2 - RESURRECTION

At the exact moment of my resurrection, three things happened.

The first was that, a thousand miles away, across the sea, and at the heart of a vast and terrible empire, a man named Marak—who ruled this empire—had a nightmare.

I was that nightmare.

He would tell me this many years later. But in truth, he didn't need to, because naked and freshly returned to the living, covered in my own blood, I felt a fragment of myself embed itself in a stranger’s dreams.

The second thing was that poor Salakan, who had taught me so much of what I knew ever since I was four, exploded. One moment he was there, the next, he was splattered across the floor and walls of the Dying Chamber.

Necromancy is a harsh discipline, and there is always a cost for it.

The third thing was that I pissed myself.

A towel was wrapped around me. Two acolytes of the Death Shrine guided me silently down a black corridor. I was shivering badly, like I’d just been out in the middle of a blizzard. I could hardly feel my feet or hands. And whenever I closed my eyes, even just to blink, I saw Salakan’s remains scattered throughout the chamber, intestines hanging from a chandelier, a single, bright-green eyeball looking up at me from the floor.

I saw, also, the Void.

The Void is not death. Death is death, and no one really understands what death is; we necromancers have spent centuries, perhaps even millenia, attempting to get to the bottom of it, to no avail. Many have interrogated the dead, hoping that from them, we might learn the truth, but even those lost souls seemed clueless regarding the matter. What we do know, however, is that what we call the Void, that black, sucking maw, is the portal to death, the funnel, if you will, down which the souls of the newly dead are poured.

I tried not to think about it. I did not succeed.

Indeed, the Void would haunt me for the rest of my life.

I was brought to a bath, already filled with hot water, and left alone. I submerged myself. Steam filled the room. My hands explored my chest, where a deep wound that led to my pierced heart ought to be, but there was nothing but smooth, freshly healed flesh.

This is something that happens to all necromancers. In fact, it is what makes us necromancers.

When we are deemed ready by the High Necromancer of the Withered Isles, we undergo The Dying. This is the process you have already been introduced to: the slab, the knife, the swift death, and then the rebinding of one’s soul to their wounded body. This ritual gives us access to our power; necromancy can only be yielded by one who has already personally touched death, and whose soul exists simultaneously in the world of the living, and in whatever world comes next.

It doesn’t always work. Not everyone survives it. Many cannot resist the pull of the Void. Others possess souls that are simply too weak to endure the back-and-forth struggle.

I spent a while in that bath, just thinking, and relishing in the burn.

I had survived—but of course I had. There’d never been any alternative.

I was different. I had been made for this.

My mother, High Priestess of Skull, had consumed the flesh and blood of other necromancers while I had gestated within her.

Their power ran through my veins. I’d been chosen for the ultimate task before I’d even been born.

For a long time, as a child, I had resented this. A part of me had wished that I could’ve chosen my own destiny; that someone would’ve at least asked me. I had even gone through a rough patch of wanting to run away, to cast aside the vestments of a necromancer and seek some other, ordinary life. Once, at fourteen, I had commandeered a small rowing boat and had attempted to make it across the stretch of the Abyssal Sea that separated our islands from the continent of Telemir. All things considered, I hadn’t done too badly—I’d gotten close enough to see the great white cliffs rearing up in the distance.

But then the skeletons sent by my father had caught up to me.

There’d been dozens of them, occupying rowboats of their own, and rowing tirelessly. Others had swam up beneath me, not needing, of course, to surface or breathe; their bony hands had appeared upon the rim of the boat and they’d hauled themselves up, dripping and leering. I smashed the skull of the first with an oar, and then the rest pinned me and rowed me back to my scowling, enraged father.

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But that had been a long time ago. Four years, anyway.

In the present, acolytes brought me the robes of a fully-fledged necromancer. I dressed reverently. Despite my past misgivings, I’d come to want this more than anything else. I had dreamed of donning the vestments of the Order. One of the acolytes pinned my robe in place; the pin was a brightly polished, silver skull. Another acolyte handed me a silver mask fashioned into the likeness of, also, a skull.

If it wasn’t already obvious, skulls were very popular amongst the Withered Isles.

My father entered the chamber.

Prime Necromancer Asathiran Asar wore his own mask, brass, and marked with the sigils befitting his rank. His hands were clasped formally in front of him. His eyes were golden—as were my own, and as had been my mother’s.

“My son,” he intoned.

I bowed my head. “Father.”

He placed a hand on my shoulder. I couldn’t even remember the last time he’d touched me.

“How do you feel?”

Nor could I remember him ever asking a question as personal as that one.

My initiation had evidently changed everything.

“I feel well enough,” I said. “My head hurts. And my heart hasn’t stopped racing since…well, since it started beating again. But, overall, I am well. And eager to proceed with the plan.”

My father nodded slowly. “Good. Very good. And do you feel your new powers? Are they within reach?”

It wasn’t something I’d thought about yet. But, indeed, it was a good question—I’d survived the ritual. I was a necromancer now. Power over death and undeath were now mine to command. I had spent all my life dedicated to the study of the theory of necromancy—of learning how to control it.

Now it was time to put all of that into practice.

Imagine that you’d spent eighteen years learning how to use a sword—except you’d never actually wielded one before. You’d never even touched one. You had, however, studied every possible aspect regarding how one might use it, control it, manipulate it. You’d learned how to make swords, how they worked; you could detail every individual design component. You could write an entire book about swords.

And then, finally, someone put a sword in your hand.

Imagine how that might feel.

“They are within reach,” I confirmed, but the truth was, I wasn’t certain. How could I tell? I would need to test myself later, in the solitude of my own chambers. For now, it was imperative that my father believe that it worked; I wasn’t sure what he’d do if it hadn’t, but it was unlikely to be pleasant.

My father let out a breath. “I am immensely pleased to hear that. You saw what happened to Salakan?”

I nodded. Salakan hadn’t just been my tutor—he’d been a close friend of my father’s for decades.

“There were other losses,” my father said slowly. “All across the Isles. The cost was high. It only serves to highlight just how important you are to our plans, Aurion.”

My full name is Aurion Asar I. I did not have an Order title like everyone else on the Withered Isles.

Instead, I was, officially, by tradition, and as outlined in the Great Necromantic Prophecy, the Deathlord Prime; a chosen and deliberately created instrument of change and good in the world, destined to rid the universe of certain malign forces.

Personally, I did not prefer to be called the Deathlord Prime.

When I was a little boy, my mother used to give me individual pieces of human bone to play with. I used to put them together and construct new forms.

My mother used to call me ‘her little master of bones’.

That had been her idea of a cute nickname for her child.

She died when I was eight under circumstances I still considered suspicious.

Since then, I had adopted the self-styled title of Master of Bones. My father hated it. I didn’t care.

“May I be candid with you?” asked my father.

I winced, dreading what might come next. “Of course.”

“I fear, my son, that there is simply no time to waste. In an ideal world, you would remain on the Withered Isles for several more years, mastering the necromantic arts. But we do not , I am afraid, live in an ideal world. The Enemy grows more powerful by the day. His hold over the world strengthens.” He squeezed my shoulder. “What I’m saying is that it’s time for you to go. To leave the Isles. To step foot on Telemir, and on Autarchy soil, and do what you were born to do.”

My heart thudded in my chest. I’d known this was coming, and I was mostly glad about it. I’d spent my life dreaming of the day I’d finally leave the Isles and explore the world.

Now that it had come, I felt terribly afraid.

I was comfortable here amongst the dark, brooding temples of the Order, on the gray, rocky beaches, and in the shadows of the ancient statues that had stood guard over the Withered Isles since before our Order had ever arrived. I was at home in the suffocating catacombs, in the tombs of my ancestors. I had friends here, and family, and enemies, too, but I might miss even them; at least they were familiar to me.

I met my father’s eyes. Gold staring into gold. It was said that our bloodline harkened back all the way to the demons of old, who once roamed the earth and bred with mortals.

I wanted to say, I don’t know if I’m ready.

I wanted to say, father, I’m afraid.

But I couldn’t. In the Alakathin Order of Undeath, one could not show weakness.

And so I said, “I will leave at once, father.”