Anastacia stared at the dead rat Nirmaata had placed on the workbench in front of her. She was to practice resurrecting corpses on rats before attempting to revive the owner of the mansion on the muse’s request. Though unpleasant and nauseating, it did successfully buy time for Gilbert to come up with a way to rescue her, and having sent her helmet to him via the muse, Anastacia figured that it was only a matter of time until Gilbert was able to gather what he needed to defeat Nirmaata, now that he knew what he was fighting. He could also just put the helmet on a mop and gain at least some level of control over the goblins anywhere on the continent and flood the mansion with them, since they wouldn’t notice that it wasn’t actually Anastacia.
“Is this hesitation I see, esteemed necromancer? Hesitation is not the key for progress. Feeling of responsibility, envy, greed, love, rebellion and even hatred have motivated many of the greatest feats of the past, but not once has hesitation aided in any.” Nirmaata asked, looming over Anastacia. It took the necromancer’s enchanted knife from its sheathe and placed it into her hand. “A tool of this make and quality is wasted in its scabbard. How would you feel, being kept in a dark cell with nothing to engage your abilities with? Shackled and tied, alone? Fortunate, for its sake alone, that you happened upon us, so that this abuse may cease. Now, cut!”
Anastacia groaned, perhaps a bit more loudly than she intended to. It wasn’t a good idea to let Nirmaata know how adverse she was to the meatier parts of necromancy. “Uhh… You know, usually when I do this, I like to plan the patterns beforehand. You can’t erase stuff once you’ve carved them into the bone and all that. So if you happened to have paper and something I could draw with, it’d make this a lot smoother and I wouldn’t have to butcher a rat every time I screw up.” She suggested, trying to avoid having to dig into the rat.
Nirmaata’s grip on her shoulder tightened a bit and the beast sighed. “Blueprints, drafts and plans; an annoyance, but an unavoidable one.” It said and placed a neatly stacked pile of paper on the table, moved the rat to the side and opened one of the drawers to reveal late Bartholomew’s drawing supplies, which ranged from simple charcoal to a vast set of dip pen nibs and multiple varieties of inks. “Perhaps rushing esteemed necromancer serves no one’s purposes, least of all ours. After all, a task that is worth doing well, is worth planning well.” Nirmaata reasoned and nodded.
Under the uncomfortably close supervision of the muse, Anastacia picked up a piece of graphite and began drafting an unnecessarily detailed picture of a rat’s skeleton. Every second she spent not carving up a dead rodent was a small victory for her, so she made sure to include every minor groove and lump she could feel in the one she used as reference.
As time passed and the actual planning stage of the project didn’t seem to progress at all, Nirmaata picked up once of the papers and inspected it. The entire sheet had been filled with life-sized pictures of the rat’s skull from different angles, which puzzled the beast. “What might be the purpose of such excessive detail?” It asked and placed the paper back on the table.
“Well you see, there’s only so much surface area on a rat, and the size of the animal doesn’t actually make things any easier. If anything, it’s harder to fit the proper patterns on small things.” Anastacia replied without thinking.
“I see! Perhaps it is time I fetch something from the village then? A child would suffice, no? I have long waited to see the life drift away from their limb and flabby husks. Dearest Bartholomew once allowed them to reign free in our orchard despite my warnings. Ungrateful, arrogant urchins, distracting dearest Bartholomew from his work with their laughter and merrymaking. Surely the fault lies with them when the work was never finished?” The muse rambled and got progressively angrier as it went on.
“Wait wait wait wait wait! We’re not going to kill children right now. Actually, let’s put a hard ‘no’ on the whole killing children for this project, okay?” Anastacia suggested and grasped the muse’s hand before it had the chance to leave. “It wouldn’t help all that much anyway. Think about it: if I can make this work on a rat, a whole person will be a piece of cake. It’ll take a while though, so how about we just kind of chat about what’s been going on with stuff while I draw, okay? I promise it doesn’t distract me or anything and you’ve been alone for a long time.”
Nirmaata halted and stared out of the window at the village. With its free hand, it covered its mask and exhaled slowly. “I was not to kill humans anymore. Never laid a hand on the village or its people. A mistake, I believe, but a wish from dearest Bartholomew. I thank you, esteemed necromancer, for reminding me.” It said and calmed down. “If a conversation helps esteemed necromancer to work, it is only reasonable that we engage in one.”
Detecting a hint of eagerness from the muse’s voice, Anastacia smiled proudly over her successful distraction. “Yeah, you know how it can get a bit boring if you have nothing else going on while working. So how about this for a subject: How did you and this Bartholomew guy meet? I don’t think most people run into whatever you are on their way to the bakery.” She asked and made sure to keep drawing.
“Oh, twenty-seven thousand two hundred and eight times has the sun risen since the last remaining muse to walk this earth opened its eyes once more. Without kin, without company, it found itself amidst the trees that had grown tall while it had peacefully slumbered. Allowing fate to guide it, the muse set off and walked. It walked through forests, through deserts, through mountain ranges. It walked and found no pair of hands worthy of its guidance. Lost, it began to wonder if the age of muses had passed and lied down to await death. But, fickle as ever, fate wouldn’t allow such things and sent a fumbling, unskilled human to spend an evening with his family to a nearby field.” Nirmaata reminisced, sounding somewhat happy for the first time.
Anastacia took a fresh piece of paper to continue pointlessly drawing the rat from a different direction. “So you’re a muse? I have no idea what that is, but it’s a bit of a bummer that you’re the last one.” She said and frowned. “Did you start teaching that guy how to do all this stuff then?”
The muse retreated back to its corner of the room and caressed the corpse it guarded. “Preparations had to be made first. Concealing my presence, I followed him to his dwelling and planted a seed into dearest Bartholomew’s mind with whispers in the night. Though it took time and effort, the rewards were their equal when dearest Bartholomew first laid his eyes upon his new workbench. And so, the long journey had begun. Improvement was achieved with each toy carved, each glove sewn; but alas, his time was spent poorly, divided between passions.” Nirmaata continued with the story.
“Damnit, Nirmaata! I heard his wife and kid got killed, did you do that?” The necromancer exclaimed and tossed a crumbled piece of paper at the muse. “Shame on you!”
“A night was chosen when dearest Bartholomew had left on search for materials and tools. A broken window, shoeprints of a vagrant, missing valuables to abolish blame, two corpses to be found come morn. Talk of the town for weeks, though a simple plan, a successful one. Dearest Bartholomew sought refuge here, in our domain. On the third lonely night under this roof, the muse revealed itself and offered distraction.” The beast recounted and laid down on the floor, next to the mannequins and scavenged materials.
Anastacia picked up a piece of wood that had once been a leg of a chair and tossed it at Nirmaata. “That’s a terrible thing to do and makes you a massive asshole. Stop acting like you solved a huge problem for him when you fucked up his entire life!” She yelled and threw a second piece of wood.
Nirmaata fell silent for a while. “A lie most heinous, if I said never to have considered such things… If what esteemed necromancer says is the truth, and I once foolishly acted against what was meant to be, I have carried the burden for that. The pieces fit unfortunately well.” It said and curled up around the corpse.
“I like to think that this is a tit for tat world we live in – in the long run anyway.” Anastacia said and returned to her work. “That said, you are kind of holding me prisoner and probably have one heck of a tat coming your way for it.”
“I care not anymore, this world of our has nothing more it can take from me. All I wish is to have back my dearest Bartholomew.” The muse mumbled from the corner.
The necromancer felt slightly bad for having lied to Nirmaata, but not enough to risk her life by admitting it. Running into a sentient creature that wasn’t necessarily evil or danger to people anymore, was always a problem for her. Technically getting rid of the beast was her job as an adventurer, and when they refused to change their ways or vacate the area, there was rarely a pleasant outcome. When the party ran into such morally gray issues, she typically let someone else handle the thinking, which in no way absolved her from the responsibility, but at least she could act like it did.
The muse remained quiet for a while and moved only to check if Anastacia’s work was progressing. After running out of angles to draw the skeleton from, she had to move on to the actual patterns. In reality, reanimating something as simple as a rat required no preparation from any decently powerful necromancer, though the patterns would give longevity to the undead horror of a rodent. The problem for Anastacia was in fact just the opposite: if she tried to rush the process, the rat could very well turn into a fresh coating of red for the entire room. When using necromancy like she usually did, the bones didn’t really mind her using as much power as she wanted to, but that was not the case at all when trying to reanimate something properly, and it would easily result in the corpse first collapsing in on itself and then spraying the mostly liquified meat and chunks of bone in every direction. So, though absurdly overdone, the planning was at least helpful.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Unhappy about how quickly her work moved forwards, Anastacia had to come up with a new topic to cheer up the beast enough for another conversation. “So, we know that you were family murdering asshole, but maybe your time with him changed you or something? I mean, you haven’t killed anyone since, right?” She asked.
Nirmaata lifted its head and glanced at Anastacia. “A wish made in the early days of our cohabitation. I am only to protect dearest Bartholomew and our domain, and until two burglars found their way inside, I have not moved from his side – in life, nor in death.” It sighed and slowly inched its way towards the necromancer. “Change, yes… Change is what made the once beautiful, proud and untouchable flame of creativity into Nirmaata, a broken-down insult to a grand beast that once drove kings and queens from their kingdoms and tittered at armies mustered by mortals. a single promise, though unkept, set the wheels in motion. A promise that now appears inconsequential, even regretful. Funny thing, hindsight…”
“Come on now, you’re plenty fancy still. Easily in the top three pretty things I’ve been sent to deal with.” Anastacia encouraged the muse, who was obviously starved for a conversation, based on its long and rambling answers.
The muse let out something that almost resembled a tired laugh. “Years upon years flashed by, and dearest Bartholomew grew vastly in talent under my guidance. For the first time in centuries, I was alone no more. Discussions spanning entire nights, feasts of fine wines and meats, thousands of stories recounted and works of art created by that very workbench. In my naivete, I had imagined those days to last for as long as time. Yet, in what had felt no more than a heartbeat, the bumbling fool of a lad, that once caught my eye, had shifted into a brittle, aged dunce. It was then that I learned of the inherent flaw that all humans share, a pitiful lifetime - truly something that had not once so much as grazed my mind before.” It lamented and ran one of its claw-like nails along the necromancer’s cheek. “Makes me wonder, how many years does esteemed necromancer have left? Five? Ten? Perhaps even less than that?”
Anastacia rubbed her cheek where the muse had scratched her just hard enough that it had broken the skin but not enough to bleed. “I’m still young, so I’ve still got a few decades in me. Though I’ve never heard of a necromancer dying of old age and being an adventurer probably doesn’t help things…” She said.
“Perhaps it is time for a change of pace then. Mere decades won’t yield aught at this rate.” Nirmaata reasoned. For an ageless beast of legends, decades must have not meant all that much.
“Now just wait a se-“ Anastacia tried to protest before her body lost its ability to move, this time entirely. She wasn’t able to breathe, nor did her heart beat, but for some reason she stayed alive and conscious.
Nirmaata turned the necromancer’s chair around again, placed its forefinger on her chest and began uttering something in a language Anastacia couldn’t understand. While chanting, the muse slowly sank its claws through her chest and plucked out a vital organ the necromancer had seen getting torn out far too many times already – though never her own. With Anastacia’s heart in its hand, Nirmaata examined it in the candlelight for something. After a bit of trouble, the beast finally found what it was looking for, pinched the heart and began pulling out a thin pure white thread. With great skill and dexterity, it unraveled the entire organ in seconds, coiling the thread between its forefinger and little finger until it had enough to start winding it into a ball. Despite the lack of pain or blood, Anastacia screamed in her head over the entire operation, and doubly so when she saw the muse take out a needle – though she couldn’t help but to find it slightly amusing when the legendary beast of artisans and artists struggled to get its new white thread through the eye. Nirmaata blamed its troubles on the fickle heart of the necromancer and resumed its chanting. With the unnaturally swift and precise movements of a master, the muse began running the needle through the necromancer’s skin and didn’t stop before it had embroidered a series of symbols on both of her forearms. Luckily, Anastacia was still unable to feel pain, but the sensation of the needle poking its way through her skin was still unpleasant to say the least, nor did her inability to look away help.
The finishing touch of the ritual was no less gruesome: the muse plucked one of its black feathers from its neck and used Anastacia’s knife to split its tip like one would to make a quill. Nirmaata tilted the necromancer’s head back and spread her eyelids slightly with its claws before dragging its new quill across her eyeball to inscribe one more magical rune on it.
When the muse moved on to her other eye, Anastacia tried to forcibly close it by using necromancy, but nothing happened. Something Nirmaata was doing completely negated her abilities. Despite having gone through multiple incredibly painful situations, including intentionally breaking her arm to kill Amaranth, having someone write on her eye was easily the most disturbing thing the necromancer had come across, even without the pain.
“Fret not, esteemed necromancer, secrets older than your necromancy can only hold one such as yourself back for so long.” Nirmaata explained and closed Anastacia’s eyes.
Finally, after the muse had taken a step back, Anastacia regained control over her own body and spent the next few minutes screaming and rubbing her eyes while rolling on the floor. “WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO?!” She screamed, grabbed one of her spears and pointed it at Nirmaata.
“A minor pact of no consequence, to ensure progression.” The muse said and pressed its porcelain mask against the tip of the spear, immediately causing the weapon to crumble into dust. “Calm your mind and esteemed necromancer will see the purpose of our hex.”
Without her weapon, Anastacia didn’t have much in the way of options, so she decided to heed the beast’s suggestion. She closed her eyes and measured her pulse. Regardless of what had happened, her heart was still beating roughly where it was supposed to and the stitching across her forearms had straight up disappeared. Nothing else seemed out of the ordinary, at least until she opened her eyes again; everything in the room had completely changed, though not in appearance. It was as if everything simply seemed more beautiful and she could sense the work put into any given item. Even the floorboards gave off a slight glimmer in her eyes and the mannequins carefully crafted by Bartholomew were simply radiant, despite being put together from scraps of wood found in the mansion. While the room itself was already enough to reduce the necromancer on her knees, looking directly at Nirmaata was almost impossible; the gloomy, dark beast had transformed into an otherworldly being with a mane of pure light, horns of engraved gold and silver, and masked by features that had to have been ripped from the face a goddess. Unable to handle what she saw, Anastacia had to cover her eyes, though even that wasn’t enough to stop her from crying.
“Perhaps seeing world as I see it will help us understand one another. Does esteemed necromancer now understand? Why muses acted as they did, as I still do, and stop at nothing to surround themselves with beauty.” Nirmaata asked and helped Anastacia back into her chair.
“Fuck… I get you… Damnit…” Anastacia cursed as she got used to the gift Nirmaata had forced on her.
“Good. Then esteemed necromancer will understand this as well.” The muse said and placed the dead rat on the workbench once more.
Though she was prepared to gag at the thought of having to dissect the rat, to her own surprise, it wasn’t what came to Anastacia’s mind. Somehow the dead rodent seemed very different this time around, as if something was missing from it. Suddenly it struck her, it absolutely needed to have the control patterns carved into its bones, she could already see it in her head how beautiful the finished work would be. Yet, at the same time she was fully aware that it was just her new perspective twisting things, and on the table was the same rotting lump of rat that had disgusted her before.
Nirmaata reached over her shoulder to hand her the knife without saying a word.
Even the knife gifted to her by the blacksmith, and to a degree his brother, now seemed incredibly gorgeous. “I’m so sorry I used you to scratch rude things into those walls a couple of months ago, I didn’t know any better.” She whispered to it and watched the reflection in the spotless blade. Fighting the urge to cut open the rat and begin her work quickly became too hard and Anastacia picked up the limp rodent carcass. Preparing to work and throw up violently at the same time, she closed her eyes and carefully sliced open one of its legs to get access to the bones. Expecting to be hit with the horrid rotten smell of coagulated blood and rotting flesh, Anastacia breathed through her mouth, but something seemed odd: the wound smelled sweet, yeasty and slightly fruity. Anastacia opened her eyes to look at the knife and was surprised to see that there wasn’t a drop of blood on the beautifully sharpened edge. She then quickly glanced at the cut and found it oddly bloodless as well, only a drop of clear looking liquid had dipped on the workbench. Anastacia smelled it and came to a conclusion. “Mead? Nirmaata, did you do something to this?” She asked, careful to not look at the muse again.
“Did the esteemed necromancer not know of the enchantment on her exquisite knife? All wounds made by it shall bleed the sweetest of meads. A beauty of a spell, really, but its purpose clouded from me.” The muse wondered and loomed over the necromancer to see what she was doing.
Quietly thanking Valimir under her breath for the enchantment, Anastacia continued opening up gashes on the rat and carving patterns into the exposed bones. Even the carving seemed easier than it had ever been before and somehow the necromancer found herself actually wanting to finish the piece instead of just getting it over with to please Nirmaata.
About two hours into the project, as the sunrise was finally visible from the window, the muse suddenly grasped Anastacia’s arm and stopped her from working. “Something ancient is approaching our domain with purpose. Am I correct in assuming this has to do with esteemed necromancer?” It asked and lowered its mask near Anastacia’s head.
“Pretty rude of you, Gil’s not that old.” The necromancer commented and looked away.
“This is not the utter oaf. Something grotesque and vile has befallen on us, yet it carries a scent of the divine.” Nirmaata pondered. “Curious, but of no significance. Not worthy of interruptions for our work.”