Rian, Halbert, and Eiva left the plains, heading for the forest not far off. It looked to be around midday when they came across a small house with smoke coming out of its chimney. Eiva knocked on the door and a tall, older man opened it. He frowned when he saw them. His short dark gray hair was a wild, frizzy mess. His dark gray eyes narrowed as he looked at the three of them.
“Thorley, we need your help,” Eiva said.
Thorley raised a brow. “A Sancta Knight needs my help?”
“Yes,” Eiva said.
Thorley seemed to consider this, then he opened the door further. “Come in.”
The three of them entered the small house. There was a table with one chair, a bed in the corner, and not much else. The table was piled with books. A window on the other side of the room was open to the warm day outside.
“What do you need?” Thorley asked.
“I have magic that calls ravens to me,” Eiva said. “What do you know about ancient magic? The sort that allowed humans to have pacts with animals?”
Thorley stared at her without expression for a long moment. “Humans never had pacts with animals how Ectu did. That ancient magic was something else entirely.” He smiled slightly. “A Sancta Knight with ancient magic. You realize you’ve been living in a den of wolves? If the Sancta finds out about your magic, they will kill you.”
Eiva said nothing to that.
Thorley looked at each of them. “I heard about the two necromancers who are out to unseal the Bone Garden, and here’s a Sancta Knight. By the visible bones on the boy’s hand, he is a necromancer.” He glanced at Halbert. “I assume the other is as well. You’re the three going after Norris and Arwel.” Now he grinned. “I will help you, if you take me to the Bone Garden.”
“No,” Halbert said without hesitation. “We’re trying to stop Norris and Arwel from opening the way, why would we open it for you?”
Thorley looked at Eiva, but his grin had vanished. “That is my price. If you want my help, you’ll do it.”
“We’ll look elsewhere,” Eiva said.
Thorley frowned. “There are very few who know about ancient magic. I may be the only one with the answers you seek.”
“We’re not taking you to the Bone Garden,” Eiva said.
Thorley glared at her. A strong gust of wind came out of nowhere, causing the three of them to stumble back. The fire in the hearth went out as another gust swept through the room. Two ravens flew in through the open window, squawking and flying at Thorley. Thorley turned to face the ravens, his wind dying out. Eiva, Rian, and Halbert ran from the house and back through the forest. Rian glanced back, but Thorley hadn’t followed. The three of them slowed when they were back on the plains.
“I’m sorry,” Eiva said. “We shouldn’t have gone there.”
“It was worth a try,” Halbert said. “I’m sure we can find out more about your magic, perhaps in old books at the archives.”
Eiva nodded, but she didn’t look convinced.
None of them said much more that day. The sun was setting when they reached a village on the plains. They decided to stop at the inn. Even though the sun wasn’t down all the way, Rian noticed there was hardly anyone out. The small graveyard was closer to the village than it had been in other villages, except the ones in cities. There was a long pole at the center of the graveyard, with a metal symbol of the Sancta at the top.
“The village must be devout,” Eiva said quietly. “More than most.”
The innkeepers were the only ones at the inn. There were two tables in the main room, and both were empty. The two innkeepers, a man and a woman who looked a little older than Eiva, stood together behind the counter. A very large wooden symbol of the Sancta occupied the wall behind the counter. Rian kept his right hand hidden under his cloak.
“One room,” Eiva said.
The woman nodded, looking the group over without expression. Then she smiled. “Food and water are free with the room.”
“The room is free as well for you and your companions,” the man said. “Sancta Knight.”
Eiva smiled, but she looked almost wary. “Have you heard of two necromancers? Have they been through here?”
The man and woman frowned at each other.
“We’ve heard of them,” the man said. “Fortunately they haven’t been seen around these parts.” He nodded to the tables. “Have a seat and we’ll bring out food and water.”
The two disappeared through the door behind the counter, closing it gently behind them. Rian and the others sat at a table.
“Arwel and Norris could be far ahead of us,” Eiva said.
“They will have to rest as well,” Halbert said. “And they will need blood.”
Rian tried not to think about that last part.
The innkeepers returned with three bowls of watery stew and three mugs of water.
The woman set the last cup down, then smiled broadly. “Blessings of Mortua be with you.”
Rian tried not to shudder. He had a deeply bad feeling when she said those words. He thought he saw Halbert stiffen. The two innkeepers went back through the door behind the counter, closing it behind them again.
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“Don’t eat the food, Rian,” Halbert said suddenly. “And don’t drink the water.”
Eiva peered into her bowl. “Why? It looks alright.”
“I sense holy water,” Halbert said. “And clearly they’re devout followers of Mortua, so it was likely she who blessed it.”
Rian stared at the watery soup. “I don’t sense anything.”
“You might not yet,” Halbert said. “You aren’t far enough undead, but it would still hurt you.”
Eiva ate some of the soup, then nodded. “Not terrible, and I’m starving. I’ll finish all three so the innkeepers won’t be suspicious.”
Eiva ate her soup and drank her water, then finished Rian’s and Halbert’s soup. Rian was hungry, but he didn’t want to find out what would happen if he drank holy water. The innkeepers came out not long after Eiva had finished and gathered up the bowls and cups. They gave the group the key to a room upstairs, then disappeared into the back room.
Rian and the others went up to their room. There was no bed, but there was a stack of blankets by the door. Eiva washed in the washroom first, then Rian went next. He didn’t know how long it had been since he’d washed. There was a bowl on the table in the washroom, with a pitcher of water beside it. The candle was dim, but it gave enough light. He filled the bowl with water from the pitcher.
He looked at the visible bones on his right hand and wrist, at the dirt all over them. He put his hand in the water. The water felt boiling hot, and it made a sizzling sound when it touched him. Rian cried out, pulling his hand out of the water quickly. Red had spread through the water. His hand was bleeding, but he couldn’t tell where from. He grabbed the cloth from next to the basin and wrapped it around his hand, trying to stop the bleeding. Red seeped through the grayish rag.
A knock came on the washroom door, followed by Eiva’s voice. “Are you alright in there?”
Rian was breathing hard. He felt like all the energy was seeping out of him, and his hand still hadn’t stopped bleeding. He fumbled with the door handle with his other hand, getting the door open and stumbling out of the washroom.
Eiva’s eyes went wide when she saw the cloth. “What happened?”
Rian sat at the nearest wall. He was shaking and too weary to stay on his feet. “I don’t know. The water was really hot.”
Eiva frowned. “It wasn’t when I used it.”
Halbert went into the washroom without a word. He came back a moment later. “It’s holy water.” He knelt beside Rian and gently removed the bloodstained cloth. “It will have drained your energy, which will make it difficult to use magic until you rest on burial ground. It wasn’t enough to kill you. Maybe if you’d drank it.” He wiped away the rest of the blood with the cloth.
Most of the skin on Rian’s hand and wrist had burned away. What was left was either bright red or blackened.
“We shouldn’t stay here,” Eiva said. “Who knows where else they’ve put holy water?” She frowned. “They’ll be suspicious if they see us leaving. We’ll tell them…none of us could sleep and we decided to keep going.”
Halbert sighed. “I heard there was a village in Urvus that worshiped Mortua. This must be Aster village. I should have checked a map before we left Veron.” He helped Rian to his feet. “Keep your hand covered with your cloak.”
“Aster?” Eiva groaned. “The entire village worships Mortua.”
Rian made sure his cloak was keeping his hand hidden. He wanted to sit back down and go to sleep, but that wouldn’t help. Eiva was right, they shouldn’t stay there. The three of them went back downstairs as quietly as they could, but that didn’t matter. When they reached the main room, it seemed the whole village had gathered there. They all looked at the group.
“Did you need something?” the innkeeper’s wife asked. She smiled. “Did you come to join us in worship of Mortua, the Lady of the Perished?”
Eiva had gone pale and seemed at a loss for words.
“We couldn’t sleep,” Halbert said. “We decided we’ll keep going through the night.”
The innkeeper frowned. “It’s dark out there.” He took a step closer to the group. “I thought there was something strange about the lot of you when you came in, but my wife said travelers come in all types and we should be hospitable. But I know you switched bowls and mugs. I know which ones we set where, and I know every crack and chip in them.” There was a wild look in his eyes now.
“Mortua sent us a sign,” a villager, a younger woman, said loudly. “A sign there were undead in our midst. Necromancers.”
There were a few gasps among the villagers, then whispers. Rian tried not to look panicked. There was nowhere to go other than back upstairs, and that wouldn’t do any good. The entire village was between them and the door out of the inn. The innkeeper reached out suddenly, pushing back the hood of Halbert’s cloak. More gasps spread through the villagers.
The man’s face had gone pale. “We cannot allow such blasphemy to our lady to roam free!”
The villagers closed in. Rian didn’t have the strength to struggle. A few villagers pulled three chairs out to the front of the room. Others had gone into the back room and returned with rope. The villagers forced Rian, Eiva, and Halbert to sit in the chairs, then tied their arms and legs to the chairs. When the villagers were satisfied their prisoners were secure, they argued about what to do with them.
It ranged from letting Eiva go, to burning all three of them at the stake, to drowning Halbert and Rian in holy water. The villagers had seen Rian’s hand when they tied him to the chair. The innkeeper’s wife retrieved a pitcher of holy water from the back room. Rian didn’t know what to do. He didn’t want to die there. And Eiva was going to be killed just for traveling with him and Halbert.
Why would Mortua betray them? They were trying to stop Arwel and Norris, and the Sancta wanted that, didn’t they? If the purpose of necromancers was to send souls to the land of the dead, why did Mortua hate them so much?
“Hers is not the true land of the dead,” the voice in his head said. “Necromancers send souls to the true land of the dead.”
What did that mean? The voice didn’t say anything more. The innkeeper’s wife handed the pitcher to her husband, who looked at Halbert, then whispered to his wife again. They appeared to be arguing, and the rest of the villagers were still arguing. Rian pulled against the ropes, but they were tight, and he was still weak from the holy water.
“We will aid you,” the raspy woman said in his mind. He recognized it as a voice of the dead from the dream. “Be our Speaker. Call on us for strength and we will aid you in your time of need.”
This was it, the moment he truly had to choose. And he already knew what he was going to choose. “Lend me your strength,” he thought. The sacrifice would be much more than if he did this on his own, but there was no way he could do this on his own.
“The sacrifice?” a man asked, his voice also in Rian’s head, also a voice of the dead.
Rian looked at his scorched hand. He felt the dead acknowledge what he was going to sacrifice, felt their strength gather in his magic. The villagers had gone silent, then someone screamed. Shadows moved across the walls and ceiling, shadows of terrifying creatures. A scream that put the first to shame shook the inn. It was a horrible, deeply unsettling sound, an entire chorus of screaming.
The dead were drawing on Rian’s magic, draining his energy even further. The skin of Rian’s right arm was rotting away, disappearing into nothing. So was everything beneath it that wasn’t bone. He felt it stop somewhere just past his shoulder. The front window of the inn shattered, a flock of ravens swarming in. Everything spun and blurred when Rian turned his head.
Ravens pecked through Eiva’s ropes, then she freed Halbert and Rian. When Rian tried to stand, he collapsed onto the floor. The shadows and the horrifying screams were dying out, but the ravens were creating enough chaos. Halbert lifted Rian into his arms, then he and Eiva ran from the inn. They ran from the village, the moon lighting their way across the plains. Everything went black.