“I have several potions which may be of use, as well as a number of powerful items—”

The necromancer nodded eagerly, “Your little spear. May I see it?”

I had been about to mention my dark magic spells, but on reflection it was probably best not to mention them unless necessary. Attart had seemed on edge in regard to the warlocks already. She’d been quick to trust me, but quick to trust was also quickly betrayed.

I pulled the Dead King’s spear from my belt and handed it over to her.

She shuddered when she touched it, “Oh this, this has history. Where ever did you find it?”

She removed her gloves. I noticed her nails were perfectly manicured. Without waiting for my response she began to mutter, “You are a strange one, aren’t you? Deader than dead. It feels as though a thousand spirits are bound inside, and yet at the same time: empty.”

She placed it on the tea table between us and started muttering words in an unknown language. Every few syllables her pinky finger would daintily dip into her teacup and then she would trace symbols in tea around it.

“It was a gift from the Dead King for visiting his court...”

I trailed off. Her skin was already more than fashionably pale. Her broad hat didn’t let the sun touch an inch of her face and I suspected the arts of necromancy and soul binding also took their toll. Upon hearing the Dead King’s name she’d somehow gotten even paler.”

She wiped her pinky firmly with an embroidered napkin and re-donned her gloves. Then she pushed the spear back across the table toward me.

“Mortals risk enough as it is gazing upon the Dead King’s works. I am half spirit already. I hope even that half-hearted summoning hasn’t earned me his ire.”

I hefted the lancegay in my hand. The smell of blood emanating from it once again washed over me. I guess I’d grown used to the smell.

“Can we use it?

I wasn’t sure why, but she covered her mouth again with her hand, “We can. But there is a risk.”

“So we make it our last resort?”

Attart waved her hand back and forth, “That is up to you. I wasn’t always,” she gestured to herself and her outfit entire, “like this. The longer you stay here, the more it changes you. And it is faster at first.”

I patted at the top of my own head half expecting to find a replica of her towering hat.

She giggled, “Not that fast, but we don’t want to delay.”

My mind began racing. Right. I always thought slower under pressure. Which potions...

I pulled free my potion depicting the North Star and my potion of ascension.

“The first potion may reveal a path out of here. The second may allow the drinker to escape entirely on its own.”

Her eyes locked on the second potion, “But there is only one of them.”

My ring’s focus was already on my spellbook if she tried anything, “There is only one.”

She rubbed her chin, “So you could drink it, and then summon me once you yourself are free.”

I relaxed.

“If I can figure out how to summon you. And the summoning works. And you’d only be a spirit.”

Her spoon bonked my forehead, “Don’t slouch! Shoulders back, chin up! Come on girl! Like people are watching!”

I straightened. She settled back in her own chair and continued, “Much better. As I said before, being a spirit would only be temporary. I’ve been practising possessing... the posses-able.”

Bodies.

Living or dead, each worse than the other.

“Another of your escape plans?”

“And a contingency for when I was summoned.”

Necromancy wasn’t an inherently evil art, but as evidenced by the manacles I’d found next to the book, seldom was the necromancer who didn’t walk a dark path. In fact, I’d never heard of one. Maybe I’d be best served drinking the ascension potion and abandoning her.

But who was I to judge? I’d killed in cold blood. I’d used dark magic numerous times. For all I knew she’d gotten the manacles from the warlocks and only done her possession spells in this simulacrum of reality.

I hoped it was a simulacrum.

She must have noticed my expression because she nodded approvingly, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say it all, but if your face is going to make that expression you might as well shout it from the roof tops. Cover you mouth with something girl! Do you have a fan?”

I smoothed my fingers and shook my head clear. I wasn’t about to abandon her. Not without a more provable cause.

Attart tutted and flicked her right hand forward. A second fan skidded across the table and slid to a stop right at the edge.

“Always carry a fan. Always. They can cover many a social gaffe. I carry two.”

I dropped my longbow to pick up the fan and cover my face, “What happened to the people you possessed?”

Attart sighed, “You really are a Magi. Always asking, never taking. The people were fine. Possession does not need to mean control. I merely hitched a ride alongside their bodies. When I found myself back in my body in the garden again they suffered no ill effects. They even had no knowledge of my actions beyond perhaps a few strange dreams.”

I glanced up at the albatross.

She raised a finger before I could interrupt, “Possession and dreams are a far more natural process than many have been led to believe. Gods possess us. Dreams possess us. Possessions become dreams. Passions are dreams are possessions. It is the rare person who is not possessed. We are vessels for crowds of spirits, not a singular consciousness. Consciousness itself rises from the unity.”

I hid my own sigh behind my fan, which I’m pretty sure meant I was now better mannered than she was, “The warlocks offered me their own justifications for their unnatural arts. Convincing ones. They spoke of the natural order as if it was inescapable. As if anything they were permitted to do under nature was natural.”

“Is it not?”

“It isn’t,” she frowned at my contraction, “Sorry, it ain’t.”

I intercepted the spoon with the edge of my fan and offered her my most winning smile, “For a similar reason to your disapproval just now. Proprietary makes certain demands, even when we are free to do else-wise.

“I don’t know about your rules of etiquette, but natural actions, harmonious and good actions, are not done for others. Others may judge you based on your true versus dark magic, or true versus dark actions, but their judgment means little. The true costs and benefits are to your self. There is no evil action which harms no one, no victimless crime if the crime is true, for the victim is your own soul.”

“That doesn’t mean my necromancy is unnatural.”

I put the fan on the table and picked back up my bow, “It doesn’t. It also doesn’t mean dark magic is unnatural. I’ve been having a difficult month.”

Another series of giggles escaped her lips. Stone in sand she was far too cute for a necromancer, “So you’ll still help me escape?”

“I will. Let’s see about that North Star potion.”

***

☼North Star☼

The lights line up exactly with the star I was staring at through the roof overhanging the boardwalk.

“I can’t say I’m surprised, but that confirms it. The potion lets you see the North Star wherever you are.”

Attart fanned at my will-’o-wisps, “Don’t surprise me girl! Give some warning before you cast a spell.”

I flew the compass at her face which granted me a scowl and two more spoons upside the head, “You can’t convince me that is a real rule. How many ladies know magic?”

She tutted, “Etiquette isn’t a series of rules. Haven’t I taught you anything? It is a moral framework. Don’t be crass, don’t surprise other or bring up difficult concept at light gatherings; that kind of thing.”

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

“Sounds like a lot of rules to me.”

She hit me with her spoon again, “Your skull is nearly as thick as you are. I’m going to need to find a heavier spoon.”

She sounded serious, but between the teeth grinding and physical assault I caught the occasional smile. She was enjoying my antics. It was why I was doing them. Had she shown distress I would have stopped, but my guess was that after four years in this place a break from the rigid norms was welcome. Even if she could only express it through reprimands.

“There’s not enough spoons in all nine wings of the manor. Nor the whole world.”

“There are other worlds,” she said darkly, “Worlds of wailing and gnashing bone. Frozen wastes where even demons fear to tread. There are terrors enough in other realms to teach even you manners.”

She probably appreciated the break.

I pulled out the unlabelled round bottle I’d gotten from somewhere and the crystal bottle wrapped in gold wire Tom and I had found in the dwarves stash. For good measure I put the potion of Mirror Image and Pincers beside them.

“Before we try the Ascension or the Dead King’s lance, I have two potions of unknown effect and potions of Mirror Image and Pincers. I don’t know how any of them can help, but if you are can come up with something, I’m willing to try.”

“Elbows off the table! What does a potion of Mirror Image or Pincers do?”

“No idea. I also have this swarm of butterflies potion here,” I pulled out the translated vial and showed it to her if you have any clue what that means.”

Much to my surprise, she did.

“Harmony Swarm. See the way they all ripple outward from a central spot? It is like the—”

—the sun rose—

“—resonance of sound between anvils.”

Harmony Swarm.

It fit the picture perfectly even without the confirmation of the sun’s new light. I’d been trying to decipher meaning rather than vague suggestion and so had failed to see the obvious. It sounded like a dark magic spell.

“If there were two of the potions perhaps we could bind our spirits together, allowing us both to escape.”

She pointed at the Mirror Image potion, “That as well. I may be able to follow you if I drank it before you ascended.”

“That will be our last resort. I don’t want to leave you behind if I can avoid it.”

“Even after the lance?”

“I’ll try the lance first. Provided you think it has some chance of success. I’m still not sure how you think it can be used.”

I actually had a notion, but I was being polite. Maybe the book was rubbing off on me. She confirmed it a moment later, “Stab the realm. The lance is death and undoing, not just a representation. What you pierce with it should die, even curses and enchantment. Especially ones this large.”

“But the question is, what happens to us if the realm collapses?”

Attart nodded, “That’s why I think it should be a last resort.”

“We’ll stab it and drink the potions at the same time. Best of both worlds,” I decided, “So, do you want to drink the unknown potions, or shall we move on to another plan?”

“One each?” she asked.

She’d already tried suicide. Why not spit in the tempest’s eye?

I held them both up to her, “Which one?”

She took the crystal bottle, leaving me with the large round one.

“Cheers,” I downed my potion.

Attart sipped hers with pinky extended.

A shudder went through Attart. She closed her eyes slowly, like one falling asleep. Meanwhile I was being assaulted by a tugging sensation in every direction. It was as if I was surrounded by magnets, or little a thousand little hooks were tugging me along a thousand invisible lines. Only the skies above me were clear. Some of the lines even ran down into the earth itself. The very strongest came from the chair I was sitting in.

What under ever-changing skies—

“Is it really that easy?” Attart asked dreamily. Clearly she had her own problems to deal with.

I focused on the chair. The sensation, now with my full attention, stopped. Instead my mind was filled with knowledge. Another sitting in the chair before me. A young woman in far too many layers of cloth and silk with a hat nearly as mad as the one Attart wore. Her throat was slit.

I leapt from my chair like it was on fire.

Another vision hit me—a vision which was not a vision. I didn’t see anything, I remembered it—this of the same woman, throat still slit, sitting back upright. Her eyes were locked straight ahead staring at someone.

Necromancy.

I spun about to the sensation behind me: Poison in the tea. The student in the layers slumped over on the table, a knife in her back. A knife to her throat while Attart screamed in her ear.

And then next to the table: A crowd of servants being overwhelmed by a second crowd of their peers. The second crowd wasn’t moving right. They were reluctant and sure at the same time. Many had visible wounds which should have been fatal. Whenever a member of the first crowd fell, they’d rise a moment later to join the second.

I’d barely moved from where I’d landed upon leaping to my feet. I was suddenly, painfully aware of the thousand hooks digging into me.

“Have mercy,” I whispered.

“Let me see,” murmured Attart.

Her clothes vanished.

I stared.

I guess those etiquette lessons hadn’t sunk in after all. Thank the wisdom of the seasons she wasn’t as old as she acted.

A blink later and she was clothed, this time in a coat and breeches with a travelling hat on top. All were as black as a moonless night. Attart looked down at her getup with a critical eye and a mue of concentration. A red cloak fell down about her shoulders. She smiled.

“What do you think?”

The hooks were still pulling at me. The memory of her body still lingered. The impossibility of her clothes had me reeling. It was a lot to take in at once.

“How... what ha—how are you doing that?”

She smiled, “It is a dream. I do not know why I did not realize sooner. All I need to do is direct it. Control it.”

Attart raised her right hand to her side and pointed in the direction of a large oak tree. A door appeared. A normal wooden door like the one which had guarded my cellar back in Blackbridge standing in the middle of a garden. The door swung open.

A checker-board floor in a dimly lit room revealed itself. I could make out two piles of gear. The necromancer’s—Attart’s—gear I’d discarded earlier, and a pile of my own gear. The very gambeson and trousers I’d been wearing earlier.

“Is it real?” I asked.

“The dream is real,” Attart replied, which wasn’t a real answer. She’d make a good Magus, “Let us hurry. I do not know how long this potion will last.”

I glanced back to the room where I’d changed and left my armour and clothes, then back to the very same armour and clothes through the portal. If this was my chance out of here, I’d take that risk.

I ran through the portal. Attart was at my heels.

The tugging sensation changed the instant I crossed the boundary. My boots, belt, and bow vanished at the same time. The jelly floor sunk beneath my bare foot, then caught my face in its soft embrace. Attart skipped past me with merely a stumble.

“That is new,” she said. I didn’t need my ring-sight to see that she was jumping up and down. The ripples rocking my head were enough to clue me in.

“Mmphble!”

She laughed. Another ripple whipped across my face, “Beg your pardon?”

I rolled over onto my side and gasped for air, “Stop!”

She laughed again, “Stop what? I am free! I cannot stop now!”

Fireball

Orange light flooded the room, but it was not my own. My spell had failed. Both my ring and my spellbook had vanished. My heart began to race.

“Oh,” Attart’s peered down at me. A giggle slipped through her lips. She brought her fan to her mouth, “Oh, I am so sorry. I did not realize,” she giggled again.

There was a man leaning out of her. The bottom of his torso melded into hers, and his back vanished somewhere around her sternum. In his arm he held the source of the orange light; a lantern.

I’d not seen necromancy performed in many years and it looked as strange then as now. There was nothing to distinguish the living from the dead. Not to my eyes at least. My ring might think otherwise.

I wobbled and jiggled onto my knees and shuffled over to the pile of my things. My ring was right on top, oak inside an acorn. The ring-sight provided some much needed stability. The ghost’s lantern wavered every time Attart laughed or breathed.

I sorted through my gear with my eyes closed until it was all laid out before me. I was only wearing the houppelande and my tunic, and only my tunic was missing from my pile of gear. Even the potions Attart and I had drank were still full to the brim. Ring-taste confirmed mine tasted the same as it had in the cursed book.

Speaking of...

My ring-sight wandered the pages of the fallen book of etiquette despite my best efforts. I ended the sense, but it was too late. I’d already focused on the image of—there was no one there. Neither Attart, myself, nor any ladies were displayed.

I reignited my ring-sight.

Gone.

The curse was broken.

“The curse is broken!” I cried. I held up the book triumphantly, “I just read it over with my senses and it is inert.”

I flipped it open on the page which had trapped me to prove it (which I immediately regretted. Not because anything bad happened, but because it was a pretty stupid thing to do without my spellbook or the dwarf potion firmly in my possession), “See? The picture is blank.”

Attart averted her gaze, “I will take your word for it. I am not risking going back there.”

I closed the book with a Snap!

“Is your man’s flame there hot?”

Attart removed her right glove and reached her arm around to feel the lantern. From where I was laying it looked almost like a lover’s embrace.

“It is cold,” she stuck out her tongue, “I was afraid of that. I bound all my spirits to the objects of the book’s world, but it seems that has little sway in this realm. The dead cannot interact with the living without special bindings. Not without sacrifices.”

I’d figured as much, but I was not an expert in the field. I tossed the book to the far side of the room.

Fireball

This time it worked. The book was quickly consumed by the conflagration.

“So you can do magic!”

“I got us out of the book, didn’t I?”

“I did. And that was because of potions. Potions which you could have found in the dungeon.”

“I summoned those lights earlier.”

She waved her fan dismissively above her spirit’s head, “Conjurers tricks.”

“A conjurer would have an easier time creating fire than light on its own.”

Attart clasped her hands together, and lifted her leg girlishly “But the fire is ever so much more impressive.”

I smiled at her. It was a little over the top, but she’d earned it. After four years of rigid restraint I’d have been behaving far more exuberantly.

“Would you please turn around while I change? All my clothes fell off when I went through the portal.”

This time she laughed so hard she bent double, and her ghost spent most of the time I was changing illuminating the floor.