Dirge for a Necromancer (30 page)

As Raettonus watched, a ghostly shimmer appeared beneath the body on the ground. It coalesced and took on the shape of Diahsis. The ghost paced around the body and touched it with his ethereal hands as if trying to make sense of it. Raettonus approached the ghost and the body, and the soft sound of his boots in the dirt attracted its attention.

“Magician, thank the gods you’re here!” said Diahsis’ ghost. “I seem to be stuck outside my body.”

“You’re a ghost.”

Diahsis looked dismayed. “That doesn’t sound good,” he said. “Shouldn’t I be in Hell? Is this because I fought against the abassy? Am I banned from Hell now?”

Raettonus shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “It’s a possibility.”

Diahsis wrapped his spectral arms around one still leg of his body, looking distressed. “Does that mean I’m stuck here forever?” he wondered. He spun around toward Raettonus. “You’re a necromancer, aren’t you? You can put me back in my body!”

“Well, I could—kind of,” said Raettonus. “But it wouldn’t be at all the same as being alive. I don’t think you’d like it.”

“Let me decide what I will and won’t like,” said Diahsis, wagging a finger at Raettonus. “Just cut me down from there, and put me back in.”

Raettonus looked up at Diahsis’ body, which was still swaying slowly. “As you wish,” he said indifferently. He called to the nearest centaur who looked to be reasonably high-ranking that he was taking the body for research. The centaur nodded for him to go ahead, and Raettonus climbed onto the gallows. He pulled a knife from his boot and wrapped one arm around Diahsis’ chest, under his arms. As he cut the rope and the full weight of the body pulled on him, Raettonus grunted. He managed to keep hold of the body just fine and, readjusting it so the corpse was slung over his shoulder, he climbed down and started away.

“Wait, don’t leave me!” said Diahsis. “Where are you going?”

“To find somewhere private to do this,” Raettonus said. “Come on.”

Diahsis faltered. “I don’t know that I can,” he said. “It’s so dark and murky out there…”

Raettonus sighed and circled back around. He took one of Diahsis’ transparent hands in his own and led him away from the courtyard. Anchored to the material plane by the necromancer’s touch, Diahsis walked without fear or pause.

They went to the same disused kitchen where Raettonus had dissected Deggho, what seemed now like ages ago. Raettonus washed Diahsis’ body and laid it on a table atop the wolfskin cape while the ghost stood uncertainly behind him. Raettonus ran his hand down the body from chest to navel, light gathering around his fingers as he did. “What are you doing?” asked Diahsis.

“I’m casting a spell of light protection on your tissues,” Raettonus said, closing his eyes. “So they won’t rot while you’re walking around in them.”

“Oh,” said Diahsis. “That’s good. Keep doing that.”

A glowing trail began to appear on the cooling flesh where Raettonus ran his fingers. The line he traced in light grew thicker and thicker with each pass. After a time, the light began to spread outwards on its own, and Raettonus turned his attention to the face. With the noose removed, the blood had already fled back out of Diahsis’ cheeks, leaving him looking just as he had in life. Raettonus pressed one palm over the general’s eyes and muttered a short incantation. When he withdrew his hand, the flesh was glowing. As Raettonus continued his work, all of Diahsis’ body slowly but surely became illuminated, even down into the wolf-pelt cape.

Light flared up on Raettonus’ fingertips, and he began to press them against Diahsis’ cooling body, massaging the magic deep into the dead flesh.

Diahsis’ ghost let out a small chuckle as he watched Raettonus work. “Would that you’d have done that while I was still alive,” he said. Raettonus looked at him with a cocked eyebrow. “Ah—sorry. That’s…inappropriate, isn’t it?”

“Kind of, yes,” Raettonus answered.

“Sorry,” said Diahsis as Raettonus rubbed the light into the lower abdomen of his corpse. “I—it’s just been a very long time since I’ve been with a man, and I couldn’t help but think it…”

“Well, looks like you should’ve made that your last request then.”

“I did,” Diahsis said sourly, pursing his lips. “But they told me that lowly elves don’t get last requests.” He sighed and leaned his ethereal form against the sink. “All I wanted was a short tryst with a pretty man with a nice smile. Who denies a dying man something like that?”

Raettonus shrugged and lifted his hands from the corpse. “There, that’s done. Come here,” he said. “I need you to lie on top of the body.”

Diahsis’ ghost walked soundlessly to the table and lay on top of his lifeless body awkwardly. “How does this work?” he asked.

“I’m going to need you to keep very still,” Raettonus said, making certain everything was aligned. “This is going to hurt a lot, and even if everything goes well, you won’t ever have perfect control over your body the way you did when you were alive. But if you move at all—even a tiny bit—you’re going to have terrible control over your body.”

He placed his hand over Diahsis’ chest. A black aura began to gather around Raettonus’ fingertips as he pressed down hard and quick. The ghost cried out in pain as his soul rejoined his heart. To his credit, however, he didn’t squirm or flinch. Raettonus pressed down again on the bend of each of his elbows, and then again on his knees. Slowly the ghost faded away as Raettonus tied him back to his body. He pressed down on his ankles and hands and forehead. Diahsis screamed and howled, and as Raettonus got more and more of his ghost entwined with his body, the body began to work its mouth as if it were screaming as well. He pressed down on each of his fingers and on his shoulders and on his hips. Last of all, Raettonus pressed down on his lips and tongue and throat, and Diahsis’ screams burst forth and filled the room.

For a few minutes, Diahsis writhed and screamed and clutched at his throat. Little by little, however, the pain seemed to recede, and he calmed. For a moment, he lay on the table before he tried to sit up. There was no grace left in his movements, and his expression was blank. The only regions of his face that could still emote were the corners of his mouth and his eyebrows—and that was just barely.

All the same, he smiled slightly and said in slow, halting words, “Thank you, Magician.”

“You’re going to be like that forever,” Raettonus told him. “You won’t be able to hold that dagger of yours very well or fight properly with your sword or play your flute at all.”

“I can still listen to music though,” he said, standing. Raettonus helped him to his feet. “Maybe I can still manage with a two-handed sword, eh? It’s a brute’s weapon, so I don’t really need the dancer’s elegance I needed with my gladius and dagger.”

“So what are you planning to do now?” Raettonus asked as Diahsis took a few testing steps away from him.

The corners of Diahsis’ mouth twitched in as broad a smile as he could manage and he lifted his eyebrows just barely. “Why, I’m planning to get dressed,” he said. “After that… Ah, who cares?”

Raettonus brought him his armor and helped him dress. Some centaur had stomped on the breastplate and cracked the enamel, which caused Diahsis a bit of distress. He was over it quickly enough however, and Raettonus helped him to leave the citadel unnoticed. With a clumsy wave, Diahsis left the magician, walking unevenly away into the mountains.

* * *

The last of Raettonus’ belongings had been moved back to Ti Tunfa. He thought only of how glad he would be to leave Kaeba behind as he passed through the hallways bustling with soldiers. He paused outside a closed door and knocked gently. After a short silence, the door cracked open and Ebha peered out. “Magician,” she said, and stepped back out of the doorway. “We weren’t expecting to see you.”

“Is Maeleht awake?” Raettonus asked.

She nodded and opened the door for him. Raettonus stepped past her into the room. Maeleht was lying on his side in a low, wide bed. “Raettonus,” he said with a weak smile. “I thought you’d left.”

“I was just leaving now, actually,” Raettonus told him, kneeling next to the bed. “I thought I’d see you before I did though. How’re you feeling?”

“Tired, but okay,” said Maeleht He sat up slowly. Ebha objected meekly, but he silenced her with a gesture. “I think I’m getting better.”

“Oh?” Raettonus forced himself to smile; it felt uncomfortably like lying. “That’s good to hear.” He unslung his bag and opened it. “I have something for you and your brother.”

“Really?” asked Maeleht. He leaned forward slightly, and his long, orange hair fell across his eyes. He brushed it back behind a slightly pointed ear. “What is it?”

Raettonus held up a pair of books. “This one’s for Dohrleht,” he said. “A friend of a friend wrote it. It’s about magic, and until he finds a new teacher it should help him become better.” He set it on the bedside table. “This one’s for you. It’s a guide for learning Zykyna.”

Maeleht raised his eyebrows. “Zykyna?” he asked. “Where’d you get something like that?”

“I wrote it,” he said. “It’s not finished, but you’re a smart kid. I’m sure you’ll be able to fill in the gaps I couldn’t.”

The young centaur took the book with wide eyes. “Thank you, Raettonus,” he said in a tiny voice as he ran his fingers over the cover.

“Don’t mention it,” said Raettonus, standing. “It’s the least I can do, leaving so abruptly.”

“Thank you though,” said Maeleht, looking up at him with a smile. “For everything. You…you were a good teacher. I’m glad to have been able to meet you.”

Raettonus cleared his throat and turned away. “Well,” he said, starting for the door. “I need to be going. Take care of yourself, Maeleht.”

Before the centaur could answer, Raettonus was out the door. He met up with Brecan just outside the grand double doors of the citadel’s front entrance and mounted up. “You sure you have everything?” asked Brecan.

“Yes, I’m sure,” Raettonus snapped. “What are you, my mother? Just fly.”

“Right,” said Brecan. With a running leap off the mountainside, he took to the air. Raettonus watched the fortress recede as they spiraled upwards. The ocean grew larger and larger, and the coastline longer. And then the citadel was no more than a tiny speck.

Raettonus entwined his fingers in Brecan’s mane and leaned against his neck. The smell of horseflesh suddenly brought him back into a memory—something buried so far back in his mind that it seemed like forever since he’d thought about it.

In his memory, skeletal fingers with strips of rotting flesh still clinging to them trembled up out of the soil all across a muddy field as the rain pounded down on the knight sitting behind him on the saddle. Raettonus trembled as the man urged his horse on down the path toward a bleak, abandoned castle, breathing in the stench of rotting flesh and looking with horror as bodies pulled themselves from the ground. He was no older than four years—a tiny, malnourished wisp of a child with wide, green eyes flecked with brown, and gently pointed ears. He shook and sobbed and would’ve fallen down under the hooves of the horse, but the knight held tight to him and kept him on the saddle as all around them the unmarked graves stirred.

“Shush, child,” the knight said in a quiet voice to Raettonus as his black destrier splashed through a puddle. “They won’t hurt you. No one’s going to hurt you.” But the boy continued to cry and the rain continued to fall and the corpses continued to drag themselves out of the ground.

It seemed like an eternity before they reached the stark, gray castle that loomed above them on a slight rise. Rain pattered against the hard edges of the structure, and the chains on the portcullis rattled terribly as it lifted. The knight urged his destrier gently under the gate, and it lowered behind them. He dismounted in the yard and lifted Raettonus easily from the horse before leading both the boy and the steed to the stable. As the knight turned his attention to unbridling and removing the horse’s saddle, Raettonus watched him with wide-eyed terror from a corner.

“You have nothing to be afraid of here,” said the knight as he worked. “My name’s Sir Slade the Gryphon, of the house Black and Red. What’s your name?”

“R-raettonus the Phoenix, house Red and White,” muttered Raettonus in a quivering voice.

“Raettonus, eh?” said Slade, as he brushed out his horse’s mane. “That’s a strange name. But a handsome name too, I’d say. Tell me, Raettonus—why are you afraid of me?”

The little child squared his slight shoulders. “I’m not,” he answered. “You’re a demon, b-but I’m not afraid.”

Slade looked out of the corner of his eye at Raettonus and gave him an amused smile. He turned and knelt in the straw beside the boy. “Well, that’s good,” he said. “There’s too much fear in this world, Raettonus, and it turns far too easily into hate. I never, ever want you to be afraid of me, okay?”

Raettonus felt he was supposed to answer somehow, so he nodded.

“I want you to know,” Slade went on, as he stood and ran one large hand through Raettonus’ hair, “so long as I’m alive, I’m not going to let anything bad happen to you. We’re going to be happy, you and I.”

On Brecan’s back, Raettonus thought about the way Slade had smiled then. He wondered if it had felt to Slade like a lie.

~ End ~

~ About the Author ~

Ash Stinson was born in the outskirts of a small, rural town in California, called Hilmar, where she spent the first eighteen years of her life. As a child, Ash was a voracious reader, and was encouraged by her parents and grandparents to read anything she could get her hands on. Her especial favorite reading material soon proved to be fantasy books, and she decided when she was ten-years-old that she wanted to write a fantasy novel, too. Ash spent the next ten years learning how to write a story. She now lives one town north of her hometown, in Turlock, California, where she is studying Psychology at CSU Stanislaus.

Find out more about Ash Stinson here:

http://ashstinson.livejournal.com/

http://facebook.com/AshAStinson