The Morality of A Necromancer Page 7

  Alana brightened. “I’ve heard of that. How much?”

  He counted out the slices and weighed out each ingredient. “Fifty-eight Sovereigns and three chips.”

  Alana gave him the amount requested. “I also need some information about a ruby.”

  “Don’t know much about jewels.”

  “You might know something about this one. It was created for the Empress of Daouail by a necromancer.”

  Edar glanced away. He obviously knew something. She kept going: “The Empress is dead, and it has been stolen. Her granddaughter who succeeded her wants it returned.”

  “Why would you think I know anything about it?”

  “It’s quite strange, but in my travels, I learned though the seven realms are vast, small connections often intertwine over and over again. You and the creator of the gem are both necromancers.”

  Edar nodded, still not meeting her eye, and wandered towards the stove.

  “When you bought a slave, you bought an elfkin for his blood. What would you like for information?”

  “I’ll give that freely for your continued presence,” Edar said.

  “What?”

  “Stay ‘til morning.”

  She took a step back, surprised by the request.

  “Don’t be afraid. I don’t want anything unseemly or base. When I’m flush with blood, I miss companionship. Hold my hand if you can bear the cold, but I won’t even touch you if you don’t permit it.”

  “Aren’t you afraid I have a parasite?”

  “Lady, one benefit of being undead is parasites which desire your warm blood do not like the taste of mine.”

  Alana touched the cold hand of the undead. Other than a longing for blood due to the constant fear of death, Edar wasn’t a bad man compared to others she had known.

  “Should I put on the kettle?” he asked.

  “Please.”

  “And can I get anything for your bird?”

  “Just information so I might send her to Roark, who waits for my word.”

  Waiting for the kettle to whistle, Edar opened his window and picked a bunch of chamomile from the sill. “The ruby is not a ruby. It’s deep red like a ruby, but it’s a piece of quartz, cut and polished to look like a fine gem and filled with blood.”

  “A remedy?”

  “No, just the bearer’s blood. The Empress sacrifices a few drops of blood to the jewel each night, and the jewel kept her alive and gave her the wisdom to think through any problem for her people. Oddly, it might have even kept that rake of a consort alive since she was too wise to be perturbed by his actions.”

  “You know of him?”

  “Only through Madam Grunkit’s words. She said, though your boys looked as if they had murder in their eyes, you were fair-minded and understanding to their plight.”

  “If I have to rescue another slave boy from them, I might not be.”

  “They seemed aware of that as am I.” The kettle whistled, and Edar poured boiling water over the chamomile. After holding the cold dead hand, the warmth of the tea was welcome.

  Alana didn’t reply until Edar filled the silence. “I miss my mother. Thysta was a great remedy woman, so wise in our ways, but she refused to walk as a lich. Like you, dear lady, she has had many apprentices, but they all eventually scatter and follow the winds.”

  “Did she carve the stone or did Daena?”

  “Together. My mother cast the spell for wisdom. Daena came to us as a lovestruck page assigned to the Mayor’s House. She needed wisdom in the worse way.”

  “Daena was a page?”

  “If the elfkin trusted you enough with one of their young, you were trustworthy. And for a silk merchant, trust is invaluable. It is said that the trust of the elfkin built Port Dentwort. Did you ever live with a human family?”

  Now she had some idea that Edar walked this Realm for at least eighty years, perhaps even longer. Sending the younger siblings to Human lands fell out of fashion before her generation. She said, “My House is too far north to participate in such honors. I was taught by my beloved Uncle Caden. He bade me join the Guild and hoped we’d work together for many years in Intelligence. However, I wished to wander like the Martlet’s of olde and became a War Ender. Also, I was in love with a young man who also ended wars.”

  “Did it last?”

  Alana knew by giving of herself, Edar would open up, but she also knew he would not judge her. She was a War Ender; he was a Necromancer. They both dealt in death. “Our love lasted less than a year into my journey, but he is so dashing, handsome and intelligent, we met often, and he sired my daughter.”

  “You still find him dashing?”

  She laughed. “Well, I suppose, we’re both a bit long in the tooth to be considered dashing, but he’s brilliant. At times, infuriatingly so.”

  “Grandchildren?”

  “No, my daughter fell in battle.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. Do you believe she has been resurrected back to the nobility as the priests tell us?”

  Alana shook her head. She believed in nothing, but her foresight. And foresight had failed her in regard to Saray. Witnessing the priest lay oils upon her daughter’s corpse had crushed her in ways she hadn’t imagined was possible. “Saray was a great protector of children, so I’d like to think so. However, during my mourning, I wandered into the family crypt many nights, opened her coffin and watched as her corpse bloat and fall into putrescence as with every other iron-blooded creature in the Realms.”

  “Why?”

  “I wanted to be with her in death since I failed her in life. If I had only gone back to Eyredeir instead of remaining on the job, Saray might have lived. The Guild would have charged me with negligence for leaving in the middle of the war, but the worst they could have ever done is crucify me. I’d have accepted that fate gladly if she had lived -- and I believe her father feels the same.”

  “Most parents would. I’m sorry I upset you.” Edar hurried to his cupboard. He found a handkerchief and refilled their cups.

  “You did not. Teaching helps fill the hole in my heart, but I still dream of her at times. Do you have children?”

  Edar shook his head. “My wife died in childbirth: twins. My son died with her. My daughter lived only for nine days. The marriage was arranged, but I enjoyed my wife’s company and mourned her. Daena was before my wife, but we were friends.”

  “I suppose, Mayor Kleidmacher — who wouldn’t have been the mayor yet — was dashing.”

  “Hence his father, the former Mayor Kleidmacher, sent her to live with us. If there was a dignitary in town, she went back to the Mayor’s house, then sent back here.

  “When young, I believe their love was true.

  “At first, David visited often. As mayor’s sons often do, David had responsibilities to his family to marry well, to produce a human son, to continue his family’s legacy. He visited less and less until his engagement was announced. I tried to be a friend, even a lover when she ached for that, but her heart grew cold in her sorrow. Eventually, she traveled back to live as a companion to her cousin.” Edar blinked the tears from his eyes and Alana squeezed his cold hand.

  Alana knew he’d tell her more, but he’d hate himself if he felt he betrayed Daena. Better for Alana to keep the ally -- and better for Edar to not face eternity with regret. She spared him.

  “When did you decide to live forever?”

  His eyes lifted again. “As my mother grew old, I grew more interested. I heard of the Lich ‘spell’ and decided to see if it worked. It did. Why do you ask; want to live forever?”

  “Death shall find me. However, I’ve apprentices to train and slaves to rescue. Too much to do.”

  She scrawled all of her notes on the back of the parchment Roark sent, then stuffed it into the Gull’s scroll carrier.

  “Be well, my friend,” she said to the gull and carried it to the window. Its long white wings flapped as it took flight and flew off into the night.

  “I never understoo
d your people.”

  “Do you know the story of how the Martlets came to be?”

  “Only after the Schism, the elfkin nobility followed a strict line of succession based on birth order. To keep the younger siblings out of the way, your people send them on quests or to the Guild.”

  “That’s true. There’s a story if you’d like to hear it.”

  “How much is true?”

  Probably none of it….” She recited, “Our people’s history is measured in multiple epochs, and we know there have been more than one Schism. Before the first, it is said, time moved slower in the Realm of the Fair.

  “The Sun wanted children. She walked our land and took elfin men. The land became scorched, and these men died of course, because what man could bear the heat of the sun? Hearing our people cry, Lancia, the wisest of the thirteen Goddesses, formed a scythe from the strongest metal and stone. She cut the Sun, carving out the little suns which orbit her.

  “Though the sun had lost part of herself, she had gained something too. She went back to the heavens, and our Realm grew green and prosperous.

  “In this first epoch, thirteen Great Houses were created for the thirteen Goddesses along with a high house built upon our tallest mountain which was the home of the Sun and her children.

  “In the second epoch, the Goddesses and the Sun lived in their great Houses which my people built, but the people grew weary. Siblings created war upon one another for thrones throwing our Realm into chaos. One by one, the thirteen houses fell until there was only one left. Yet even that wasn’t enough. In the last generation before the first Schism, five siblings each vyed for the throne. Their people suffered.

  Two died in battle, and their last monarch of the Fair cursed the three remaining. But war is always shifting and either the last monarch, or one of these three burned the land until our Realm shattered into three: Fairdhel, Fatedhel, and Daouail.

  “The other three could see each other and their armies, but we could no longer touch. No longer fight.

  “Worse, the last monarch of the Fair and realized they tore open the veil to Dynion and Larcia. She did not know when your people would come, only you would be coming. As she was in Daouail, she found her last surviving child and began the change there.

  “Unfortunately, the child tried to rebel, he or she was struck from history, and the monarch searched for a gentle soul to rule. But that is another story n…

  “After finding this gentle soul, she redistributed wealth throughout Daouail’s original thirteen provinces and told her thirteen wisest advisers to rebuild.

  “Her own house was built on the tallest mountain. She and the girl who would become the first Empress created a line of succession: The first rules the great house, the second rules the priesthood, the third wanders for the good of our people, the fourth strengthens the house through marriage or alliance. Any child after the fourth go to our allies’ homes and study their ways so we may strengthen our culture.”

  “Like Daena,” Edar said.

  “Yes. Though those first generations were just in Daouail. Until the Larcian Dwarves and Gnomes developed InterRealm Ships, the walls between our people were insurmountable.”

  “Obviously.”

  “When the Daouail found the Fairsingers on scorched and broken land, intermarriage was crucial.

  “The Larcian’s were explorers, looking for adventure and gold, but they are also an ancient species as old as stone and have the wisdom of the mountains. More wisdom than we did anyway. They spoke of the need for peace which brings pleasure and wealth. They sought our riches, including the elfkin, who were gifted with foresight amongst the nobility. Daouail feared we too would become a commodity in a generation; the line of succession came to our shores.”

  Edar nodded. “In our version of the tale, our people caused the holes in the veil. We could see the Larcians but couldn’t touch them most of the time. They and we created the Guild, and when the elfkin came, they were assimilated into our ways.”

  Alana laughed. “And in our stories, we assimilated you and the Guild to our ways.”

  Edar sighed. “All the old traditions are falling out of favor. Peaceful trade, my arse. Famine moved across Dynion and slavery followed. Our laws once only allowed for criminals to be enslaved, but within a generation, slavery became an industry here. And no elfkin pages in the mayor’s house or any of our people’s houses.”

  Alana nodded. “In the elfkin Realms, many thirdborns claim Martlet and vow service but don’t serve anyone. There is no real requirement anymore. They stay home -- fearful they might be attacked at any moment.”

  “By who?”

  “I don’t know. Last year I stopped a war between the Telchine and Dwarves. I feel something’s changing, but that may be the ramblings of a frightened old woman.”

  “Do you believe this change is because the traditions are dying or because the Guild has tightened its grip on technology, slowing us further?”

  “I don’t know, but I must fight the symptoms until I find the answer and destroy the cause with my dying breath if I can.”

  “You speak as if you are doomed.”

  “I don’t know how I’ll die or when, but I’ve seen the future beyond my death. If my last service can be to the good of my House or the betterment of the Realms, I’d die happy.”

  Edar raised his cup. “I was glad to know you and taste your blood while you walked in this form. As I plan to walk for centuries and see the fate of my people and yours, may I recognize your valiant spirit in your next life, Alana of House Eyreid. And may your idiotic glorious noble death be quick, since it is unlikely to be painless.”

  They gently clinked their teacups together. “I’m glad I know you, Edar Candlewick.” She leaned towards him and took his hand again. The teacup had warmed his hand enough that it was not deathly cold, just cooler than she.

  *

  Chapter 9

  Morcon Arena in the Realm of Daouail

  Eohan followed the others into the village of make-shift daub and stick buildings which surrounded the large stone arena. The beating of drums and eager, bloodthirsty shouts echoed through the night and in the circle of the arena a row of torches lined the arena. Though a cool breeze moved through the city, Eohan felt too hot. This might’ve been my fate. It might have been my brother’s.

  Trying to calm himself, he rubbed Cloudy’s neck. They rode to a ditch filled with small corpses. Even in the darkness, Eohan could see the dirt stained with the color of iron.

  Seweryn picked his way through the ditch. As expected, Eohan followed him.

  Eohan stopped short as he saw in the grass nearby, a babe lay exposed. Her eyes open wide. Her ribs pressed through her discolored flesh; her neck was so thin each notch of her vertebrae was visible. Her tiny arms and legs twisted towards her distended stomach. Only the tri-pointed ears showed she was a Fairsinge.

  “Eohan.”

  He didn’t move. He was frozen.

  Kajsa put her ear to the child’s bare chest and listened. She closed the child’s eyes. “We’re too late. I’m sorry.”

  “What happened to her?”

  “The child’s mother is probably in the arena somewhere. A servant, a fighter, concubine -- we can’t know.”

  This is what Alana saved me from, Eohan thought. I’ll never doubt her again, no matter what the Guild says.

  “This should do.”

  “Good. We need to get the boys out of here,” Kajsa said.

  The word “boys” rang out in Eohan’s ears. I’m nineteen summers and acting in the manner of a boy!

  Seweryn grunted in the darkness as he and Doriel lifted a corpse of a light-skinned Daosithian boy approximately Kian’s age.

  Unable to hide the tremble in his arms, Eohan took the legs from Doriel. The kid was so thin, it looked as if he hadn’t eaten for weeks before he died. He set the body on an oiled tarp. Doriel cut off the ears of another Fairsinge and slipped them into the tarp which Seweryn tied to the saddle of his
horse.

  *

  “But, my lord, he doesn’t look like me?” Kian said, peering at the corpse of the Daosithian boy which would be his replacement.

  Seweryn’s face flushed and his eyes flickered upwards.

  “No, but he will. Seweryn’s an artist,” Kajsa said as she pulled out a deck of card from her pack. “Don’t pester him.”

  Kian shoved down a whimper when Seweryn grasped his hair. “Not enough length in the roots,” he said.

  “How much do you need?” Kajsa asked. The cards clattered against each other.

  “Only an inch from you and maybe an inch from Roark to add a bit of red.”

  Kajsa clipped an inch off her braided beard.

  Roark frowned but allowed Doriel to clip off a few inch-long locks from the base of his neck.

  With a small sharp blade, Seweryn sliced into the corpse’s face and flayed the skin from the nose.

  In the corner, Eohan rubbed his neck as he tried to focus on the card game with Roark, Kajsa, and Doriel, but Kian couldn’t turn away.

  Seweryn shaved a bit of cartilage off the point and used it to widen the frontal bone. With a bit of glue, he recovered the nose with flesh.

  Seweryn shaved the eyebrows of the corpse and carefully replaced them with Kajsa’s blond hair, in the edges he wove in a bit of Roark’s auburn hair. He carefully shaped the brows to mimic Kian’s. He wet the lashes with lemon juice. “Before you complain, I know the color won’t be perfect, but how often do people study the lashes.”

  The corpse’s head fell back as Seweryn lifted him and adjusted a basin.

  He opened a jar of sour milk and mixed it with a thick oil then ran it through the dead boy’s hair. The curls straightened. As he had with the brows, Seweryn wove in some auburn highlights into the boy’s hair.

  Kian shivered. He fought the compulsion to run his hands over the dead boy’s face. “My lord, the resemblance is uncanny. Han, you got to look at this. Come look.”