Chapter 174

Darkness Within Darkness

Brewer’s Reputation: 98

The coast was strewn with sleeping goblins at predawn. They woke as one and staggered to their feet as though they were undead resurrected. In their sleepy bleary-eyed states they sure seemed that way. They staggered, seemingly confused until they swarmed their sloops they had been building the day prior.

They were some of the last goblins to resurrect one of Gloom-glower’s ships. Like the rest, there was no way it was going to float as well as Barnacle-eyes’ sloop did.

As Barnacle-eyes and her crew sailed off, we waved. Our waving was earnest, and I stood on tiptoe until I could no longer make out the goblins aboard. Soon I wouldn’t be able to make out the ship on the water as it would shrink with distance, bound for Lavenfauvish.

“Just like that, it’s over,” I said.

Abigail and I strolled down the path away from the coast. We shared cold pink apples. Our footsteps padded the trail, the apples crunched at our mouths, and our hands wiped the juice from our lips. Oh, how candy-juicy pink apples were. What a fantastic liquid.

“We’ll be brewing a lot less goblin spit beer from now on,” said Abigail.

“Ogo’s going to be in for a surprise when he returns. I think we should keep up our production until we see what he has to say. He’s been wanting as much as we can brew.”

“No more spit at least.”

“Thank Dellia for Erik,” I said.

Alongside the trail, the fern bobbed as though to cast small spells of wind upon us. Molten orange dawn light shafted between the trees. Bushes broke the light into fragments. When fireflies crossed the bright orange beams, and they blinked just then, the color flashed a purple-brown.

The shadows of trees striped the path black. Where the jewelweed grew, but were months away from flowering, a coolness nipped at my ankles. The birds hushed. A feeling of dread loomed in the back of my mind, and I found myself frowning and scanning the forest. Abigail’s pace slowed the moment mine did.

Horse hooves tapped the forest path. A horse in a walk came up the path into our line of sight. The horse was draped in black cloth, but through splits in the cloth, skeleton legs carried it onward. It bore a gaunt and pale rider. Beneath the hood of its cloak was an eerie sight. The man was gaunt and pale. His skin was canvas white, and his skin looked as if someone had stretched it to his back and stapled it there. The only color on him was the deep purple bags under his eyes. They appeared almost as tattoos.

The horse halted, and the figure and I stared.

Abigail took a subtle pose of defense. “Make one move and you’re…”

“Dead?” the man said. “It’s a tad late for that.”

Who else could this be if not the necromancer? “Hiccup mentioned you were on your way,” I said. “But that was months ago.”

So it was Aosh Vacamob. He gestured to his horse as though he were presenting the bottom of the sea and said, “We are in no hurry.”

“How did you come upon us?” I said.

“I saw the mist. Then I followed the trail markers.”

Abigail and I shared knowing glances. The trail was working.

However, this necromancer that the trail had led to me surely wanted something of me. Would I work with him? Given Hiccup’s non-confrontational experience with Aosh, I decided there was no harm in at least speaking with him. And when else would I have the chance to exchange with such a person.

Could I call him a person? Was a necromancer in fact still human?

“Are you hungry?” I said along our walk back to camp. “Thirsty?”

From his walking horse, Aosh said, “I am nothing that hungers or thirsts.”

“What do you want from me?”

“Can it really be that simple? I tell you what this soul needs, and you help me?”

He asked that just as we arrived at the camp on the coast where all the other adventurers I had helped throughout the weeks paused. They stood as we passed through. They gasped and whispered. Dungeon crawlers bristled. Scholars stepped forward with round eyes.

We passed them by and entered one of the larger tents. Upon logs we made ourselves comfortable.

“I don’t know much about Necromancers apart from their presence not being welcome in cities,” I said.

“Mortals are wise to take caution against Necromancers,” said Aosh. “There are those that take any action to acquire the darker arts. But then there are those that keep human sentiments in mind as they progress along the necromantic path. The living distinguish between the two by calling them either evil or good.”

“So you’re the good guy?”

“I’ve no intention of being either.”

“What do you want from me?”

“I want a phylactery. Do you know what this is?”

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“I don’t.”

“A phylactery is an item wherein the soul resides. There it will remain until the nightream devours the world once more.”

“Did you say nightream?” said Abigail.

“An old fable we tell the apprentices to give them a little scare,” said Aosh. “Now Mr. Ballow, if you grant me an ethereal beer, I will stow my soul there. If my experiment is a success, I shall persist.”

“Hawkin’s fine,” I said. “Sounds like you don’t know what you’re doing, and I certainly don’t want to contribute to anything that would cause harm.”

“The harm was forewarned and will come to pass with or without your help. My first appeal to the necromantic path was for longevity. The appeal withered when I reached gold rank. It was during winter when I first awakened. I had just exited the final fast where food and drink becomes a thing of the past. I will put it simply, but you will still not understand. The path was to become one.”

“One with what? The world? I’ve already gotten an earful about that from a certain sect of scholars.”

“Just one. There is no difference between this body and the world.” Aosh pulled one of his skeletal fingers. The skin dented in where the last knuckle was pulled from the hand. With more pulling force, the skin ripped, and the finger popped off. Not a single drop of blood beaded at the site of the amputation. He presented the finger in the palm of his other hand. “I am not this body,” he continued. “I am not this mind. Things do not exist independently, Hawkin. The form of a tree depends on water, sunlight, and soil. The tree is itself and all of those things that allow it to exist. Without those other things, it cannot be. The tree is simply a form of one.”

“And what does all this have to do with me?”

“If you’ve no appreciation for a tree then consider the crest of a wave.”

“Actually I very much care for—”

“The crest of a wave has a form; it is a crest. But the form means nothing. It is empty, because regardless of the crest, it is water. Water too is a form. The tree you quickly disregarded is also a form. I am a form. And you are a form. But you are not Hawkin. You are everything that has come to be. You are like the crest of a wave. And all around you are other crests. You were born upon the surface just like all the other living things. When your body dies, it is the crest returning to the sea. All crests come from and return to water. That winter, I understood that the path of a necromancer is to persist…neither as a crest, nor as the water…”

“Then as what?”

Aosh let a silence fall between us, and he looked at me. What seemed like a genuine smile came to him. His eyes seemed to be asking me if I understood what was in the silence.

“Yeah,” said Abigail. “You definitely sound like that certain sect of scholars.”

“The sea is itself a crest of something deeper,” said Aosh. “Water is a form of something deeper. The necromancer’s path travels deep. A scholar only sees the tip of a crest before being drowned by the form itself.”

“I don’t get it,” I said. “So after you become…whatever you are, what’s your aim?”

The necromancer’s gaze fell softly. “To achieve true darkness.” His gaze returned to mine. “So that I may become a true god.”

“Sorry, friend. After everything you’ve said, I’d have to agree with Abigail. And I’m still uncertain of your intentions.”

“My word remains as it was given. I’ve no intention of being good or evil. My purpose is to achieve true godhood. But I know not what such a thing will entail. If I can persist, then perhaps I’ll find out. I’ve met necromancers who have become true gods. They are neither kind, nor unkind. They will just as easily feed a man as they would watch him die. Yet they all believe that life is precious. The crest of a wave is precious. Just as water—itself a crest of something deeper—is precious, too. To become a true god is to become darkness. And when a necromancer becomes one, they have achieved darkness within darkness.”

“I think this is all beyond me, honestly.”

“Is it? You dabble in the arts of necromancy. Have you not raised the dead thousands of times? Every necromancer is studying your actions. You must have developed a sense of what I’ve described.”

“I don’t raise the dead. My magic allows loved ones to return as ghosts for a day.”

He bobbed his hand which held the finger like he was testing its weight. “They are not their bodies, Hawkin. You have brought back their minds in the form of a ghost—in the crest of a ghost. Any one of them would say they know things they couldn’t possibly know. And yet they do know these things. You must have heard such stories about the resurrected.”

“By the gods,” said Abigail. “Hiccup. Hiccup said that Ashlee knew things about him since she passed, but that she didn’t know how she knew them.”

“It is because she was one,” said Aosh. “Death brought her there. She knew everything. Her mind could only process what she knew as it related to her in her un-death. The necromancer circumvents that. The necromancer doesn’t perish to become one. The necromancer simply persists as one.”

I massaged my forehead. “All right, this is definitely above my understanding. Hiccup is a friend, so I’ll choose to believe you’re not trying to hurt anyone. I’ll brew an ethereal plane for you. But if I find out you’re lying, you’re in for a real scare. Thrush isn’t the fable you’ve been telling your apprentices.”

“So it’s true! You’ve been visited by the nightream! The one who eats the world. The one who is all. The one who has no form. Together, darkness and nightream complete the world’s dualism.”

Using all ethereal ingredients, and using the Erupting Stream Foam Cascade sub skill, I brewed an ethereal plane beer. Aosh sipped the beer and vanished. He returned within the hour without his finger. He smashed the master beer of the ethereal plane on the ground. Beer foamed in a crackling hush as the liquid seeped into the earth.

I dove to recover some beer with my hands. I took up blades of grass and dirt with what I could scoop. “No! Don’t! I can only replicate master beers by cloning them!”

“The point of a phylactery is to protect the necromancer’s soul,” said Aosh. “Destroying the beer is like throwing away the key.”

“You put your soul on the plane?”

“A worthwhile risk. Had it not worked, I would have been doomed to perish regardless. I stand a chance now.”

“Your soul is eternally trapped on the plane!”

“Forever more.” To Abigail he said, “Perhaps you’ll also have a taste of some longevity. Do I sense correctly? You’re diamond rank?”

“I am,” said Abigail.

“I imagine you’ll have to find another to help you on your path after he perishes.”

“I’m not here to get something from him. I’m here to be with him.”

“Hawkin, you’ve only scratched the surface of the dark arts. Love and longevity are a disastrous mix. Join the path of the necromancer. With the right guidance, it could be a faster path to longevity than breaking into diamond rank.”

“Why?” I said. “So I can be neither kind nor unkind to her? So that I can just as easily save her or watch her die if she becomes ill? What would be the point if I had no emotion for her?”

“Yes,” he said. “Emotion does get in the way, doesn’t it? I can still observe such a phenomenon, though the experience is lost to me. Let me apologize if I have offended you. My intention was to help.”

“Risking your life by stowing away your soul on the plane came so easily for you. Is that why? You had no emotion over losing it?”

“I’ve no life to risk. It was my immortality at stake.”

“Well, I can understand your intention now…I guess.”

“That is all I can ask for. And Hawkin, I won’t be the only necromancer seeking you out. Others have been watching the Brewer’s Guide to Magic Ingredients since you’ve been brewing with human and animal remains. You have no idea how many people are watching your rise.”

Aosh bowed as if he meant to remain bowed for minutes. Then he left the tent, and Abigail and I looked at each other, dumbfounded.

Horse hooves shuffled over grass. The saddle rustled, and the riding stirrups jingled. The familiar walk of the horse began to recede.