Part Two. Coming from Outside

Chapter 5

He didn't want to get out of the warm bed, but the circumstances were stronger than Armando's desires - he and Vittoria had drunk a lot of wine that evening. The young bailiff struggled for a while, gazing at the intricate steppe patterns on the silk canopy over the bed, but finally gave in. Pulling back the fine coverlet, he slowly lowered his feet to the floor. Feeling the pile of carpet beneath his feet, he looked around. Vittoria, who was wrapped up in the bedspread, did not seem to be awake. Don got up, quietly pulled on his pants and shirt, put on his shoes, and unlocked the door. The bedroom in the capital mansion of the red-haired Donna had never been locked from the inside before - Armando remembered that for sure. Apparently, the girl had put a brass bolt on it just for him. It warmed his soul, and it worked, too - de Gorazzo felt much calmer behind locked doors.

The thing is, the court necromancer didn't have a domestic servants. Live ones. Vittoria made servants for herself from well embalmed dead animals. In addition, the two-story mansion served as the red-haired donna's personal laboratory, and many fruits of her experiments freely roamed the rooms, hiding under the furniture, crawling along the curtains. The necromancer simply paid no attention to them - unlike her guests. It was the night visit of a certain dead animal to the bedroom six months ago that had led to Armando's ignominious flight from the mansion. At the time, the bailiff thought he would never be able to look Vittoria in the eye again - but here he was again, and it was as if nothing had happened. Perhaps after rescuing Queen Octavia from assassins, the young official had become braver. Just a little. But this newfound courage was enough for him to admit to himself that Vittoria was more than just another infatuation, and he loved her more than he feared her. And the necromancer showed enviable nobility, forgiving Armando after a small but turbulent repentance.

De Gorazzo opened the casement and peered gingerly into the corridor. It was well past midnight, the wall lamps were out, and the ghostly moonlight streamed in through the windows at the ends of the passage. At one window the bailiff noticed a heavy shadow. Looking closely, he realized that it was Luca, the bald orangutan acting as butler in Vittoria's house. The dead ape, covered in gray wrinkled skin, sat on the floor, head tilted back, empty eyes staring upward. To the moon, perhaps. Armando swallowed. What was that thing doing? Necromancer pets are basically just puppets. They have no thoughts or desires of their own. Unless the mage controls them directly, they can only follow a set of commands laid down by their creator. The more skillful a necromancer is, the more complex things his creations can do. So why is the dead orangutan staring longingly out the window? What command is it obeying from its mistress? "It's guarding," Armando decided to himself. - There are no bars on the windows. Although with such a servant Vittoria can not worry about thieves".

The dead butler did not react to the creak of the door or the footsteps behind him. As de Gorazzo crept past, the orangutan continued to gaze at the moon. In the hallway of the first floor, where Armando had entered, a small, nameless monkey, with the remnants of black fur on its back, was winding the wall clock. Something else was fiddling with the crystal chandelier in the ceiling. The darkness made it hard to see what was running around, jingling the crystal, but Armando didn't really want to. Don hurriedly dashed to the right door and closed it from the inside, glad that the mansion was connected to the plumbing of the ancient imperial times. The trickling of water in the stone trough distracted him from the sounds coming from the hall.

On the way back, the bailiff whistled a cheerful song under his breath. He felt better. "The Clock Monkey" and the creature on the chandelier ignored the guest, and the necromancer's other creations were out of sight, so that the fear had receded a little. Armando headed for the cozy little bedroom, where the floor was covered with a fluffy carpet, the door was securely locked from the inside, a night-light smoldered on the table, and the most wonderful girl in the world sniffled quietly under the covers. Hurrying up the stairs, de Gorazzo was so engrossed in thoughts of Vittoria that a sharp sound behind him almost fell. The bailiff's heart sank and a chill ran down his spine, but the sound was repeated, and Armando realized that it was only a doorbell. Though... a doorbell ringing in a necromancer's house deep in the night?

The monkey hurriedly slammed the clock door shut, jumped to the floor, and ran past Armando to wake her mistress. The thing on the chandelier, with one last clink of crystal, ran up to the ceiling beams and disappeared behind one of them. De Gorazzo hesitated, approached the door, over which the bell continued to ring, and asked in a menacing voice:

- Who are the demons carrying there?

- It's me, Armando. Open up, - came a deep bass from behind the oak door.

- Gotech? Here! - de Gorazzo pulled back two iron latches and hesitated before the third lock. It was a bony animal's paw, attached to the door at one end. Powerful clawed fingers clutched a ring embedded in the doorjamb. Remembering how Vittoria had done it, Armando stroked the paw and bounced back just in case. The paw unclenched its fingers, the sash swung open, and Don Gotech de Ardano stepped into the hallway, catching his bald head on the headboard.

- The openings could have been higher in such a luxurious house, - the black-skinned giant complained as he closed the door behind him. His gaze slid to the deadbolt paw, but Gotech wasn't interested in it.

- What's the matter? - Armando asked the black giant.

- Nothing bad, don't worry, - the giant smirked, taking off his cloak. - On the contrary. Just met some useful people... from across the border. You told me to let you know as soon as I found out something. So I did.

He looked over de Gorazzo's shoulder and bowed low, waving his right hand gallantly:

- Donna Vittoria! Pardon my intrusion.

- Good night, Don. It's nothing, don't apologize, - the owner of the house said calmly, descending the stairs at a leisurely pace. Luca waddled beside her. Donna was dressed in a blue-gold silk robe, tightly tied at the waist with a scarlet sash, but she did not braid her hair, and her straight red hair was scattered over her shoulders in disorder. Together with the round glasses on her nose, it gave her a special, cozy charm. - I suppose you're here to see Armando?

- Yes, Donna, but I'm happy to see you, too. - Gotech straightened up. - Besides, you are aware of the business I wish to discuss, and you can help me with advice.

- Then come to the refectory. We can talk there. - The necromancer gestured for Luka to take the cloak from the guest.

Although the red-haired donna lived alone in the mansion, her dining room was adorned with a large oval mahogany table that could seat a dozen people. As soon as she stepped over the threshold, the girl shrugged her shoulders, and golden magical stones glowed softly in the wall lamps. The necromancer took a soft chair at the head of the table and invited the men to sit closer. Gotech plopped down in the chair, which creaked under his weight, and placed his traveling bag on the floor. He said to the hostess:

- I found out something about the ghost Armando saw three months ago, in the cellars of the Hall of Executors.

- That...the girl in blue? - Donna Vittoria recalled, frowning.

- Yes. In a blue suit and silver armor. - The big man turned to de Gorazzo. - 'You were right when you thought her clothes were a military uniform. But we were all wrong when we looked for similar uniforms from the guards and palace guardians of the past. This uniform is modern. Just not Daert's. The girl you saw died a short time ago. And a long way from here.

- Did you recognize her? - Armando leaned forward, resting his elbows on the edge of the table.

- Yeah. Been talking to travelers and... merchants coming from other countries for the last month. - Gotech didn't say the word "smugglers" out loud in front of the court necromancer, but it was clear enough which merchants could make appointments after midnight. - Some of them had put me on the trail. And today, I got confirmation. Take a look.

He hooked his bag with the hook that replaced his left hand, flipped open the flap, pulled out an object that looked like a tea saucer, and placed it on the table. On closer inspection, the saucer turned out to be a portrait in a round wooden frame. Armando pulled it toward him. From the portrait the bailiff was looking at the same girl - black-haired, yellow-eyed, dark-skinned.

- Is it her? - Gotech inquired.

- She is. - De Gorazzo nodded without taking his eyes off her.

- Beautiful. Very, - Vittoria said, not at all elegantly or femininely stretching her neck to look at the stranger's portrait. - 'And the appearance... not ordinary. Who is it, don?

- Lady Yana. The personal guard of the current Duchess of Elvart, Christina the Second. - The giant leaned back in his chair and froze when it cracked. - 'I'm sorry, Donna... Lady Jana died a couple of years ago in Elvart, on the day of the Duchess's coronation. She was twenty-four years old. The circumstances of her death were rather vague - it was announced that the lady had fallen honorably in battle, defending her mistress from an assassin. She was buried ceremoniously, but in a closed coffin, so the rumors went ...

- But she is really dead, - Armando shook his head. - I've seen her as a ghost.

- There's no doubt about it, - Vittoria agreed.

- The question is, what is the ghost of an Elvartian guardswoman doing in Daert? - de Gorazzo turned the portrait over, and it began to seem to the bailiff that Lady Jana's yellow lynx eyes were catching his gaze. The bailiff shivered. It must be the setting. He would never get used to Vittoria's mansion.

- It's an interesting question, but I'm more concerned with something else. - The red-haired donna adjusted her glasses. - Ghosts are the essence of lost souls who are stuck in the world of the living, not realizing they are dead. They are fixated on repeating certain actions they performed while alive, and react aggressively to attempts to interfere with their routines. If a ghost realizes its condition, it immediately goes to the Creator's Gardens. Or wherever it deserves to go, to Hell, to the Final Army... When Armando met Lady Jana, she behaved....

- Sensible, - de Gorazzo muttered.

- And non-aggressive, - Vittoria added, taking the portrait from him. - So we have a ghost, appearing in a visible manifestation far from the place of its death, behaving in a meaningful and almost friendly manner.

- It's madness.

- In ancient times, when necromancers were not yet restricted by laws, they developed several rituals to keep a person's spirit alive after death, - the red-haired donna said slowly, twirling the portrait of the dead guardswoman in her hands. - Some rituals even allowed the soul that left the body to retain its memory and sober mind. There were two problems. First, the ritual had to be performed beforehand, on a person who was still alive. Second, the person had to be a volunteer. No magic could keep the soul, called by the Creator, if the soul itself did not want to stay. However, the necromancers of that time, who often had their own personal death cults, had no problem with fanatical volunteers.

Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

- So.. - Armando wanted to swallow, but found his mouth dry.

- I've heard, - Vittoria interrupted him, - that the ritual of swearing in a personal guard includes some of those rituals. Not just in Elvart, everywhere the Imperial tradition of the personal guard has survived. So the oath of a guard could allow this Lady Yana to remain in the world of the living after death, fully preserving her memory and identity. Ironic. Necromancers have long been forbidden from dealing with human material, but our discoveries in this field are still used by others.

Donna raised her hand and clenched her fingers into a fist a couple times. Just then the door creaked open. Luca entered the room, opened one of the lockers, took out a bottle of wine with a yellowed label, put it on the table. He went back to the cabinet for glasses.

- Why do we need ghosts like that anyway? - Armando asked, giving the bald orangutan a glance. - I mean, a necromancer or... a monarch, if we're talking about the ghost of a guard?

- For different purposes. - The red-haired donna finally set the portrait aside. - But in general, they are of little use, and the rituals are complex and costly, so the practice has never been widespread. Some of the ancient necromancers used to experiment with ghost assistants. To the rulers, such a dead guardian might give some protection from otherworldly threats, albeit little. After all, they have been tried as spies. Not with much success. A ghost can penetrate a lot of things, but there will be problems with information transfer - the dead can't speak directly to the living, not even with gestures or inscriptions. No one knows why, but it's a known rule. The most you can get from a ghost, even one that has retained its identity, is a pointing gesture or a lengthy hint.

- So she was... spying? - Gotech raised his eyebrows. - A ghost is an Elvartian spy? In our dungeons?

- I said no such thing. But it is possible.

- Can you... summon her? - Armando rubbed his chin with his fingers, studiously ignoring Luca, who was arranging glasses of the finest glass. - Now that we know her name...

- The names of Guardsmen are always not real, - Vittoria said with a waggle of her chin. - Even they don't know the real ones; they're taken from their parents at an early age. And anyway, a dead soul isn't a demon to summon. I could set a trap if I knew where the ghost would appear next, lock it up temporarily, or block its way somewhere. But summoning it back to me, no, I couldn't do that. Or banish her to the next world, for that matter. She's here voluntarily.

- Then we've learned nothing, - Armando sighed. - It only made things more confusing.

A heavy silence hung over the table. The dead orangutan finished pouring the wine into glasses and went into the kitchen. Vittoria cradled her glass in her two palms, said to the men:

- Don't hurry with the wine, please. Luca will prepare a snack now. I taught him some great recipes.

Armando clenched his eyes and drank the wine, which was unexpectedly strong. When he opened his eyes, he found the mistress of the mansion staring at him, tapping the rim of her glass with her fingernail. He smiled guiltily:

- I'm sorry. I won't do it again.

- Your favorite phrase, - she muttered under her breath, still frowning. De Gorazzo just waved his hands and reached for the bottle the orangutan had left behind.

The doorbell rang in the hall.

The necromancer and the bailiffs flinched and exchanged puzzled glances. Luca came out of the kitchen, holding a huge meat cleaver in his paw.

- It's been a long time since I've had so many guests after midnight, - Donna Vittoria said. - Armando, are you expecting someone else?

- No. I wasn't even expecting Gotech today, - the young official stood up. - I'll go get it.

- Luca will show you out. - The girl pulled up the sleeves of her robe to her elbows and stretched her fingers.

- Uh-huh - de Gorazzo mumbled without much joy as he headed out of the refectory. Behind him he heard the uneven footsteps of a dead ape and the clang of a cleaver on the floor. Standing in front of the front door for the second time that night, the bailiff asked:

- Who's there?

- Hello, Don de Gorazzo. It's a good thing it's you. Could you open the door for me? - The female voice that answered Armando was surprisingly familiar to him. Shocked to the core, the bailiff hurriedly unlocked the latches, pulled the sash, stepped back, unable to believe his eyes. The woman who had been waiting patiently outside threw back the hood of her black cloak.

- Your Majesty! - Armando dropped to his knee and bowed his head.

- Stand up, Don, and allow me to enter, - Octavia the Ninth smiled as she crossed the threshold. De Gorazzo jumped up and stood aside. With a foolish expression on his face he asked:

- Are you alone?

- Of course not, Don. But the guards won't come in, so you can close the door.

Armando, still at a complete loss, obeyed. In the meantime, the mistress of the mansion came out of the refectory. When Vittoria saw the queen standing in the middle of the hall, she curtsied gracefully, lifting the halves of her robe as if she were wearing a ball gown. Luca, too, made a comical courtly bow.

- Forgive my late intrusion, Donna, - Octavia said, carelessly throwing off her cloak and pulling off her thin gloves. Beneath the cloak was the familiar black and gold hunting suit. - Alas, it was important for me to catch you and your friends together, so I chose this moment on purpose.

- It is a great honor to receive you here, Your Majesty. - The necromancer raised her head, and mischievous wit flickered in her green eyes. - Besides, you wouldn't have bothered me in any case. I'm often awake at night. I have to do my own research at some point, and I'm on duty during the day. May I invite you to the table?

- That would be very helpful, - the girl in black nodded.

The dead bald orangutan, who accepted the queen's cloak and gloves, made even less of an impression on Octavia than on Gotech. A moment later, the young queen was sitting at the table across from the mistress of the house, playing with the wine in her glass.

- My servant was just frying sausage when you arrived - Donna Vittoria said. Unlike the silent men, the necromancer held herself quite freely in the queen's presence. It was as if she had been planning a midnight reception for the monarch for a long time.

- I'd love to appreciate his cooking. - Octavia, clearly out of pure politeness, tasted the wine and set the glass aside. - But let's not put off talking business. I have little time, alas. The night is short and there is much to do.

- They must be very important, if Your Majesty is dealing with them personally, - the red-haired donna said politely, finally taking control of the conversation.

- I understand how it looks. - The black-haired girl smiled a little embarrassed. - But things are really important, and I have only a handful of loyal people. No, not really. There are plenty of loyal people. It's just that I was taught from childhood to always take the most important and the most difficult things on myself.

- A commendable quality for a ruler, - the necromancer said, not very sincerely.

- A terrible quality for a ruler, - Octavia sighed. - But I was never trained to be queen.

- Your Majesty?

- You didn't know? It's no secret, though it's not exactly publicized. Why do you think I was raised apart from my family, in the castle of an old knight-guard? - The queen leaned back in her chair and put her palm to her chest, as if introducing herself. - Sixth in the line, fourth daughter, no chance to sit on the throne. I was meant for a different purpose. I was to be the perfect bodyguard for my own brothers. A strange idea of my father's. But that's how it turned out. I was trained to protect, not rule. I wear the crown instead of those I was supposed to protect. Because that's the way it is. Nobody else to do it but me.

- You're very good at it, Your Majesty, - the red-haired donna assured her.

- I want to believe it, but... - Octavia touched the rim of her glass with her fingertips. - You're aware of the situation in the country, aren't you? The west of the kingdom is about to go up in flames. The uprising of the local barons is inevitable, and all attempts to prevent it have only added fuel to the fire. Probably in two or three weeks the ringleaders will come out in the open and announce their demands - to recognize me as an impostor, to reconvene the Council, to elect a new king. Tonight I ordered the marshals to begin assembling the royal troops near the capital. But I can't trust them either - only two are definitely on my side. The third, Count de Boloni, supports the Duke, and the fourth, old Don de Crazo, hates us both. The Duke because he's an outsider, me because he thinks a woman has no place on the throne. The Dragon Knights have taken a neutral position. Neither clan supports the troublemakers, but I won't ask for their help. Besides, the Duke of Veronne himself is planning to join the campaign against the rebels with his personal squad. I can't refuse him, which means I'll have to watch the rear at all times.

The queen spoke calmly, with a faint smile on her lips, but Armando could sense the tension behind her confident tone. And this monologue was unnecessary, if Octavia was going to assign something to her bailiffs - the girl obviously needed someone to talk to.

- How can we help, Your Majesty? - Gotech has spoken.

- I'll tell you in a moment, Don. - The girl in black leaned on the table, fingers intertwined. - Last month, the mages at the Academy in the capital, who were studying the nature of lightning, noticed strange electrical disturbances in the air. Very faint, but uniform and repetitive. After observing them, the mages came to the conclusion that the electrical phenomena were artificial in nature. They traced their sources and were surprised to find no traces of magic. One of the sources of the electrical signals turned out to be in Daerth, inside the city wall. Master Joien, the archmage, reported it to me. I sent a group of reliable men to the source of the signals - a dozen guards, a couple of warlocks. The signals led the group to a warehouse rented by a merchant from Iolia. The merchant resisted the attempt to open the warehouse.

- Was he arrested?

- No. The merchant fired a weapon that used gunpowder, but was far more advanced than even our best arquebuses. The weapon fit in one hand and could fire several shots without reloading. - The queen pressed her lips together so tightly they turned white. - He had killed almost all of them. In the end, one of the soldiers, already badly wounded, managed to finish off the merchant by throwing a knife at his throat. By the way, as the survivors said, the spells of battle mages did not work on that man. Not at all.

- A strange weapon... - Armando stretched out. - A strange mechanism with no connection to magic....

- You guessed right, Don, - Octavia nodded at him. - I'll tell you more. When my men searched the warehouse, they found a device that looked exactly like that set of boxes made of obscure metal that burned down in the castle of Baron de Montore. A radio station. Only in one piece.

Armando whistled in the most irreverent way. When he realized it, he clamped his mouth shut with the palm of his hand. The queen grinned and gestured that everything was all right. She continued:

- How the device works could not be found out. But the soldiers poked at the tabs on it, clicked levers, and the boxes lit up, and the mages at the Academy recorded a new burst of electrical signals. The source of them was the device. Master Joien assumed that it was some kind of communication device, transmitting messages with signals that other similar devices received.

- Which means- Armando felt a chill in his stomach.

- That means that wherever the mages have found the sources of the signals, there could be these people who are not under the control of magic. - Octavia nodded again. - We don't know who they are or where they came from, but they're not loners, but members of an organized force. And their intentions are clearly unfriendly. You remember where the first radio station was found. And now the signal sources are concentrated in the western provinces. The rebel baronies.

- You want us to find them, - Armando said after a long pause.

- Yes - the young queen replied bluntly. - To find them and learn everything we can about them. You may refuse.

Don de Gorazzo hesitated only a moment. He did not doubt the black-haired girl's words. If he said, "No, it's too dangerous," the queen would just nod. And leave. And no reprisals would follow. Her Majesty would never again address Armando with such a special, incredibly important matter. And he, miraculously, wanted to be entrusted with it. Octavia had given it to him personally. He would have refused anyone else, but not her.

- My queen, - the young bailiff said, somewhat pompously. - I am at your service. Gotech?

- And me.

- Then I'm in, -Vittoria smiled.

- You will stay here, Donna - the queen said with a shake of her chin. - There are many bailiffs, but there is only one necromancer in the capital. Your departure will attract attention. But noble dons do not travel west alone. I've already enlisted another man in the case. You'll meet him on the road when you leave Dert through the west gate. The same man will give you additional information gathered by my spies and mages.

Luca emerged from the kitchen, solemnly carrying a silver platter in his front paws, on which stood plates of squirming sausage and appetizers.

- Oh, here is the food! - The young queen was genuinely happy. - I can already smell that your servant is a great cook, Donna Vittoria. I shall have a quarter of an hour to taste his cooking.

It was a night Armando would remember for the rest of his life. And not only because of the abundance of fateful events, but also because that night he ate fried sausage and drank wine in the company of the queen, who kept with the hostess and other guests of the mansion on an equal footing, joked easily and praised the cooking of the dead orangutan butler ....