19 - STUMBLES

To clear my mind, I went for a walk.

It’d been a long night. Justinia and Gavriel were in the process of dealing with the bodies. Since no more members of the Terarch Guard had arrived, we’d simply assumed—and hoped—that the incident hadn’t been reported. Thankfully, Gavriel’s customers tended to be sympathetic to the idea of cracking Autarchy skulls. I suspected many of them were even Thorns.

And if Justinia and Gavriel had wanted me to help them dispose of the corpses, they hadn’t said anything when I’d slipped out of the bar. They’d been too busy yet again arguing about something.

So, I’d wandered out into the gloom, alone, and with a heavy heart.

The moon was out and half-full, providing its pale radiance. I hardly needed it. The four souls I’d acquired just ten minutes before were burning inside of me like hot coals. Their power permeated every aspect of my being. Most notable in the moment was the fact that my night vision was far better than normal. I could see everything in the alley ahead as though it was not drenched in deep shadows.

I shoved my hands into my coat pockets, kept walking.

The memories of the four dead guards were fresh in my mind. Images. Names. Voices. The ghosts of their past lives haunted me.

To block them out, I began to whistle a low tune beneath my breath. Technically, it was a sea shanty I’d heard when, once, a pirate vessel had anchored just off the coast of our main island. There were, my father had told me, several pirate captains with whom our order had a special agreement, and it was from them that we got most of our supplies. There was one, Captain Sytaran, also known as the Ghost of Deep Water, whose crew consisted of over three dozen skeletons reanimated by us—that was his payment for the supplies he brought us, and it allowed him to build a fearsome reputation indeed. Despite that reputation, Sytaran was one of the friendliest people I’d ever met, and my childhood memories of him were fond—especially those that involved him teaching me shanties and curse words I was too polite to even use.

Up ahead, near the end of the alley, a small, dark shape lay on the floor.

A corpse. I could immediately tell because, at its centre, was a tiny spark, the glowing remnants of a soul. It was an animal, that much was also obvious; animal souls are often much dimmer than those of humans, less colorful and powerful, although my father had once told me that he’d once seen a man and his dog both dead and laying next to each other, and the dog’s soul had burned brighter than the man’s.

This one, I suspected, was a cat.

A dead cat in an alley was nothing special, not even to me, who was not accustomed to the callousness that life in a big city bred. I cannot say why, exactly, I decided to approach, drawn to that tiny flame as though I were a moth. I crouched before the dead cat. I didn’t know much about cats. There’d only been one back home that I knew of, which belonged to my old tutor, Salakan. He had been small and white and no one had quite known how he’d even made it on to the island.

This one was different, his fur black and matted, a chunk missing out of his left ear. There were dark lines carved deep into his flanks. Clearly, he had been in a fight with another cat, perhaps multiple cats, and had emerged from the confrontation in a less than ideal state. Judging by his condition, it hadn’t been his first fight. He had the look of a scrapper, a brawler amongst cats, a veteran of the streets. That appealed to me, just as the splayed angles of its legs called to my heart, summoning sorrow.

“Sorry, friend,” I murmured, and placed a hand upon his side.

The cat’s soul flickered, crackling against my aura. The unexpected response caused me to jolt. Even in death, this cat was lively, possessed of attitude. I found myself smiling, and found that I couldn’t quite bring myself to stand and walk away. Felt wrong, to leave the poor thing to rot in the middle of an alley, to be eaten by rats. Probably he wouldn’t have minded much, but I minded.

His soul leaped once again, brighter than it had been, laden with all the energy the cat had surely possessed in life.

It seemed eager, but maybe I was just seeing things that weren’t there, anthropomorphizing the ghostly remnants of an animal’s fading life essence.

“Alright,” I said, a smile spreading across my face. “You sure about this?”

The soul-essence licked at my aura, causing me to shiver.

It was all the answer I needed.

I placed both hands on the dead cat. I focused on its soul, telling it to be calm, to quieten down.

There is a crucial difference between reanimation and resurrection. Resurrection was what had happened to me on the day I turned eighteen, and was a complicated, flawed, and costly ritual, with enough fine-print to make a man squint for days.

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Reanimation was far more simple. You could call it crude. It involved channeling the remaining soul-essence of the deceased and forcing it back into its original form—or whatever was left of it. Any necromancer will tell you that a reanimated form is not alive, will never be alive, and should not be confused for a thinking, feeling entity.

But magic is not science, and there are gray areas.

With me, there were more gray areas than most. If an ordinary necromancer is poorly understood, a soul-eater, which is rare, hard to create, and, according to many, impossible, is even more so.

I forced that cat’s soul back into its body, into its bones, knitting it into flesh, stuffing every spark of life I could find into that tiny, black form.

The cat’s eyes opened, wide, green, and dazed.

“Welcome back,” I said, “to the realm of the living.”

#

The cat was not alive, nor was it dead.

Necromancers have many words for beings trapped between those two states. The most common, and the easiest, is undead.

My new, undead companion followed me back to the bar, eyes bright, offering a quiet meow every time I stopped to scratch him behind one chewed-up ear.

By the time we arrived at the bar, the corpses were gone, the blood mostly mopped up. Gavriel was on his hand and knees, attempting to sponge up what remained. Justinia, drenched in sweat, reeking of blood and death, was sprawled in a chair, sucking down ale as though her life depended on it. Both stopped to look as I entered.

“Ah,” said Gavriel, “there he is. I knew he’d be back soon.”

Justinia shot to her feet. “The idiot returns! I do hope you realize that waltzing off into the night on your own, after what happened, is perhaps the dumbest—” she stopped, frowned down at the cat brushing up against my legs. “What is that?”

“A cat,” I said.

“Yes,” Justinia said slowly, “I can see that. But why?”

“He’s mine.”

“He’s yours,” she repeated.

“That’s right.” I closed the door behind me. “His name is Stumbles.”

“I can see why,” Gavriel said, as Stumbles stumbled forward. It seemed as though he had not yet adjusted to being undead. This was common with reanimations, which are not truly conscious, and often struggle with co-coordination. Some necromancers are much better at reanimating than others, and capable of imbuing their reanimations with greater finesse. I do not boast when I say that I was very good at it—it was why my mother had endearingly called me her little master of bones.

Despite my skill, however, Stumbles was…not the most agile. Perhaps he’d simply been like that in life, in which case I had accurately restored him.

“Get rid of it,” Justinia said. “Now.”

“Here’s the thing,” Is said, taking a seat. “You don’t get to tell me what to do, and, also, I’d appreciate it if you generally spoke to me with a little more respect.” Self-conscious of how firm this sounded, I added, “I’d much prefer if we had a more…friendly dynamic.”

Justinia closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and sat back down. “Dead gods help me.”

“The boy’s right,” said Gavriel. “You ought to relax a little.”

That hadn’t been what I’d meant. In fact, I wished these two would be less relaxed, considering that, earlier, we’d brutally murdered four members of the Terarch Guard, and neither of them seemed particularly concerned about it.

“What’s wrong with it?” Justinia said, with immense disgust.

“Oh,” I said, “he’s dead. I found him in an alley. Felt bad about it, honestly, so, I brought him back. In a manner of speaking, at least. Figured I needed someone non-judgemental by my side.”

Justinia’s grip on the mug's handle tightened. I was slightly concerned it’d break off. “You can’t be serious.”

“I’m quite serious. Don’t worry about him, Justinia. He won’t get in the way. And he’ll be useful, I’m sure of it. Did you know, for example, that I can see through my reanimations? I could send him into a room and observe that room as if with my own eyes.”

“Remarkable,” said Gavriel, scrubbing vigorously at a stubborn patch of blood. “Damn it, this motherfucker must’ve pissed himself. Disgusting.”

“If it’s dead,” Justinia said, “won’t it rot?”

“Oh, yes, its flesh will decay,” I said, nodding. “But—”

“It already reeks enough as it is. I don’t want that fucking thing around me.”

“The rot will be quick, don’t worry, and once Stumbles is just a skeleton, there will be no smell.”

This seemed to distress Justinia further, and she stood, strode across to the bar, jumped the counter, and reached for a bottle of something stronger than ale.

“Don’t touch that one,” Gavriel warned, raising his head, “Justinia, you have no idea how difficult it is to get my hands on any of that stuff. The black market is smaller and smaller by the day, and—”

“I’ll pay for it,” Justinia grunted, pulling out the cork with her teeth and drinking deeply.

Gavriel sighed.

I bent and ran a hand along Stumbles’ back. He certainly could’ve done with a bath. A single fly was buzzing around his head and he reeked of sewerage. Even still, looking at him, I felt a blossoming warmth in my chest.

“I’m going to kill Autarch Marak,” I whispered in the dead cat’s ear. “And you’re going to help me do it.”