Have the gates of death been opened unto thee? or hast thou seen the doors of the shadow of death? -- Job 38:17, KJV
Abi woke up feeling simultaneously better and worse than when she'd gone to sleep. On the one hand Ilaran had confirmed that he believed Lian's story. On the other, she now had to deal with the fact that she and Ilaran were somehow telepathically linked. Then of course -- she almost thought "on the other hand" again, but then she remembered she'd run out of hands -- there was the possibility that Lian was possessed and might become a monster like the parasite -- or that he had been possessed at some point in the past, and in that case who had exorcised the parasite? Unless they were a phoenix immortal too, Abi sincerely doubted they'd destroyed it as thoroughly as she had.
For several minutes she lay still, trying to wrap her mind around the chaos of recent events. A sliver of doubt wormed its way to the front of her thoughts. Had she actually met and spoken to Ilaran telepathically or had that been another dream? Had everything, Lian included, been a dream?
At the back of her mind she could feel a faint telepathic presence. It was so distant that it took her a while to notice it. At first she mistook it for her aunt somewhere else in the palace. Then she realised that it was something different. Curiously she reached out to it. Her telepathy brushed against someone else's. She felt someone's surprise, then alarm, then mingled horror and dismay.
Abihira? Is that you? Ilaran's voice asked.
Abi's eyes snapped open and she sat up abruptly. In her room in Saoridhlém there was a map on the wall. She instinctively looked for it and felt initial confusion to find a painting of birds flying over a mountain instead. Then she remembered she was in Gengxin. Oh well. Even without checking on a map, she was absolutely certain that Tananerl was miles and miles away. Across the ocean, in fact. It should be impossible--
Yes, she said, finally remembering that Ilaran was waiting for an answer. Are you in Tananerl?
Of course. Where else would I be?
...I'm in Gengxin.
There was a brief and utterly horrified silence. Abi got a nasty shock when she realised Ilaran's emotions were bleeding through the telepathic connection. That was only supposed to happen between two people who were very close and had known each other for years -- usually twins or husband and wife.
All immortals were capable of telepathy. But usually they were only able to communicate reliably with close relatives who were in the same building. She'd never heard of anyone being able to talk to someone in another country and on another continent. It was impossible.
Everything today was impossible. Abi felt the beginnings of a terrible headache. Then she realised it wasn't entirely her headache.
Er, Ilaran? Can you feel what I'm feeling?
Unfortunately yes. I take it the same is true for you.
Just to be absolutely sure, since today was already so insane that she was no longer certain of things she'd once thought undeniable, Abi asked, This isn't normal, is it?
She felt Ilaran's incredulity as strongly as if it was her own. Are you an imbecile? Of course this isn't normal!
Then how do we stop it?
Another uncomfortable silence. Abi couldn't hear Ilaran's thoughts, but she could follow their general direction based on how he felt. First he was annoyed, then alarmed, then came a feeling of grim resignation.
I don't know. I've constructed the strongest mental shields I'm capable of and they haven't kept you out.
Abi winced. I'm sorry. I suppose this is all my fault.
Surprisingly Ilaran's reply was, I doubt it. You're not that powerful. No, I think this has something to do with Death. Or possibly the parasite.
That wasn't particularly reassuring when Abi knew they would never have met Death -- at least not under those circumstances -- and Ilaran would never gave gotten possessed if it wasn't for her necromancy.
Someone knocked at the door. It took Abi a second to realise it was her door and she wasn't hearing something happening in Ilaran's room.
Yes? she asked, and realised she was still speaking telepathically when she felt Ilaran's confusion. Sorry, I meant to say that to someone else. Aloud she repeated, "Yes?"
The door opened and one of her aunt's ladies-in-waiting stepped in. The woman wore the disapproving, judgemental expression that all of her aunt's servants wore around Abi. She didn't know how much they knew about why she was in trouble, but clearly they knew enough to dislike her.
"A message has arrived from someone calling himself Prince Mirio. I understand he is one of your friends." The woman sniffed disapprovingly, giving the impression that she thought anyone who was friends with Abi was not the sort of person she wanted to have anything to do with. "Here."
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She handed over a sheet of paper as gingerly as if it was a live scorpion. As soon as Abi took it the woman left the room with another disdainful sniff. Abi suppressed the urge to ask her if she had a cold.
Ilaran's presence at the back of her mind was faint now that she wasn't actively communicating with him. She got the impression he was doing his best to ignore her existence. Out of curiosity she reached out telepathically and got a strange feeling of reading endless information on crops and expected harvests. She immediately lost interest and turned her attention to Mirio's letter.
It was short and written in Saoridhian. Apparently Mirio had suspected Aunt Jiarlúr would want to read it before allowing it to be delivered to Abi. It also didn't make any sense when she first read it.
Abi, I've found the book you wanted to borrow. I'll give it to you when I next see you.
For an embarrassingly long time Abi puzzled over this message before she remembered the code Azurin and Seitomu had invented years ago. They had written each other messages in Seroyawan, but had added flourishes to the characters that were actually Saoridhian letters. Using this code they'd managed to plan an elaborate prank while in different cities by sending each other seemingly mundane messages. Unfortunately for them they'd forgotten that most of their family spoke Saoridhian, and when one of the letters fell into Kiriyuki's hands... Well, the prank hadn't gone the way they intended.
Abi looked more closely at the letters. Sure enough, they were oddly shaped and ran into each other. Someone unfamiliar with Mirio's writing would assume he was simply not good at writing Saoridhian. Abi knew better. She recognised the apparent mistakes as simplified Seroyawan characters. At once she saw the real message. Come at once. Where we met before. Urgent.
The last time Mirio had described something as urgent, the main palace's roof had been cracked in an earthquake and there was a very real chance it would collapse on top of the politicians' heads. Abi paled as she considered what sort of situation he might describe as urgent this time.
Her aunt was nowhere to be seen, thank all the gods, and the servants looked at her disapprovingly but gave her a wide berth. She got out of the guest palace without any difficulty and made her way to the garden where she'd met Mirio before. She both was and wasn't surprised when she rounded a corner and saw Mirio and Lian waiting together. Neither of them had spotted her yet.
Abi backed out of sight and reached out to Ilaran. Excuse me? Ilaran?
In reply she got the telepathic equivalent of someone groaning in despair. What is it now? I'm busy.
Sorry to disturb you again, Abi said sheepishly, but I'm about to meet Lian -- I mean Imrahil. And I thought that if anyone would be able to tell if he's possessed, well...
Ilaran's initial exasperation turned to consideration. I suppose you have a point. Possibly! he added hastily in response to Abi's immediate relief. I don't know one way or the other!
For a few minutes he and Abi had a hasty discussion about what to do if Lian did turn out to be possessed, and also what to do if it turned out he wasn't. Finally Abi said, We'd better go.
Wait a minute.
She couldn't see what Ilaran was doing, but she got the impression he was moving around a room. What are you doing?
I was reading last year's reports, he said, but I can't do that while also watching you, I don't know how long this meeting will take, and it would raise questions if my servants walked in and found me staring at the wall. So I'm going to lie down and pretend to be asleep.
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Lian had thought out how to explain everything. The best way to describe it would be to recount his entire life before banishment, he decided. The trouble was that he knew now, with a thousand years' distance and the benefit of hindsight, that there was no way he came out of that saga looking good.
He leant on the side of the bridge and watched the fish in the stream below as he contemplated this.
Better to tell the truth. Gilreon is still alive-- Even after so many years the thought of his half-brother left a sour taste in Lian's mouth, --and our parents. If I lie she'll find out and then she'll never trust me.
It was naïve to think he would ever be welcomed back by his family. The best he could hope for was to stay on relatively good terms with his only relative who was both likely to listen and also the current white crow of the family. And the only way he was likely to stay on good terms with her would be by not telling easily-disproved lies.
Anyway, she was unlikely to object to him necromancy when she was a necromancer herself. Maybe there was something in their family that just predisposed them to this specific sort of dark magic.
Behind him he heard rather than saw Mirio stand up from where he'd been sitting on the other side of the bridge. Lian straightened up and saw Abi approaching. He blinked and looked again. There was something else strange about her magic now. It was as if hers was intertwined with someone else's.
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After his first experiment Imrahil continued using necromancy on himself. He found that it was possible to shut down parts of his body while keeping the rest alive, and that he could restart them again without suffering any permanent ill-effects. In hindsight it was inevitable that he would do something spectacularly stupid. The infuriating thing was that it should have been so easy to avoid.
One night at a particularly boring party he practiced stopping his heart again. Then he was called on to intercede in a dispute between two of his cousins, and he completely forgot to restart it. As always he felt perfectly healthy. He went home and went to bed without remembering what he'd done.
That was how he discovered that his necromancy was only effective at keeping him alive while he was awake and unconsciously controlling it. Imrahil fell asleep and opened his eyes in a vast and unfamiliar room. He leapt up with a startled shriek. Behind him someone clapped slowly.
"Congratulations," a strange young woman said. Well, "young" was a rather vague description. One minute she looked very young, the next very old. "You're the first person I've ever met who's committed accidental suicide by necromancy."
Imrahil stared at her. Then he looked around at the room, the throne, and the scythe sitting beside her chair. He took a deep breath and was alarmed to find no air filled his lungs. "Who are you, where am I, and what happened?"
"I told you. I'm Death, you're in my realm, and you're here because you killed yourself in one of the most ridiculous ways I've ever seen. And now I have to send you back because you aren't supposed to die for a very long time. Have you any idea how much extra work you've given me because you couldn't leave well enough alone?"
With every word Imrahil felt more and more as if he was in a dream. "I don't understand," he said faintly.
Death gave him a smile with a distinctly unpleasant edge to it. "You will soon. I suppose it's too much to expect you to stop meddling with things you don't understand, but hopefully you won't be so foolish again."
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Imrahil was nowhere to be seen at breakfast. This was unusual enough to raise suspicions. He was always punctual, in keeping with his image as the perfect son. A servant went to fetch him after breakfast. She found him still in bed, lying perfectly still and deadly cold.
The uproar that followed this discovery was equalled only by the uproar that ensued when he sat up.