Drefan
I made sure that Nathanael was in his bed before I left the next morning. Whispering that it was best if he did not tell Thom about the letters cut into my skin. It would only upset him. Already falling asleep, the boy appeared to have agreed with a simple murmur of Thom’s name.
Yeshe and I would be taking horses on this trip. I would meet him outside the town of Ashtarak which was about a two-hour ride south from the capitol. I loaded my horse with saddlebags and hoisted myself up, my foot finding the stirrup and I slung myself over the horse. Settling into the saddle, I took the reins and we were off.
Yeshe and I met up outside of Ashtarak and I could already tell that he was beginning to decay, his movements were slower with the reins and his eyes were turning dull. Hopefully, with some time in the presence of a Necromancer, he would stop decomposing as quickly as he had been previously. I could do little for the damage already done, however.
Yeshe looks to me as we begin to ride together, “To not catch your father’s attention, camping each evening would be the best idea, instead of finding an inn.”
“You’re right. We will camp.”
I did not relish the idea but we had bedrolls and tents with our supplies so we could make do.
The closer we got to the southern mountains, the colder it became. We traveled into the evening, making camp as the sun went down. We made a small fire mainly for me as Yeshe no longer felt hot or cold, being undead. I stretched out near the fire.
“I was told by Avan that it was my brother who came up with the plan to bring me home.”
“Yes, Prince Thom came up with the core of it and reached out to Lady Suinia and me for assistance. It was Suinia’s idea to take the obelisk out of my arm to disconnect me from the Emperor. I was unsure why that was needed until I arrived in Kestel and found you. I understood then that we should not have your condition found out by the Emperor.”
“Thank you, I would rather the Emperor not see me in such a weakened state.”
Yeshe inclined his head before speaking again, “Have you thanked Prince Thom?”
“Yes, a few days ago, on the evening I got home.”
Yeshe had an arm slung around his right knee, relaxing where he was seated. He nods.
“You have not finished your necromancy training? I thought it would conclude around your eighteenth harvest.”
“Although I am nineteen, I have not yet signed a contract with the empire on how I will use my powers.”
This was a requirement of graduation as a full-fledged Necromancer in Royale. There was a list of do’s and don’ts involved in our craft that we must adhere to, otherwise, we were considered rogue by the state. Normally this meant any and all could hunt you down and end you.
“I also would like to see if there is anything I can learn from Lord Daugovantril before I finish and sign anything permanent.”
I have been learning necromantic rituals such as the inscription of symbols and words as well as rituals, spells, and the sacrifice of blood since my fourteenth winter.
Yeshe nods, “It’s possible, he is old even by Ellearn years, perhaps he will still have things you do not yet know.”
Lord Duagovantril was unique in that he was Ellearn, a long-lived species. Yet he chose undeath to lengthen the amount of time he would otherwise have. Ellearn on average lived over five hundred years so it was impossible to pinpoint Lord Duagovantril’s age now that he was an Ascended. I hoped I could learn new necromantic skills under him although it had been years since I learned the basics.
Necromancy begins with divination and for some, it ends there. “Necromanteions”, or “Oracles of the Dead”, were those who first developed a multitude of rituals aimed at reaching the deceased and summoning them back to the land of the living. These were necromancers who were devoted to the act of raising the spirits of the dead to answer questions to do with the past or to gain insight into the future.
Necromancers could help people transition from death to undeath, heal wounds that could no longer recover naturally, and even ease someone’s final passing from the world. The Royalian people had necromancers that served as their guide to the Amartharine River as necromancers are seen as priests to our deity. Nanqa, Lord of Darkness, Undead, and Honor. So that necromancers could stand by the sick bed they learned funeral magics, funerary practices, the psychology of death, post-mortem rites, and rituals enabling them to be ready to serve imperial citizens in life and nonlife alike.
But it was not those practices that the northerners detested us for. It was our manipulation of the energy that animates all living things. The ability to sap the life force from a creature as your magic destroys its body, transforming that vital energy into magical power. The ability to infuse that body with undeath in the ability to raise the dead but not in order to resurrect like those clerics of Reinn Anon’s light, no, we created undead from those we raised. There were laws in Royale that forbid the raising of the unwilling dead. Those that did not wish to come back as undead were forbidden, we had to ask the soul of the body we would be raising. If they conceded we could raise them, if not, they were simply off-limits to us. But there would always be rogue necromancers and Camarians think that all necromancers did such things. When in reality, raising the dead was a specialized form of necromancy that not all necromancers studied in.
Readying ourselves for bed we finished our discussion. After half a day on horseback after so long not riding I fell asleep stiff and pained.
-
The days and the nights blended together on this trip.
We followed a map that I had copied from the palace library. There were no road signs as to where we were going. The Undead did not want to advertise where they lived, far back in these frozen mountains. Even in gloves, the tips of my fingers were beginning to go numb as the breaths of the horses became more visible and labored. We pushed our horses in the cold as I did not wish to camp more than I had to in this bitter chill.
Finally, in the distance, I could see the fortress and as we came closer more detail popped into view.
A stone oval rampart surrounded the nearest side of the fortress. This was a fortress that was built long enough ago that it was no longer known if its creation was human or undead made. The snowy fortress had multiple levels of towers, climbing higher and higher, each tower and wall having small windows, closed with wooden shutters against the snowfall. Peaking at the top of the keep were three separate towers, each higher than the others, with wider and longer windows.
Two ghosts floated at the entry, and one came toward us, eyeing both of us.
“A necromancer and a zombie...were you invited to Kuro Juhtumid?”
“Yes, I received a letter from Lord Daugovantril,” fishing out the letter I would show it to the guard who looks it over and nods.
“Welcome then to Kuro Juhtumid. You may proceed to the keep.”
Once we had dismounted, we walked our horses into the stable, which was closed up to keep the warmth trapped inside. An undead woman was brushing down another horse, chestnut in color with a dark brown mane and tail. Brushing down my mare, I would make sure that my horse had hay to eat before leaving. Yeshe bantered with me about the cold and how well I could handle the temperatures for the time I would stay here. Some necromancers chose to live here as did necromancer initiates who trained here, so there must be hearth fires inside!
Indoors we found the giant hearth fire against the southern wall. There were six stone sarcophagi that rimmed the outer wall of the keep. Curious, I crouched down to get a good look at the carvings in the stone. There were garlands on this sarcophagus, stone-carved between posed warriors.
“The original inhabitants of the fortress,” a voice comes from behind me and I stood quickly, turning to meet this stranger. I gave the man a scornful look for sneaking up on me like that. But he just tilted his head at me, one side of his face was flesh-covered and alive, whereas the other half was all necrotic tissue of the skin. The sinew and muscle beneath worked as he spoke again.
“Lord Daugo decided that those that first protected this place should be honored in death as they were not undead.”
I nodded, finding myself fascinated with the fact that this man had an empty socket where his right eye should be, and when he opened his mouth to speak I could see how the muscle and jaw worked together to help him form his words.
“Thank you for telling me, would Lord Daugovantril be nearer to the top levels of the fortress?”
“Yes, he has use of the topmost tower. As you have an invitation then I imagine he is waiting for you both.”
Nodding, I look to Yeshe, “Then let us head up.”
Up endless winding steps, I had to stop at intervals due to my lungs. They felt as though they were on fire. Yeshe stopped with me giving me looks of concern when I ended up coughing so much that I had to sit on a step. I could see it in his dull brown eyes, he knew I was dying. I ignored both him and the pain, persevering up those stairs through pure stubbornness. I would have to go up these stairs whenever I wished to converse with Lord Daugvantril, best get used to the pain and frustration now.
Lord Duagovantril waited at the top of the stairs for us, which meant he had heard my hacking and my gulping of breath. He was a figure I was sure not to forget, with pastel orange hair to his shoulders, ashen grey features, and one eye of pure red and another of yellow. There were golden rings through his lower lip and the upper cartilage of his ears that curled like fallen autumn leaves. He did not allow me the embarrassment of my coughing as he went straight to the point, “My new apprentice, sent here to me already dying. I suppose I will teach you downstairs in the hall and cleave the amount of time you would spend outside in the cold, dry air. I recall learning that such air can wreak havoc on already failing lungs.”
Pushing back his pastel orange hair behind his shoulders and out of his eyes, Lord Daugovantril turned then to Yeshe and smiled, “This is the Black Guard that we get to keep? We always have room for another warrior. Welcome.”
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
Yeshe crossed his arms and bowed deeply to the Ascended, “Thank you. I am glad to have somewhere to call home again.”
“Come, you made it up here, so come, enjoy it.”
Each of the four pillars was layered with femurs and skulls at the corner points from ceiling to floor. At the very end of the room was a wall of recessed skulls with a raised oval altar of stone, stained with blood. It too had skulls recessed in the altar from top to bottom. Torches lit the room from both sides of its curving walls. There were two stone tables, one on the west and eastern side of the room. These stone tables on either side of the room had skulls recessed into them as well. Books were stacked on both of the tables, whereas only one had jars of herbs and other magical components.
Lord Duagovantril ran a hand over the recessed skulls, “As you can see, we have had use for those who attack the fortress. We would rather not see them added to our numbers of course, but their bodies can be made useful.”
“Artistic,” Yeshe mumbles, as such desecration of the dead was an anathema to a Royalian.
“The ground is cold and stiff, even with the increase in strength of the undead; burying the dead is difficult and tedious here. So instead, we keep the dead inside.”
Lord Duagovantril looks to Drefan, “Now Prince Drefan, what would you like to learn from me while you are here?”
“My end goal would be to become like you, milord. A lich.”
“It's not surprising to me, I do not know of a necromancer who would scoff at the idea of being a lich. But the process is a long and painful one. There have been times when it caused outright insanity in the seeker from the excruciating pain involved. Now I do not say this to discourage you as I doubt you could be discouraged, but to make sure you are aware of the risk involved.”
He was right; it would take more than that to discourage me from my plans.
“Milord, why did you agree to train me?”
“The last necromancer in the Royale family was your Grand-uncle Talkran, as your father and grandfather never took to the dark arts. I have seen that your brother has not either. So I was interested to see what you are capable of as a Royalian Prince. Though I admit there was another reason. You are or were the Royalian diplomat in the Camarian court, yes?”
“I was, yes.”
“Is it possible for you to gain access to the Camarian royal library?”
“It would be possible milord. What do you want from there?”
“Everything and anything. Bring me books from the royal library so my scribes can copy them and add them to my collection. That is the price you will pay to be my apprentice. Simple enough.”
Lord Daugovantril laughs and he turns away in a dramatic flourish of his button-down coat, “Knowledge is everything to a lich. We stave off death to learn what we could never have otherwise. But I fear my collection is quite sparse of Camarian texts as the Holy Camarian Empire is far from here and they are not welcoming of my kind. You will help me remedy that.”
I agreed to his plan as I had no reason not to. The payment for working with him, learning how to become a lich was to bring him books from the Camarian library so he could copy them? It would not be difficult at all.
“Now, I will show you downstairs so you know where everything is.”
Wonderful, back down the stairs which I suppose was better than going up more flights of stairs.
We were shown what each level of the towers had for us, and which ones were private quarters for those like myself who were studying there. Thankfully, those private quarters were on the second floor, along with a kitchen. There was little reason for me to venture higher up except to come to see Lord Duagovantril. Yeshe introduced himself to those on the main level that had first spoken to me and settled with them for a while.
My issue of feeling as though I was dying while taking a flight of stairs was the first thing Lord Duagovantril wanted to deal with. As I could not change my physical state, instead he would have me use magic to aid in my traveling.
“Have you ever learned to manipulate the naturally occurring darkness of your soul?”
With furrowed brows, I shook my head, “I have heard of Ascended being able to do so, but can mere necromancers do it?”
“With practice, yes. Your darkness is more substantial than the average Royalian due to your bloodline coming from the Fallen Archangel Taedras. It is as though your soul exists deeper within you allowing for you to gather more of it to maneuver and use in spellwork. I can teach you how to create doorways with it that will allow you to teleport distances that normally only wizards with their teleportation spells can accomplish.”
Gesturing me forward to approach the nearest wall, “You will need to visualize your darkness like you see a dark cloud and draw on it, moving it outward and toward the wall. Visualize that darkness forming a doorway that you will walk through. As you get better at doing so, more darkness will manifest itself in the manner in which you envision, becoming a doorway that will close behind you. Now practice, my apprentice.”
It took me days of mind-numbing repetition, calling my darkness outwards, visualizing a door that I could walk through. My darkness did manifest, over and over, but never in a large enough amount for my entire body to fit through it. So I practiced and I pulled at the dimness inside of me until I grew frustrated and knew that I had to stop trying for that day.
Until I finally had it. The portal was broad and tall enough that I could walk through it without difficulties. But where had I thought to teleport to? I had been so concerned about manifesting enough of the darkness that I had forgotten where the doorway was meant to bring me! But there was only one way to find out so I pushed forward through the dense fog-like atmosphere and would step out into the royal gardens of the palace. I was face to face with the statue of the Fallen Archangel Marthei, known as The Watcher. Her dark skin was in contrast to the white of her dress and the blanket that was wrapped around the infant in Marthei’s embrace. The fallen Archangel held my brother Artegal close to her chest, her eyes closed and black curls wild about her face. Aidna was for the moment not in the grove with the statue, unusual as this was where Mother spent the majority of her time. But I would not let the location I had come through diminish my feeling of success.
The exhilaration I felt was something I had not experienced in years. The euphoric feeling of learning something new, supplementing my necromancy, and by that making myself more powerful! Father could not teleport like this, this control of my darkness was mine alone and could be used to check on Thom, hide my training, and more. I was almost like a giddy child, teleporting back to the keep and looking for Lord Duagovantril in order to share my success.
I found the lich lord conducting a lesson with initiates, seated before them in his normal attire of a purple, gold button-down coat, white undershirt, trousers, and boots with heels.
“Death is an equalizer and from that, we have nothing to fear from it. What we fear is having things left undone. Leaving people behind. But to be a necromancer one needs to accept death and not fear it. You must have reverence for death and not be insensitive to it, after all a life is a life no matter how small it may appear in the grander picture. But the truth is everything will die. Even those of us who separate ourselves from our souls in a bid to gain more time will one day be killed in full.
And those who fear death will fear the spirits and the dead that you are honor-bound to work with. Your fear will not allow you to do this work and be so close to death,” Lord Duagovantril rises and begins to pace.
“If you are afraid we will work on your fear. But I will say now that such fear means that perhaps you were made to be a healer or a poet, and not a necromancer. There is no shame in walking with the Sun instead of living in the Darkness, as some people do not belong in the dim hollow and need the daylight to be healthy and happy.”
Lord Duagovantril claps his hands together, “Do not worry. We will find out what you were meant for regardless if you were meant to be here or somewhere else.”
Seeing me he smiles and walks between the two rows of his students, “Prince Drefan, you look particularly lucent today.”
“Ah...well, I finally managed the darkness portal and teleported to the imperial capital.”
“I see! Fairly done, now you may come and go from the keep at your leisure. Which reminds me, I believe you owe me a book?”
“I do. I will portal home and use the teleportation circles there to take me to the Camarian Capital. Tomorrow you will have a few Camarian books to copy.”
“Excellent.”
So the next morning I created a portal of darkness and stepped through it, coming out into my bedroom in the Royalian palace. For the room of a prince, in a palace, it was plain and even frugal. Most of my books on necromancy were in my room at the cabin, so the bookshelves were only half full. That half being Royalian theology, law, and code. My practice staff was beside the queen-sized bed, ready for when Saimaa called me to the training grounds. A bow would be in the closet, ready for those times Father had taken Thom and me on a hunt. The desk was a mess of notes, scrolls, and quills. I could not remember what I was studying last or writing before I left for the northern deserts. It had simply been too long.
I would have to take the teleportation circles to the Camarian castle. The teleportation circles were housed in their own room in all three locations, in the cabin, the Imperial Royalian palace, and the Camarian royal castle. They were a circular raised platform surrounded by candles and runes. A combination of the runes must be known to teleport to one of the three locations. The combinations were not difficult to remember and because of the fact that anyone could use the circles, they needed twenty-four-hour monitoring. A pair of individuals called Grimhorns, a human people that were magic immune and considered natural mage hunters, stood at the doorways to the teleportation circles in the palace and the castle. As the cabin was so remote and already had spells protecting the glade, there had not been a need for further guards at its teleportation room. I configured the runes and stepped onto the platform.
The Camarian royal library was straddled with dark wood pillars and archways holding up the three stories of books. It was an open area on the first floor, allowing mages who were apprenticed to the Mage’s tower at the castle to study in the royal library at the many tables. The second floor was mainly bookshelves with desks here and there. The third floor was entirely bookshelves with no other surfaces. Enclosed candles lit the library levels with mage-glass windows on the second and third floors allowing in natural light. The library was quieter than other places inside the castle but it still had boisterous individuals pouring over books, maps, and scrolls at various tables.
I was on a mission to find interesting books for Daugovantril. But what would he find interesting? Camarian history? Theology? I might as well take a number back, perhaps three or four so that he could either have his scribes copy all of them or take the most interesting of them to be recorded.
On the second level of the library, I was skimming over book titles when I looked up and I saw him. He had to be an Ellearn, tall and lithe, at least six foot five in height, with his arms and legs appearing longer than his torso. He wore a simple white robe, and his silver hair was down to his knees. His face was masculine for an Ellearn who were a naturally androgynous people. But still, was the most beautiful man I had ever seen. His aquamarine eyes lifted to find mine on him as though he had known he was being watched. Quickly I looked back to the book in my hands of Reinnen theology trying my best to appear unfazed. I did not want him to catch me blushing; I was not some maiden who would fall over themselves for a man. I was upset with myself for my reaction to him and although I wanted to seem unfazed, I was frazzled and had difficulties turning my attention back to the task I had given myself. I started to look over the bookshelves once more when I heard footsteps drawing near to me and when I looked, it was him. It just had to be him. Had he noticed my staring?
He was the first to speak, “Excuse me, I haven’t seen you in the library before. May I ask for your name?”
Looking at him, now up close I could see the eternity in his eyes, and the spark of sadness that denoted Ellearn of ancient age. Why did he even want to talk to me of all people?
But I answered, “I am Prince Drefan Royale of the second blood, I was the Royalian diplomat and will be returning to that duty soon.”
“I am Lord Riq’ua Riviria of the Banyan Ellearn. You are Royalian, that’s interesting. I have not had the opportunity to meet many from the South or learn about the Southern Empire. I would be very interested in speaking with you when or if time permits it.”
“I am an apprentice so I am often busy but-” I would not dare be rude to an Ellearn so old, “perhaps the mid-day of this week at noon?” I would not admit to my own curiosity about him.
“Wonderful. Then I will buy the mid-day meal as a thank you.”
“You do not have to do that.”
“It would be my pleasure,” Lord Riq’ua bows gracefully and with the rules of hospitality all I could do was nod and give my thanks once again. My very bones felt light and I leaned back against the railing behind me.
It was a short conversation, my first time seeing and speaking with Lord Riq’ua, but it would not be my last. I honestly looked forward to the opportunity of getting to know this ancient man who wanted to know more about my people. They were one of the few things I was proud of, the Royalian Empire and its citizens. Our laws and our code. It was so much easier talking about anything other than me.