Before he even attempted to remove his prosthetic, Idris watched Kurellan set up the stool outside the cell door and seat himself so he was facing the wall.

“Is this necessary?” Kurellan said.

“Only to save my pride,” said Idris. “Thank you. I will answer any questions the Queen had.”

He carefully moved the bowl of clean water to his left side, watching the taut chains between his wrists, and selected a cloth and sap to begin the cleaning. With only one more look at Kurellan’s stout back, Idris unbuttoned his boot, revealing the metal skeleton of the prosthetic underneath. The cup at the top, attached to his flesh-and-blood shin by straps and buckles, was dark and sticky.

“Her Majesty asked where Lila is,” said Kurellan.

Idris sighed. “I left her at an abandoned farmhouse, where the carriage fell. She did not know my intention was to come and find you alone. She said you told her she could not return if she came for me.”

“That’s true enough.”

Idris wiped the cup clean, first. With the blood coating it, it was difficult to tell if it would slide off easily or not. The cloth came back with maroon stains.

“She also asked if Captain Farley survived,” said Kurellan.

“He did not. No.”

“Did you find the body?”

“Yes. He had a deep –” Idris bit the end of his sentence off as he manoeuvred the cup from the stump. The pain, the smell, it was too much. His gag reflex almost got the better of him, but he managed to turn it into a dry retch. “Sorry,” he said at last.

“Do you need assistance?”

“No. Thank you. That is the worst part, I think.” He investigated the fake foot. Congealing blood was pooled in the cup with the herbs he had previously stuffed in there, but the rest of it was unharmed. Gently, he lifted his stump to his lap and poured water over it. It stung, but it was no worse pain than he had just endured. “Anyway. He had a deep incision in his neck which, unless I am mistaken, a spirit could not do alone. In fact, most all of the soldiers and horses were killed by something sharp and pointy, not from some terrible necrotic magic.”

Kurellan said nothing for a while. Idris tended gently to the skin of his stump, feeling how sore and swollen it was. The cut that had bled all down his leg was from one of the straps, biting under the buckle and chafing a hole in his skin. It was open and seeping, still, but it was better that the good flesh was bleeding than the necrotised. Fresh bruises and scraped-off calluses plagued the stump end. In a perfect world, he would keep the prosthetic off for a week, maybe more.

He pasted the sap onto the wound, hissing with the sudden tingling pain, and rubbed the rest around the stump. Maybe if he tied it into a bag and placed it back in, it would give the skin time to heal.

“She wanted to know,” Kurellan said, “if you were well.”

“Well enough.”

“And if you had the opportunity to investigate the site before you were apprehended.”

“I did.”

“And?”

“And, it does look like some form of necromancy. The signs were there, rotted food, sour wine. But there were hallmarks of regular warfare, too. Weapon racks burned and melted. Horses slaughtered. I do not believe that necromancy alone killed those men.”

Kurellan shuffled, seemingly curious, but Idris cleared his throat and said, “May I remind you that I will only co-operate if you do not turn around.”

The old man tutted. “She then said that she would bring you to a just trial if I had any proof.”

“Well, there is some circumstantial evidence. I would not blame you.”

“Necromancers –” Kurellan started, and Idris scoffed and rolled his eyes.

“Oh yes, we are all the same. Depraved, power-hungry maniacs who live only to destroy.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to relieve the headache that would not go away. He did not really want to lose his temper. “Kurellan… we have worked together now for several years. Have I not always done whatever was asked? Am I not diligent in the work of the kingdom? What possible motive would I have to kill a barracks full of men that the Queen wanted us to assist? To bring back to the kingdom to help us?”

“You think me a fool –”

“And you think me to be much worse than I actually am. When you look at me, you see a black stain. You have never given me even half of a chance,” Idris snapped. “You see a tool. A distasteful tool that you use when you want to and discard when it seems my taint might rub off on you. But you are not the first and you will not be the last. You think I want this? Do you think I wake daily and I am glad to be the way I am? Let me assure you, I do not and I am not. If I had my way, I would have been an aria healer in Marbury with my uncle and I would have been glad for it. I would have my family name and wear it with pride. But why would I ever have my way?”

“Do you think I have not suffered for my kingdom also?” Kurellan said. “I was knighted at eighteen. I have warred and fought for this land and the people in it. I have seen the mark the last great necromancers left on my people and I am not going to live through another purge like that of Old Risston. I have killed more thralls than you have raised in your whole life, whelp. Do not presume to lecture me on the hardships of the world.”

“Regardless,” said Idris, heated by shame and fury, “I do not know what created that green glow. The magic required, the movements… they are lost on me. I would not know the first place to start. Now please. I must suture this and it requires some concentration.”

Neither of the two men spoke while Idris did his work. The more stitches he placed into his leg, the worse he felt about his minor outburst. The way people looked at him was not Kurellan’s fault. He was the product of a more frightening age, where necromancers were to be feared and their work was sent to end lineages. Famously, Old Risston was beaten into the dirt by an opposing kingdom’s necromancer who had turned rogue, and Kurellan had been there to watch the villagers climb out of their own burnt-out homes with new life, new purpose. He had been in service for forty years, now; he had seen the age of the worst and lived through twenty years of peace, without a necromancer in sight. To work with one? It would chafe.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

Idris sighed, wrapped the stump in clean bandage.

“Judge Kurellan,” he said quietly, “I am sorry. I respect you and your work. The kingdom is better for your vigilance. All I ask is that you look upon me with some understanding of my position. I love the kingdom as you do. I love the court and I love House Naga. I would be dead without them – literally speaking. I owe them my life and I gifted it willingly. There is a scroll in the palace with my signature, attesting to it. I do not regret that. I would never turn my hand against the people who raised me. Who protected me and loved me when I could not look upon myself with any pride or self-respect. To imply that I used this… this curse inside me to hurt my best friend’s kingdom… it sickens me. I want to help you. But if you are still certain that I did this, then please, turn me in. I will not complain. I will wait my turn to speak.”

“I,” said Kurellan, and was interrupted by the sound of a low, tremulous bell.

Idris looked up, confused. “What is that?”

“Warning bell,” said Kurellan, standing. “We’re under attack.”

“Wait,” said Idris, stricken with inaction, suddenly.

“For what?” Kurellan said, drawing his broadsword from his back.

“I… if it is him,” said Idris urgently, “then I will hear the aria. We will know what we are facing.”

Kurellan growled, tutted, and sheathed his sword. He did not turn around.

“Make it fast, whelp,” he muttered.

Abandoning the care of his leg, Idris turned his thoughts inward. If he was right, and the black figure was a necromancer, then this would be the first time he had ever felt another necromancer using the death aria. He had to know what that was like. Theoreticals and maybes from Magus Arundale were all well and good, but this was what Idris was supposed to prevent. If he could identify its cadences and tones, he could work against it.

The faint, faraway notes he had heard hours ago were still there, somewhere. He frowned, tugged his chained hands as far apart as they could go.

“Black bells, I cannot work in here,” he whispered.

Already, there were screams and shouts above.

“I can do this,” Idris said to Kurellan’s stiff back. “I… I need maybe… maybe two minutes, if I can just –“

“We don’t have two minutes, boy.” The judge pulled his sword again. “Either you hear it or you don’t.”

“Surely now you see that I am not the cause!” said Idris, as Kurellan took two steps away.

“I do not know what is happening out there –“

“You have to let me out.” Idris propelled himself to the bars, gripped them, held them tight to keep himself upright. Kurellan hesitated. “Kurellan, please! Look at me!”

The old man turned.

He looked first, as everyone did, at Idris’s face, and then, as every person inevitably used to, he saw what was missing. Frowning, he looked up again.

“I cannot do anything from this cell,” Idris said, trying to use the tone of his voice to keep Kurellan’s eyes on his. “If it is another necromancer, as I fear it is, I need to be above ground. And, as you can see, getting there is particularly taxing for me right now.”

“I will not be responsible for you razing this place to the ground,” Kurellan said.

“Do you want to be responsible for allowing another necromancer to do it, while I sat here in chains?” Idris demanded.

It was the most doubt he had ever seen in the old man’s eyes. Kurellan sighed, softly now. For the first time, Idris did not see Kurellan as a cold, hard, curmudgeonly bureaucrat. He saw a servant, the same as him. Only their years in service separated them.

“Duty first,” said Idris fiercely, “and duty always. That sentiment, we share. We have always shared it. Please.”

Kurellan sucked his cheeks and opened the cell door.

“No time,” he said, when Idris raised his chained hands. “You can work with that.”

“I can try.”

The shouts were getting louder, mixed with pounding footsteps above. Even then, there was not the sound that Idris remembered from war. Armies marched with drumbeat and rhythm, but it was eerily quiet around them, save the cries from the inhabitants of Harran Pass and the dour clanging of the warning bell. That, more than anything, was what scared him. He had come to understand what war was very quickly – fast, dirty, sweaty, screaming ruin. This was not war.

Kurellan gripped Idris under the arm again.

“I won’t drop you,” said Kurellan. “Lean on me. But we move quickly, with purpose. Understood?”

“Yes, Your Honour.”

“Black bells, Idris, how did I not know you only had one foot?” he hissed, practically pulling Idris along.

“I did not want you to know, that’s how.”

“Damned sneaky of you.”

“Is that really what we are going to focus on right now?” said Idris, flinching as some glass above them shattered and there was a piercing scream. “Wait.”

There, inside his veins, was a different music.

“I feel it,” he said, grabbing Kurellan’s shoulder hard. “I… I hear it. It is… controlled, and… is that what it sounds like when I do it?”

The death aria was a soaring, bursting swan song, but he was not its conductor, not this time. He was in the audience, swept away with its purpose and direction; it made him breathless, vibrated in every bone. The hairs on his arms and the nape of his neck bristled. It was as if the very air had electricity in it.

“There is a necromancer,” he breathed, “and he… Kurellan, he is masterful –“

“You can compliment him all you like once we are out of this.”

The guard room was now empty, and Idris and Kurellan were uncontested on the way out into the main hall of the outpost. Through the constant darkness outside of the lead-lined windows, there was a faint, ghostly glow of green, instead of blue or lilac.

For a moment, both men did nothing. They stood, gasping, holding on to each other. The sound of the aria was deafening in Idris’s ears.

“Tell the guards to retreat,” he said softly. “Tell them to get the inhabitants and get out.”

“What are you going to do?” said Kurellan.

“What I always do,” said Idris. “I am going to study this.”

“The soldiers –“

“We cannot fight something we do not understand, and right now, I do not understand this.” Idris swallowed hard. “If you want to assist me, please first make sure the people are safe. Then, bring me water and wine and make sure nobody comes through this door. Is there an upstairs window I can observe from?”

“Not in here.” Kurellan tightened his grip around Idris’s shoulders. “We’ll have to run.”

“I can try.”

“Don’t let go.”

Kurellan kicked the door open, and the aria blasted in like hot air.

The sudden blare of sound and light and colour disorientated Idris, overwhelmed him. When Kurellan pulled, he almost dragged Idris through the door. To the right, where the great gate sat across the pass, the sickly green was invading through every crack, as pervasive as intruding smoke. The bell rang furiously; soldiers called frantically to each other, changing to defensive positions, raising bows and setting ballistae.

“This way,” said Kurellan. “Can you use that one foot to hurry, or is it broken?”

“You do not have to be rude, Kurellan –“

“Then move.”

Shutters slammed in windows. Soldiers ran down the street, knocking on doors and yelling for the inhabitants to stay inside, to hunker down. Nobody paid attention to Kurellan and Idris, frantically hopping down the street.

The building Kurellan helped Idris into was a guard post with a covered walkway that ran across the length of the crevasse. The guards did not question them. The old judge placed Idris into a manual lift.

“Pull until you get to the walkway. You’ll be well guarded up there,” Kurellan said. To a running guard, “You! Water and wine for the necromancer, make sure nobody bothers him! Understood?”

The guard blinked, stared and nodded, and changed direction.

“Kurellan!” Idris shouted as he headed back outside. The judge turned. “You will not regret this,” Idris said.

“Do not make me regret this,” Kurellan said. “Now pull.”

Idris lifted his bound hands, gritted his teeth, and grabbed the rope hard.