head. “A necromancer’s spells are rarely offensive in their nature.”
“That’s good to know.”
Studs ran forward then, charging at Henwright and swinging his arm.
The ball of his morning star flew in an arc and cracked through Henwright’s skull.
The instructor didn’t even cry out; he went limp and fell to the floor, his eyes wide open and white.
With Mossaraya having crawled to the other side of the church and passed out, Henwright presumably dead, and Witas and Hosandra in the crypt, Jakub found himself alone with Studs.
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He could run by Studs, get to the church doors, and just sprint away. Hells, even the guardship
headquarters would be a safer place.
And then he could spend the next fifty years of his life avoiding mirrors, unable to look himself in the eyes.
Studs, standing beside Henwright’s body, flicked his morning star out at Jakub.
Jakub flinched, moved himself back and well out of reach. It had been a testing shot, maybe even just an act of rage, but seeing it coming at him and having watched what it did to Mossaraya and Henwright, Jakub wanted to be well away.
As he reached for his own sword, his hand was shaking.
Pathetic, he told himself.
And then, a voice spoke in his head.
Fear is just a truth, said Mancerno. It isn’t pathetic to feel fear; only if you let it stop you. I am with you, shade brother. You won’t die at the hands of this man.
The voice was strangely comforting. Jakub couldn’t believe it, but he was happy to have Mancerno with him.
Studs stepped forward and heaved his morning star at Jakub. The chains rattled and straightened to full length, but Jakub stepped backward more confidently this time, letting them fall in an arc a good two feet away.
Getting himself together a little, something occurred to him.
Death Puppet. It was a spell he’d earned that let him transfer his consciousness into a dead body and move within it.
He could cast himself into Henwright, who was on the floor behind studs.
But in the process, Studs would still destroy Jakub’s body when he wasn’t in it.
Damn it, he thought.
Keep calm, brother.
Brother. Mancerno kept saying the word, but Jakub had never had a brother.
Was this his family now? A dead-raising, dark version of one? Would his shade serve to fill the hole that he’d had for years, one that Kortho had helped with?
He’d process it later.
All that mattered was that he felt invigorated, he felt like he wasn’t alone.
He wasn’t going to leave Witas or Hosandra, but he wasn’t going to die without making this bastard hurt.
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Holding his sword, he stepped forward toward Studs, goading him into taking a swing. When the morning star cut an arc toward him, he moved out of reach and then charged at Studs.
