“Open your mouth, and take a deep breath.”

The corpse does nothing, lying on the stone table lifelessly as it has been. I suppose he must have been a rebellious man in life. That’s fine, though. Just means he’ll need some encouragement.

“Herodotus of Thebes,” I say loudly, adjusting the protective talisman around my neck, just in case. “I am Drakon of Deimos, magician of the high court. Next to me is my assistant, Philon of Phobos. We are here to learn the identity of your killer, so we may deliver justice and retribution on your behalf.”

Still nothing from the corpse. I see its muscles constrict and tighten, its pale brow crease. I can’t tell whether it’s from frustration or worry, but the body is determined to remain tight-lipped.

Normally, this is where I’d throw in the towel, and just move on. Some corpses, for whatever reason, are determined to not speak a word to me. Despite my reputation among the nobles as the necromancer who interrogates the dead, it’s not nearly as simple or straightforward as that. When you interrogate a living person, you can sequester them, torture them, glean intimate information from the recesses of their mind in any number of ways. The dead are far more stubborn. You will only learn from a dead man exactly what he is willing to tell you. Even then, the dead do not speak clearly, and everything they say must be deciphered and interpreted. There are murders every day in Alexandria, and I simply do not have the time to earn every corpse’s trust. If they want to talk, I will listen. If they don’t, I will find another body that will.

But this man is different. He was a nobleman in life, an advisor to King Ptolemy the Younger, son of Ptolemy the Elder. Thus his murder is a political matter, and carries far-reaching implications. The King himself has tasked me with finding his killer, and relieved me of all my other duties until this murder is resolved. Which, of course, makes his silence thus far rather irritating.

I crane my neck to do a quick survey of the room. The two guards who found the body while on their usual patrol of the Pharos, the head lightkeeper, and a magistrate who was brought to identify the body. Any of them could be a potential reason why the corpse remains silent, and any of them could be the potential killer, however unlikely.

“Would you mind leaving the two of us alone with the body?” I ask the rest of the room. 

“Are you certain that’s wise?” The magistrate asks. His name is Theodosios, I think, if I remember correctly. “Didn’t you say that the recently murdered carried a great anger in their souls, enough to attack anyone who tries consulting with them?”

“It is,” I reply. “And I have taken certain measures. But I must ask, out of curiosity: if his body in death rises up to strike me, what exactly would you do to prevent it?”

The magistrate’s got nothing to say to that. He huffs annoyedly, turning to leave the room along with the others. All of them hesitated before doing so—I don’t think any of them have seen a ritual like this take place. All for the better, honestly—I hate feeling like I’m putting on a show.

“It seems every day you make a new enemy in the court,” My young assistant sighs after the door closes behind them.

“I have no enemies in the court,” I return. “I’m the only man in all of Alexandria who can run these little errands for them. That means they have to be nice to me, and put up with my every eccentricity. And besides, they have each other to hate—far more exciting and important enemies to have than a shut-in who whispers to corpses.”

“Fair enough,” Philon shrugs. He’s a young man of twenty, with neat brown curls of hair that must make him popular with the ladies. I still have no idea what possessed a man of his age and good looks to pursue this line of work. But then again, I am here, too, in spite of everything.

We both grew up here, in Alexandria, but the men of the court have taken to calling me Drakon of Deimos, as if I was not from anywhere, but birthed straight from Olympus or Hades, depending on how you viewed my work. Son of Deimos, grandson of Ares. I never understood the moniker—why not Drakon of Demeter, or Charon, or any of the other chthonic gods? Certainly that would be more fitting than the son of Ares for one who has never fought in war. Whatever the reason, the nickname has stuck, and so my ever-loyal apprentice has taken it upon himself to don the name Philon of Phobos, after Deimos’ brother. His sentiment behind it is not completely clear, but I appreciated the gesture nonetheless. We have been an inseparable duo since he first asked to apprentice under me two years ago, and he has been an indispensable asset to what I do.

With the distractions gone, I return to the body.

“They’re all gone now,” I tell it. “You can speak freely, even whisper if you fear them eavesdropping.”

The room is silent. I wait in anticipation, my right hand trembling as I hold the defixio near his mouth, in case he opens it. Most defixiones were made of lead, making this one written on a flax leaf look strange in comparison. But then again, most defixiones were selfish in nature, made and used for the benefit of the necromancer rather than the dead. They were petitions to the chthonic gods, messages carried through the mouths of the deceased to be repeated in the Underworld. It was this practice that gave necromancy an unsavory reputation—most people didn’t like the idea of their dead ones being buried with lead slabs in their mouths so that some magician might enchant a woman’s heart or earn some fortune in gambling. 

I, however, in comparison to the other necromancers, have different goals, different aspirations. I have no desire to use the dead to make a woman love me, or to curse an enemy. It is this ‘integrity’, as the nobles put it, that has endeared them to me, and has granted me this privileged position in society. I have one job: to consult the spirits of murder victims, to then identify their killers. And I do it quite well.

After what feels like a lifetime of nervous anticipation, I see the cadaver’s mouth start to open, and I hear the body begin to draw a raspy breath. I rush to take advantage of the opportunity, fitting the leaf with the words AZĒL BALEMACHŌ inked upon it onto the dead man’s tongue.

As the body exhaled, the breath filtered through the leaf, turning it into words we could understand:

“Begone from me…”

Philon immediately starts writing the words down on a stack of papyrus. He takes his job as scribe very seriously, thank the Gods. I couldn’t tell you how many I hired and sacked before I found him.

I take a step back. Its first words to me were surprising, but not completely unexpected. Among the recently deceased who were murdered, many of them are not exactly friendly when I raise their soul from their corpse and make it speak. It is not necessarily that they cannot distinguish between friend and foe in their undeath—in fact, they are keenly aware of their surroundings. If you’re lucky, a spirit will remember the name or face of the one who killed them.

Despite this, many spirits are still resistant, even hostile to necromancers once their spirit is aroused from their body. Thankfully, I have worked long enough at this point to know how to deal with these setbacks. But his initial response still represents a rift between myself and Herodotus’ spirit, a hostility that could grow into something dangerous if not heeded. I need to be careful. 

“We are friends, Herodotus,” I remind the body, raising my open hands in the air to show that I carry no weapons. I keep my ceremonial sword close to me, however, just in case. It is a funny thing to any onlooker, to see a man who communes with spirits wield a sword. I myself am not quite sure how or why it works, but for whatever reason, a spirit does not fully understand that it is dead, or that it is incorporeal. It operates under the belief that it can still be harmed and killed, which is why I use a sword to deter any vengeful spirit from attacking me.

“No friends here,” Herodotus replies, each exhale from the cadaver producing a wheeze of whispered speech. “Only eels.”

I cock my head towards the mouth, trying to make everything out. The best necromancers tend to be the ones with the sharpest ears—it is no easy task to understand every word a corpse speaks, and the dead do not repeat themselves. Thankfully, Philon can hear better than I can at my age, and writes every word down in case I miss something.

“Eels?” I ask. “Where, and how many?”

“Eels… in the water… too many to count…”

“Eels, master?” Philon asks me, confused. The dead do not speak plainly—most of what they say comes out in metaphors and riddles. It is a necromancer’s job, then, to not only wake the soul from its body and have it speak, but to decipher the meaning behind its words.

“Our friend here died by the sea,” I tell my young apprentice. “Perhaps if he met his end elsewhere, he would speak of other serpents instead. What do you think an eel on land would be?”

Philon thinks for a moment.

“A snake,” he says, his eyes widening as he realizes. “Eels in the water—snakes in the grass.”

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I nod. ‘Snakes in the grass’ was a common phrase uttered by the dead. They did not mean literal snakes, of course. What they alluded to were traitors—corpses speaking of snakes in the grass often met their ends by the hands of those they trusted or loved.

“Herodotus,” I continue, slowly inching back towards the body so I can hear him better. “There are no more eels here, only two friends in this room. Friends who wish to help you, who wish to bring you vengeance.”

The key to getting what you want from a dead man is to give them what they want. This of course depends on the spirit, often informed by their personality in life. Each murder victim is different, but all of them have one thing in common: their spirits are not at rest. There is something they need to do, some goal they were unable to reach when they were struck down. For feisty spirits like this one, offering it a chance for revenge was the surest way of getting it to cooperate. 

“I understand you hesitated before,” I tell the body. “Was there an eel in the room with us before? Please tell me, Herodotus.”

The body says nothing at first. I see its chest rise with an inhale, hear the cold air move through its decaying windpipe. Its hand starts to rise towards my collar, trying to grab hold of me. Philon takes a step forward to protect me, but I raise my hand to stop him. It was risky to allow this to continue, but risks were often necessary to glean the deepest truths. I was determined to learn more at any cost, not only because he was an attendant to the King, but because he has piqued my interest. It’s a bad habit of mine—once something grabs me, I find I can’t let it go, no matter the consequences.

I let the body grab hold of my tunic, and I let it bring my head down next to the dead man’s face, my ear hovering just above its mouth. It begins to whisper to me, so quiet I can hardly hear it, despite my closeness. I recite every word to Philon, so that he may write it down. They come to my ears in windswept hisses, forming a cold and mystic tapestry in my mind:

A nettle’s scratch can form a mortal wound

A plot to slay a sister-loving King

Around he’ll walk to find the turtle’s tomb

Upon whose back lie three protective rings

A potter wanders towards the setting sun

To bed a lioness named Sipylene

And from his seed, the beast will bear three sons:

A wine-drunk sphinx, a boy with waxen wings

A polymath, the youngest of the three

Will share his brothers’ fate, just like all things

Κοινά τα φίλοι

As the corpse whispers those last three words to me, the door behind me opens, and the magistrate walks back in, the two guards on his heels just behind.

“What are you doing!?” I bark at them. “Get back outside!”

“You’ve had more than enough time alone with it,” The magistrate retorts. “Let me remind you that King Ptolemy has sent me here to oversee this whole operation—”

All of a sudden, the hand that gripped my tunic pulls me downwards towards the body, its jaws unhinging like a snake’s. I feel its teeth sink into the soft flesh of my neck, and I try in vain to grab the jaw with my hands and force it off me. My assistant rushes to my aid, grabbing the head from where I could not and wrenching my neck free from its grip on me. Free now, I back away, but not without consequence—my neck has been sliced by the corpse’s canines, bleeding profusely. I tear a length of my tunic off, and try to dam the flow of blood. The corpse writhes in a seizure on the table, its fury so terrible that its bones begin to tear from its flesh. Its skull shudders, then snaps, severing itself from its own neck. It hovers in the air, the rotting skin falling off the bone as it floats towards me.

The guards begin to take up arms, and I throw myself in front of them, blood still dripping from my wound.

“Back away!” I hiss at them. “So help me, if you interfere again, I will kill you myself! Out! All of you!”

The guards just stood there like idiots, frozen in fear. Trained killers that they are, no soldier is prepared to see a dead man’s skull tear itself from its body and attack someone.

“OUT!”

They listen, thank the Gods. The magistrate was the first one out the door, of course. I slam the door behind them.

“Stand in front of it,” I tell Philos. “And do not let so much as a mouse enter these chambers until the spirit is dealt with.”

Philon nods, and takes his place in front of the door.

“Master, you’re bleeding,” he tells me.

“Of course I’m bleeding,” I spit, taking the rag I’ve made of my tunic and pressing it hard against my neck. “Quiet now—let me concentrate.”

Philon nods, but I can see he’s still worried about me. I ignore it—things are dire now, and a single moment’s hesitation could be fatal.

“Herodotus,” I say, unsheathing my ceremonial sword and holding it aloft. “Your adversaries have left this place! There is no need for violence!”

“Καθεστώς!” The words spew from the skull’s mouth with so much vitriol that flames begin to spark between its teeth with each utterance. “Φιλάδελφια! Καταριέμαι εσένα και το άθλιο απόγονο σου!”

The skull lurches towards me, its teeth bared to maul me again. I thrust out with the sword, striking the skull. It screeches in pain and agony, a noise so violent it trembles my bones. The flames inside the skull sputter and die out, and the skull falls to the floor, lifeless again.

Philon jumps into action, grabbing the skull and returning it to the table, far from me.

“I’ve never seen anything like that before, master,” Philon says.

I lean back against the wall, clutching my neck. 

“Neither have I,” I return. “This was no normal murder. Get the others inside. Now.”

Philon does so. 

“You,” I say, gesturing to the lightkeeper. “Seal off the doors—lock the lighthouse down. No one but myself or my assistant enters or leaves this place until this is solved.

“But sir, there are civilians and tradesmen—”

“Do it now. I do not have the patience to be questioned.”

The lightkeeper swallows, but follows my order. I turn to one of the guards.

“You,” I say. “You know where the medic is?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Find him for me, will you? I seem to be losing a rather uncomfortable amount of blood. And once you do, return with him. So help me, if I do not see you back in here within a half-hour, I shall summon hellhounds to hunt you down and disembowel you.”

The guard nodded, and ran with a quickness that helped assure me he was not the source of Herodotus’ fury. That left the other guard, and of course, my prime suspect: the magister Theodosios. But my interrogation would have to wait—the wound I suffered was more extreme than I thought. I was starting to grow faint, my head swimming in my skull.

“Philon,” I call out as I crouch against the wall, tying the rag tight around my neck to try and stop the bleeding.

“Yes, master,” my apprentice replies, rushing to my side. 

“Listen to me,” I tell him. “I will be fine—the guard will be here with the medic soon. But the spirit might rise again, and I am losing my strength. I leave it in your custody—listen carefully to my instructions.”

“Are you sure?” Philon asked. The boy looks nervous—I have never sent him on an errand of this importance alone, and I have never been this gravely wounded during a seance, either.

“You’re the only one who can do this,” I reassure him, “And it needs to be done quickly. You’ll be fine. All you need is the skull—I still need to inspect the rest of the body for the injuries. But we cannot have the skull rave in foul speech any longer. Nor can we have it continue to maul and gnash its teeth, and threaten the safety of the innocents here in the lighthouse. Take the skull with you to the temple of Osiris. Gather a fistful of dirt from the graveyard—the choachyte will help you. You need to pour the dirt into its mouth—that should keep it from speaking.”

I reach into the folds of my tunic, producing a ring from my pocket. It is a restraining seal, wrought from cold iron to subdue a hostile spirit. It bears two magic engravings upon its face: a headless lion bearing a crown of Isis, trampling upon a skeleton, and an owl-eyed cat with its paw on a gorgon’s head. In a ring around both of them are written names of great power: IADŌR INBA NICHAIOPLĒX BRITH. 

“Place this into the mouth along with the dirt,” I instruct my apprentice. “And bury it deep in the earth.”

“And the rest of the body?”

“The rest we will bury later. Don’t worry about that. Oh, and one more thing.”

I bring Philon closer to me, whispering to him out of earshot of the other two.

“Upon your return, bring with you a band of able-bodied men, armed and armored,” I tell him. “Do not rely on the guard or the king’s soldiers—gather men you trust with your life, who carry no allegiance but to you as a friend. Do you know any such men?”

Philon swallows nervously, but he nods.

“Aye. I do.”

“Then hurry. We do not have much time.”

Philon grabs the ring from me, and rushes out the door. I clutch my head, trying to keep myself awake. The guard soon returns with the medic, and he begins tending to my wound. As he sews the gash in my neck closed, I grip my thigh with my free hand and grit my teeth. It doesn’t help the pain, not even a little.

All the while, the dead man’s cryptic poem swims in my mind. I have no idea what any of it means—I have heard no similar phrases from my other subjects, and a hundred questions dance in my head around each and every line. In the watery midst of all this mystery, however, there is one thing I’m certain of: it’s going to be a long night.