It had turned out there were a shocking number of ways to get killed practicing Basic Reanimation, a lot of them not even involving magic, from the long term effects of inhaling bone dust to the dangers of improperly scaffolded large skeletons. Alec and Holly impressed not just at the risks involved but how needlessly graphic a lot of the warnings were, or perhaps not. Their fellow students so far seemed the sorts to treat danger as a type of spice.

Mortimer had at least seemed pleased with how seriously they’d taken the reading. The alchemist walking out with them to lead them to their next lesson.

“It’s a bit of a walk.” The teacher apologised, “The bigwigs like to keep the alchemy lab far away from the other labs, just in case one of the explosions has a bad interaction with the reagents in the enchanting or reanimation labs. As if that would help if a vial of Banefire went critical.”

Holly watched him somewhat cautiously, “I take it that you’re also our alchemy teacher, Alchemist Mortimer?”

“Quite. As well as enchantment. Archmage Merida believes in a combined arms approach as it were, so a teacher who could cover all aspects of modern undead construction was vital.”

“Shouldn’t we break for lunch?” Alec asked rather hopefully.

That took Mortimer by surprise, “Technically yes. But students seldom have any appetite after reanimation classes. I can’t begin to imagine why. I’ve found scheduling alchemy lessons immediately after nets us a good extra half hour of lab time.”

“Well this student needs food or their concentration will be absolutely awful.” The teen declared, arms folded.

Holly huffed out a laugh, “Brin was very clear that only ogres got to turn food into magic.”

“I’m just looking to turn it into not being hungry.” Alec replied.

Mortimer sighed, “Well it had to happen eventually. Fine, you and your iron stomach go eat. But Holly can stay and...”

“Actually I die if I get too far away from him.” Holly interjected.

“I thought Merida had fixed… oh very well. I will see you after lunch in Alchemy Lab Three.” Mort groused. “If nothing else it will give me time to make more memory blank spheres.”

“One final thing…” Alec began, “where is Alchemy Lab Three?”

The alchemist gnawed at his lip a moment as he debated his answer, “When in the Necropolis, seek and ye shall find.” He gave a somewhat helpless shrug, “We’re not at Umbral Temple levels of bizarre geography but the place does have its moods. And its favourites. As long as you have a destination in mind you will more often than not find where you seek.”

“I was more thinking you might have a map?” Alec suggested weakly. “And maybe something less cryptic. Like what makes the Umbral Temple so weird and the Necropolis less weird?”

Mortimer facepalmed, “Paladin born, my mistake. The Umbral Temple has no set geography, it can change its layout on a whim, and the building is intelligent enough to have whims. The Necropolis has a set floorplan, there’s just spells in place to limit what you can see at any given time, but if you know it’s there then it can’t hide it from you.”

“Except we don’t know where Alchemy Lab Three is.” Holly protested, “So the fact we’ll be able to see it isn’t exactly helpful.”

Mort shook his head, “You’re not getting it. The Necropolis reflects you, there’s a spell and everything, the more scared you are, the scarier it is, etc, but what happens when you’re really focused on finding a room? The only path available will be to the room, Brin’s gotten almost concerningly good at it. Now off with you both, if you can’t find it after all that then you’re too dumb to be allowed in an alchemy lab.”

The duo didn’t need any more encouragement to hurry away, waiting until they’d turned at least two corners to come to slow to a walk and talk as they went, retracing their steps from earlier to seek out the common room.

“It’s not here.” Holly said simply, shaking her head in quiet disappointment.

“Most likely not.” Her partner agreed, “Some of that could be useful. But the undead themselves… no.”

“How was your mana bath?” Holly asked quietly, not missing the way Alec flinched at the question.

“It was… what we’re looking for. Also unpleasant.”

The dryad nodded slowly, “You don’t have to do it if it’s that bad, we’ll find another way. If we head back to Seruatis they’ll probably have their own ideas.”

Alec sighed, sorely tempted as his brain and his desires warred, and it had to be said his desire to avoid being tortured had a damn good argument, “We’re here now, and it works. Besides with the bond so fragile, having Merida on hand to do… whatever it is she did. It’s helpful.”

“I can’t disagree with any of that but still… what if it isn’t here at all?” Holly inquired softly.

“Then we look somewhere else.” Alec said simply. “It’s like you told me in Avalon. One day it will be our turn. I just don’t see how Erebus… became Erebus in this place.”

“I hate to say it, but I don’t actually recall him using necromancy one time in front of us. Do you?”

“Once. Just once, before you and I met. When he bound Ente into the soul jar.” Alec admitted. “Other than that… not once. Huh.”

“It’s weird.” Holly agreed, “Everyone talks about him as a necromancer first and foremost, yet he didn’t do any necromancy.”

“Or we’re missing something.” Alec suggested.

“Or we’re missing something.”

“How are you feeling though? Are you getting enough mana?” The teenager checked, aware that for all Holly hadn’t been effectively waterboarded she’d still had her own trials and travails this morning.

“Sore.” She admitted, “And honestly just… frustrated. We’re at the Necropolis and it feels like we’re learning nothing. The good news is Master Vee seems to know what he’s doing at least.”

“That’s something. And we are learning nothing, and it doesn’t make it less frustrating that there are good reasons for it. We’ve just got to power through. And doesn’t for a second think I didn’t notice you dodging. Are you getting enough mana Holly?”

“Yeah. It’s just weird is all. I can feel the bond is still gossamer thin yet I’m not even having to fight to get enough to live.”

“I thought you said Merida’s magic had run its course?” Alec queried, the teenager’s brow almost comically furrowed in confusion.

“I did. No offence to Mortimer but he doesn’t seem exactly… stable.”

“I got that too.” Holly’s host admitted, “Anything else worth noting?”

“Nothing that I’d be prepared to say in public.”

“Until later then.” Alec agreed with a nod as they came to a stop in front of the common room, and far earlier than Holly had been expecting. “He was right. Focus on the destination and you get there.”

“You’re about to turn this into some kind of philosophical point aren’t you?” Holly groused.

“Of course not.” Alec lied, stepping into the lunch edition of the common room.

*

Alchemist Mortimer took a deep swig from his flask as he hovered over his work, the Elixir of Confidence was a powerful and often dangerous tool, especially when the person taking it had built up such a tolerance. There was a non-neglible chance that Mortimer could have taken a swim in one of the vats with little fear of overdose and the effects burned out fast these days.

“You really shouldn’t be working taking that.” Merida noted, placing a hand comfortingly on his shoulder before slowly applying force enough to drag him away from hunching over the delicate sphere he’d been siphoning a translucent blue liquid into.

Mortimer slowly and carefully guided the remaining potion out of the air and into the bottle with a wave of his hand before stoppering it firmly. Only then did he let himself relax, confidence was one thing, but mishandling a Draught of Amnesia was pushing past overconfidence into an elaborate form of suicide.

“You know we need these.” The alchemist pointed out as he stared down at the incomplete memory blank sphere. “I’ve never seen students burn through so many in a single day. It’s not just the pair of them. The gossip about them alone has forced us to wipe the class’s memory twice and if Hope weren’t damn good at keeping her mouth shut I’d refuse to be in the room with her at this point.”

“Yes our little spider really is proving to be the model necromancer. I always suspected but it’s nice to have it confirmed.” Archmage Merida agreed with a slight smile. “What was your own impression of Erebus’ wayward apprentices?”

“They’re arrogant.” Mortimer said, “Studious but I’ve never seen an apprentice necromancer with so much contempt for the art.”

The elf snorted out a laugh, “They insulted Walter didn’t they?”

“They did.” The alchemist grumbled, “The nerve of them! They who have not so much as charmed a wisp!”

Merida laughed, “Walter is an incredibly powerful weapon that shall serve the Necropolis for centuries if not millenia to come. He’s also a child’s toy that I could snap in half.”

Mortimer nearly spat out an insult before thinking better of it, “You’re an archmage. That’s different.”

“Very true. They’re just children Mort. They don’t know how to cope with it.”

“Cope with what, archmage?”

“The terror. The first time I grasped my own insignificance was against a sidhe lord. I say against, I was so unprepared I didn’t even realise it was happening. We’d camped in a forest clearing. Well I say we, it was me, my master and scores of zombies… it was summer so I won’t even describe the stench to you...” Over a thousand years after the fact a shudder ran down Merida’s spine.

“I was on watch that night.” She continued. “Well I and the undead. But there were these noises coming from the woods, footsteps, twigs snapping underfoot, leaves crackling. I’d have suspected a dryad but… the zombies weren’t reacting. It was like they couldn’t hear it at all.

“If I’d known then what I know now, I’d have woken my master in a heartbeat. But she’d been taking on the manticore’s share of the workload for weeks by that point and she was so obviously close to burning out and we were a week’s travel from any of the battlefronts. It should have been safe.”

Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

“But it wasn’t.” Mort concluded, saying the obvious if just to have a part in the coversation.

“But it wasn’t.” The elderly elf confirmed, “I… was foolish. I was only in my seventies back then, barely an adult, and I thought I was so damn smart. So like an idiot I went to investigate the sounds, in the middle of a forest, not even on a trail, at night.” She snorted with unfeigned derision at her younger self. “If anything I was lucky it was a trap or they’d probably still be looking for me now.”

“I followed the sound of footsteps for I don’t know how long… but long enough that I wasn’t surprised that the sky began to lighten. That should have been a huge clue that something was wrong… that I’d been entranced. But that’s the nature of that sort of thing, once it has you it’s almost impossible to notice. Especially if you’re a naive apprentice who’s never faced another magical creature in combat.

“Anyway, at some point the trees thinned again, I heard voices and laughter, and I burst into a new clearing. There was a table in the middle of the clearing. No that’s a lie. There was my table there. The one my friends and I would eat at during the evening’s here in the Necropolis. It’s long gone now alas but I remember it so clearly. The way the varnish had worn through, the corner where Elia and Orthon had put a heart around their names...”

Merida forced a brittle smile, “Stop looking so scared Mort, I’m not going to kill you for hearing this. I’m just trying to help give you some perspective. Now where was I? Oh yes…

“There was a man at the head of the table, clad in a thick cloak of raven’s feathers… the most beautiful person I’d ever seen. I remember feeling wetness on my cheeks and raising my hand to find tears at the mere sight of him, and he welcomed me as a friend… beckoning me to the table to sit with the others feasting there.” The archmage’s bitter chuckle was a thing of horror. “Noone had ever warned me about the fae. Why would they? The Era of Invasion was such a faded memory the only living, or unliving, souls that recalled it were safely ensconced in Seruatis.

“Even if I’d known though… I suspect it wouldn’t have mattered. Corbeau’s enchantment and glamour were just too strong and besides, it was so good to see my friends again. They were all there, waiting for me to join them, and happy to see me too...” She shook her head, as if trying to shake off cobwebs. “Have you ever been enchanted Mortimer?”

“I’ve dosed myself with hallucinogens during a potion spill… but enchanted… no I’ve never had that dubious pleasure, archmage.”

“It’s like the most amazing dream you’ve ever had.” Merida said with fond reminiscence on one of her greatest traumas. “Everything just makes sense. I didn’t question why Orthon was there. Why Johann was there, despite knowing for a fact he was a hundred miles away tending to our wounded and Brigg had disappeared without trace almost a year ago. I didn’t even question why the sun was blue.” She paused, “I left out that part didn’t I? Well it doesn’t matter beyond proving that I’d entered Avalon without noticing. “

“Avalon has a blue sun?” Mortimer interjected, “I don’t recall that mentioned anywhere.”

“It’s blue if a sidhe lord in their private demesne decides it is.” The archmage said darkly. “The point is that I sat down to eat with the fae lord. Or at least I sat down.”

“It was such a silly thing you know, the food was there and it looked and smelt glorious, everyone was tearing into and having fun and I wanted to join in. I really did. But my parents, Martyr watch over them, for the first fifty years of my life always insisted that you always waited for the host to eat first, and Corbeau wasn’t eating. Just watching me. Sometimes it really is the stupidest thing that will save your life.”

“I remember being mortified when he frowned at the sight of me not eating. ‘Young Merida, why do you not partake?’ He asked me. He had such a lovely voice, like someone had somehow figured out how to turn chocolate and honey into sound. And I answered that he had not yet given me leave to eat.”

“Then he smiled and everything was okay again… ‘So good and rare’ He said, ‘to find one so mannerly in this waning age. Worry not Merida. If the food was not there to be eaten, why would it be there?’ The bastard.”

It took Mortimer a few moments to piece together the puzzle. “He never explicitly said you could eat.” The alchemist noted. “No guest right. Which would have prevented him from harming you. And there was something wrong with the food, poison?”

“Precisely. Alas I didn’t spot it myself. I had a haunch of rabbit about an inch from my lips when I retched. I like to think even then I was fairly numb to bad odours, Hells above and below, I led zombies for necromancy’s sake! But still to go from sumptuous feast to being surrounded by rotting corpses was… jarring.”

“You threw up.” Mort concluded.

“Copiously.” Merida admitted. “When I finally looked up from the mess I’d made of the meal before me the glamour had broken. Yet my friends were still there. I was sat next to Brigg. She was putrid, just left in the sun to rot, insects crawling out of her eye sockets. It was vile. I’d later find out that over thirty apprentices had been kidnapped over the previous three months. Pretty much my entire generation of necromancers wiped out.”

“The Paladin Order has always had a knack for subterfuge no matter what they claim.” The alchemist opined.

“You’d think so but no. They lost over fifty squires to Corbeau as well. No. It wasn’t just the first time I learned helplessness, it was the first time I saw real genuine evil. He hadn’t done it because of some ideology or to alter the outcome of the war, he’d just been bored. Ironically even the Paladin Order was so horrified, and grateful that he was stopped, that we got a ceasefire out of it.”

“So how did you stop him?” Mortimer asked, increasingly enthralled now he wasn’t worried for his life.

“Oh, I didn’t. The bad smell was where reality had reasserted itself. When I recovered enough to turn around she was just standing there. Yttrian the Adamantine-”

“May she rest in peace.” Her audience added swiftly, only to get a semi-amused snort from the annoyed archmage.

“She’s not dead. Just thinking.” Merida told Mort sharply. “One barely dares to fathom what she must be contemplating to occupy her so.”

Whatever first came to the alchemist’s mind he clearly thought better of it, only half opening his mouth before firmly shutting it again. “Of course archmage.”

It said a lot about that esteem that the Archmage of Myriad Arts held poor Mortimer that she accepted that on face value. “Anyway. There she was Yttrian the Adamantine… in the flesh. Well the bones at least and she was… hideous. Have you ever seen her Mort?”

“I’ve not had that pleasure archmage, but I’ve seen sketches.” He assured her.

“They don’t do her justice. She is the most unsightly undead you will ever lay eyes upon, even now I’ve yet to meet her equal on that front, and I’ve tended to zombies that got lost in a swamp for weeks.” Merida said, warming back to her story. “Her entire skeleton is warped, not a bone in the right shape and her skull… it’s like someone blew up then deflated a bladder. Every time she moves there’s the dull rasp of metal grinding on metal.

“I think that was part of how she shattered Corbeau’s glamour so easily. No idyllic vision could ever hope to accommodate her. No amount of endorphins pumped directly into my brain could downplay the shock. And when I looked around.” Merida cut herself off, taking a deep breath before powering through. “When I looked around, well I’ve already told you. They never named it you know. It’s always bothered me, you’d think near an entire generation of young mages and paladins being murdered in cold blood would get a name… I’ve tried a few times but none of them ever really stuck.”

“Archmage… you’re really starting to scare me here.” Mortimer interrupted. “Why are you telling me these things?”

“Because everyone needs someone to talk to.” Merida admitted with a wan smile and a shrug. “And of the people I respect, you are the one that could never pose a threat to me.”

“We’ve known each other over a decade, why open up now?” The alchemist asked, still looking uneasy.

“Many reasons, some I won’t tell you, some I can’t tell you, and some I’m merely not allowed to tell you.” The elf said with a smile, “So we’ll stick to just the obvious two. Firstly the impersonal one, Holly and Alec will likely prove the most trying students the Necropolis has faced since Sigisbald the Ravening and Morgana Jotunsdottir.”

There was a slight pause as Merida sought some sort of comprehension in her friend’s face. “Too old a reference? Hmm… okay, since the Six Sins studied here.”

That at least provided a frame of reference. “You can’t be serious archmage. I get that they’re… troubled but surely they’re not ‘six demons learning necromancy’ levels of bad?”

Merida shook her head in soft amusement at what she could only describe as youthful naivety. “My friend, they will likely be an order of magnitude worse. Were they anything less than an archmage’s apprentice I would likely kill them for fear of the number of spinning plates they could unbalance. And yet- and yet. I have seen so many students come and go, and I haven’t seen this much raw potential since my last apprentice. And I don’t mean their magicka, or their talents and knowledge, all of those are things you can give a person if you choose too. But that will… that drive… I see what Erebus saw in them.”

“You mentioned a second reason?”

“Oh that. I just need to be sure I haven’t gone completely mad while I wasn’t looking. Mostly mad is still acceptable.” Merida waited a beat. “That was a joke Mort.”

The alchemist managed to force a chuckle. “Of course archmage. Very droll.”

“Is my reputation really that bad?” Merida inquired, trying not to look too put out by the thought.

“No archmage, but it doesn’t imply that you tell jokes either.” The alchemist reassured her.

“So even worse.” She mused, “Very well. Clearly I well have to take measures to increase my perceived jocularity. Perhaps a hat?”

Sometimes an expression could say volumes that words could not.

“Definitely not a hat then. I’ll think of something. Now where was I? Ah yes, Yttrian...”

*

Yttrian the Adamantine was, even by the reserved standards of the dead, not much of a talker. The lich saying nary a word as she strode between Corbeau and the young elf apprentice, and the fact the table was between them didn’t even slow her down. The beautiful wood crumbling to splinters in apparent defiance of physics.

The truth was that there wasn’t any wood there in the fast place. Corbeau’s private demesne in Avalon was little more than his will made manifest beyond some plunder and trophies. Which probably explained why the sidhe lord looked so pained as part of his imagination was crushed to splinters as Yttrian just overrode his reality by sheer force of will.

Despite that there was a triumphant gleam in the sidhe lord’s eyes as he stared down the disfigured lich. “Yttrian the Adamantine, you have violated guest right here in the very heart of my home. What say you?”

“No.”

That puzzled the ancient fae, of the many responses he’d been prepared for, the thousand retorts and rejoinders he’d readied to play with the surprisingly large fish that had somehow ended up on his hook, a blatant denial of reality was not one of them. “No? What do you mean no? Your crimes are self-evident.”

“No. To violate guest-right one needs be a guest first. I came here with no such intent.” Yttrian explained patiently. “You will release the bodies of our apprentices and Merida shall leave unharmed.”

“The guest right was implied when you entered my home.” Corbeau tried again, sweat beading on his forehead. Merida hadn’t known at the time what was taxing him so. Education on the fae and Avalon really had been dire back in her youth.

In one simple statement Yttrian had sidestepped a lot of the power the fae held in this place. The obligations of guest and host were a physical thing in Avalon, and now they held no power over her. Or offered any protection, but the lich was not someone who needed protecting.

“You say you implied it. I did not infer it. Your invitation was lacking.”

“Then I invite you now.” Corbeau declared. It was a clumsy move. Even if Yttrian had accepted it would have done little more than put them on a level footing, her past indiscretions made irrelevant.

It was a moot point anyway, the metal coated skeleton staring the sidhe lord down for a single contemptuous moment before stating simply. “I decline.”

The lord of ravens’ features darkened with rage as he waved a hand in Yttrian’s direction. “Then begone.”

And nothing happened. The sidhe tried a second time to do… whatever it was he was attempting, to similar effect, the adamantine clad lich just staring at him with a bemused tilt to her skull. “I’ve heard performance issues aren’t uncommon, especially for someone of your advancing years.”

“You-!” The fae did probably the worst thing he could do in the circumstances and lost his temper, crossing the distance in a moment to slam a fist into the lich’s ribs with a force that sent a shockwave through the air great enough to throw Merida from her feet… and break every single bone in Corbeau’s hand.

The sidhe lord’s scream of agony echoed through the clearing as he stared at his mangled hand, trying to just imagine it better, but it just wasn’t happening.

He’d never have the chance to figure out why either, Yttrian didn’t cast a spell, uttered no words of power or binding, the lich simply placed a hand either side of the Lord of Ravens head and pulled until with a grisly squelch and crunch it ripped free of the rest of his body. The fae’s wide eyes staring uncomprehendingly at his fallen form as the light faded from them.

Contemptuously the lich discarded the fae’s head next to the rest of the corpse, and for a few moments Merida wondered how she planned to transport it out of there. A sidhe lord’s body would be an incredible boon to the Necropolis, even in death Corbeau’s corpse would have limited reality warping effects if properly refined.

Given the state of the war the sidhe lord could prove vital. Which was why she wasn’t even slightly prepared as flames leapt from Yttrian’s outstretched hand to begin scorching the Lord of Ravens to little more than ash before scattering them with a gust of summoned wind.

Only then did the lich acknowledge the slack-jawed apprentice. “Come girl, your master is worried for you.” Ytrrian offering a hand to the trembling elf, helping her out of her chair and leading her out of Avalon.

*

“I don’t get it.” Mort said simply.

“Oh. Well I suppose that’s my fault.” Merida sighed. “The point was that Alec and Holly have seen real evil, felt real helplessness, and that it leaves scars. It took me centuries before I stopped seeing Brigg’s rotted face the majority of nights. But that’s what you’re dealing with, not arrogant children who don’t know any better, but terrified ones that do, and have no idea how to handle it.”

The alchemist took a few moments to digest the lesson. “So what do you recommend?”

“That you try and show them something that will make them feel safer.”

Mortimer snorted, “It’s Basic Reanimation archmage, there’s really not that much I can do.”

“Not an unreasonable observation.” The elf agreed, “But still… if you can think of anything, please do so.”

She received a respectful nod as Mortimer turned back to his work, the memory blank sphere opening back up as he began to siphon the alchemicals into it once more. At least for a couple seconds before he closed it again to turn to the elf already at the door.

“...Archmage…? How many times have we had conversations like this?”

“Enough to think of you fondly Mortimer.” Merida assured him.