The Necromancer 2

Perhaps it is appropriate that this volume begins with my final true adventure with the Mythseekers. Yes, we were together for a time beyond this, but it was never as it was in the good days. It was never these treks into forgotten civilizations and haunted tombs, in search of forgotten knowledge and exotic treasure. All that remained ahead was the war, and when we joined it, we lost what made us special and we were soon sundered.

To properly understand the import of this chapter, I find that it might be necessary to dwell on my names, for I have many. Belromanazar of Thunderhead, of course. The elves know me as Oribeiros, the Dirge of the Ageless. For a time I was Ashuz the Blackspear. And then the orcs call me Malthu, the Traveler's Moon. There is one sobriquet that looms larger than the others, for it is what I am known through the cancerous spread men call the Heacharid Empire.

While the Heacharid curs cower from me in their cathedrals, they whisper a name in their prayers for deliverance: The Dreadstorm.

You have heard it. None upon this plane have not heard that name. At times I have loved it, at others I have loathed it. I have learned to accept it, for it will remain attached to me forever.

The source is a power, but how I acquired this power is shrouded in riddles and half-truths.

The Fourfold Chronicle

has told a version of the tale.

The Lament of Axichis

tells another. The

Historiae Heachariae

yet another. They are correct on the details of this power, but not how it came to my possession. It was not a treasure from Milgoghur, nor the amazon dead imbuing their champion, nor a deal cut with a demon.

This is the true tale, of the source of this power and of she who would give me a name spoken only of in whispers.

I first beheld Diotenah the Shadow's Daughter during the ambush that nearly killed me. The Mythseekers had descended into the lost city of Tann, delving into its depths to learn why the dwarves had abandoned it. It had been deserted in the upper levels, merely a few of Qhoth'raza's lesser children to give us bloody welcome. We should have been suspicious, for no warren remains unpopulated, but there were always just enough of the widowspawn to allay our suspicions.

Alia of Freeport moved at the head of our little group. The rogue was tiny, her body compact and supple. She wore a costume of brown leather, open to reveal a flat belly, a green kilt about her hips. Her skin was pale and dusted with freckles, her green eyes bright and inquisitive. Her long, copper-red hair was done in vinelike plaits, collected in a long tail. Her magic blades Fire and Ice were sheathed at her belt, her hands empty and out as she probed the dark.

Velena Grimm, our witch and leader, stayed in the middle. She was of middling height and stout, with bountiful curves, heavy breasts and hips, and a shapely buttocks. Her skin was ivory, and covered in a variety of black tattoos. Her long black hair hung free, her pale eyes a counterpoint to the darkness of her hair and costume. She wore a black gown belted at her waist, with numerous beads, animal skills, and other small fetishes dripping from her.

I stayed behind Velena, a glowing cloud at the tip of Spire, my ironwood staff. The light it shed was fitful, but enough for us to navigate by. Oddrin, my night eft familiar, sat on my shoulders. His eyes and the line of glowing spots down his body added a touch of light to my spell.

Xeiliope, daughter of Xelyphe was last. The tallest of us, she was also the most heavily muscled. Her canary blonde hair was cut short, her golden eyes bright. She carried her magic spear, Daybreaker, in one hand, a circular shield with the round sigil of Axichis painted on its surface. Her Valkyrie armor was a metal breastplate and scaled kilt, with accompanying bracers and greaves. For those with the senses for it, it glittered with magic.

We had just defeated a coven of widowspawn and wiped the ichor from our weapons, when we emerged from the winding tunnels into a great, vaulted chamber.

"The Tannites gathered in great underground plazas for their high holy days," Alia said, her keen eyes probing the darkness at the edge of my spell's light. "Every week there was at least one."

I had stopped being surprised at the rogue's encyclopedic knowledge of dead cities. As she was fond of reminding us,

How else will I know where they keep their valuables?

"They haven't gathered here in many centuries," Velena said.

Alia came to a stop, her arm flung out. "Everybody stop moving. Right now."

We obeyed without hesitation. Experience had taught us to trust our rogue. "What do you see?" Xeiliope asked, clutching Daybreaker and peering into the dark as though there would appear an enemy to fight.

"Bel, would you bring the light?" Alia said. "Walk in my footsteps."

I followed her along the blocks of the floor. The glowing cloud at the tip of my ironwood staff flung beams of light out into the dark. The floor, formed of great blocks of stone intermittently covered by shattered tile and sprinkled with cave dust, continued into the dark.

"That's what I thought," she said. "Trap."

I could see nothing, but Alia was never wrong when she uttered that warning. "Where do we walk?" I asked.

Alia moved cautiously about, stopping at barriers only she could see. I followed, bringing the light with me. "Follow me," she said. "Step where I step and we should be able to get across. There looks to be a bridge of sorts up the middle of the room. Bel, can I borrow Oddrin?"

"He's on the way." I knew what Alia had in mind. The night eft's glow would serve well. Oddrin flowed from my shoulder, slithering through the air to Alia. He would not perch on her, but stayed near her, his glow brightening to help her navigate.

Velena and Xeiliope moved around me, and I brought up the rear. Light at the front of our little column and the back. As we made our way across this bridge only Alia could see, an intense feeling of dread closed over me. I took it to be funereal aspect of Tann finally burrowing beneath my skin. Later I would understand that I was actually sensing the fell power of a necromancer.

A sound bloomed at the edge of hearing so gradually that I didn't notice it was there until Alia hissed, "Ssst! Stop!"

The lost city held its breath as the four of us were still, our senses reaching out into the dark. Now I the sound wormed into my consciousness, a low rumble that raised my hackles and filled my limbs with the cold energy of fear. Then, a faint scraping, all around, of something, many somethings, moving over the dusty stone. We gripped our weapons, readied our spells, knowing that a fight was descending upon us.

Ahead on the path, a ghast stepped into Oddrin's blue glow.

Though I had never beheld a ghast before that moment, there could be no doubt about what it was. Its hairless skin was stark white, tinged gray where its thick blood collected. Its head was a parody of humanity, with distended jaws filled with sharp, interlocking teeth, pointed ears, a small nose, and huge eyes of pure black. It was impressively muscled, walking on hands and feet like an ape. It opened its hideous mouth and where I expected a hiss, the beast was eerily silent.

"Can you get behind me, Alia? I will dispatch this abomination," Xeiliope said, advancing, her spear and shield at the ready.

"It's one monster," Alia said. She drew her blades with a flourish. An arc of flame and a matching one of frost shimmered in the air with the twirling swing. "The day I can't take one monster..."

She trailed off. Two more ghasts stepped from the darkness. Then three, then more, and then legion. So many that they were far out of range of the light, the only evidence of their presence a great roiling shadow and the scratch of their talons on stone. I noticed something then, a strange detail that only made sense later: every one of them sported a scar upon their throats.

"Retreat. Alia, get back to the mouth of this bottleneck. We'll fight them there," Velena said.

I turned. More ghasts melted from the shadows behind us. The sheer number of them was overwhelming, their wormy, pale flesh catching the light as they advanced, hemming us in. "Retreat isn't going to work," I said, gripping Spire and beginning an incantation.

"Alia, you need to hold off the front. Xeiliope, get around Bel and me."

They advanced on us, and their leader emerged from the dark ahead. This would be the first time I laid eyes on Diotenah the Shadow's Daughter, and though I did not yet know her name, she cut an impressive silhouette.

She was a ghoul, and alone among her ghasts, she stood fully upright. Where their skin was tinged in gray, hers was blue, collecting in the seams of her body and in the blush of her cheeks and pits of her eyes. Her eyes were as black as theirs, her ears smaller but as pointed. Her teeth had the same interlocking formation and glinted silver in the dark. She wore a black crown with horns rising on either side of her hairless head.

She was of middling height, muscled and slender with a dancer's build. Her breasts were tiny swells against her chest. Her waist was small, her belly flat, and hips slender. She wore a costume of black tulle, the remains of a funerary wrap stolen from some unfortunate grave and altered for the graceful lines of her body. It ran about the back of her neck, then over her small breasts in two strips, then collecting as a long loincloth over the front and back of her pelvis. She was more nude than clothed, an alluring but dangerous sight.

As she strode into the light, she brought fear with her. It closed over my heart with a fist of ice. She gestured with her black-clawed hand, a silver ring glittering from her index finger. She bared her metallic teeth and whispered something in the feathery language of the ghouls. Though it was impossible to know for certain where her black-in-black eyes looked, I felt her attention on me.

The ghasts heard and understood, loping across the bridge on both sides. Had they screeched or howled, they would have been less terrifying. Their low rumble, a sound felt rather than heard, worked the core of my humanity, an atavistic fear that pushed me to flee. There was nowhere to run.

I mumbled my spell, hurling the sheets of lightning through the advancing horde at our backs, trusting Alia and Velena to handle the front. The first bolt struck the lead ghast in the breast, a burn blossoming over its heart, talons of lightning scorching black veins over its flesh. The lightning jumped from him to his closest fellows, and from them to another line. They fell, slain by my magic. A living foe might have hesitated, even fled at the destruction. The ghasts merely loped over the fallen corpses of their fellows, not even recognizing they were slain.

"Wizard, one side," Xeiliope said. She squeezed past me, setting her shield, Daybreaker over it in her amazon fighting stance. She snarled at the ghasts, "Come now, meet your death!"

I glanced behind me. Alia had killed several, their corpses decorated with slashes, burned and frozen. She was building a hill of bodies, forcing the ghasts over difficult ground before they could meet their end at the deadly blades of the rogue. Velena stood behind her, pronouncing curses on each. As Velena's magics took hold, the ghasts would slip at an inopportune moment, enough for the rogue to finish one off with a clean cut to the neck.

With Xeiliope as a living wall, dispatching the ghasts one at a time with brutally precise strokes of her spear, I gathered my power for another sheet of killing lightning. I hurled it through the next of them and then again. No matter how many I killed, there was a fresh batch charging over their dead fellows. My endurance was flagging and though I'd killed many ghasts, their numbers were inexhaustible.

"Alia!" Velena screamed.

I turned and saw that the rogue was down. A ghast had her pinned beneath one taloned hand, its whole weight ensuring Alia could not move. Another pair of ghasts loped over the mountain of their dead friends. Behind them, I glimpsed their mistress, the necromancer, her silver teeth flashing, her black eyes alight with pleasure in carnage.

I retrieved my Shattered Mirror from its pouch, collecting the flash of light from the bolt of skyfire I flung through the beasts that menaced Velena and Alia. Six more images of me appeared across the battlefield, most of them scattered through the flat area than none dared walk upon. They mimicked my movements, simulacra of life, real until touched.

A frown rippled over Diotenah's horridly beautiful features. Ghasts saw these mirages and loped to attack. The necromancer whispered her Ghoulish warning, but it fell on deaf ears. For a moment, time froze as I watched the ghasts charging out over the trapped area.

Then, one came down at the end of its stride and the ground crumbled beneath it. Like lightning bolts, the cracks spread. More of the ghasts hit these trigger points, the cracks joining, growing deeper, thicker. A terrible din filled the air as the floor collapsed.

I gathered another spell behind my lips, and it left in a gust as a great weight slammed into me. A ghast knocked me to the lip of the narrow bridge I now stood on. I windmilled my arms, Spire falling from my hand, the light vanishing into the hole below.

"Bel!" Velena called, reaching to me.

It was too late. The ghast that hit me turned, and I fell. The beast followed me off, into the choking dark and I knew nothing else for a time.

I awoke with a pounding headache. Rock dust hung heavily in the air, coating my mouth and lungs as I breathed. Oddrin nudged me, and it was only his glow that allowed me to see. I was atop a pile of rubble, and the broad back of a ghast was nearby. No breath betrayed it, but then, ghasts no longer had to breathe.

A light shuddered not far away. It was Spire, the power of the spell I'd cast on the tip still active and calling to its master. Distantly above I heard the sounds of battle. I got unsteadily to my feet and swooned, but I did not fall. My entire body was a mass of agony, but I could move every limb. That would have to do.

With Oddrin's help, I saw that I was in a mass of broken stone, much of it balanced precariously in heaps, ready to fall down and finish the job the fall started. I stepped around the ghast that had fallen with me, with the intent of finding where my ironwood staff had fallen.

The ghast moved suddenly, exploding from the rubble, rock dust raining from its white bulk. By the glow of my familiar, the ghast's black eyes met mine and its great mouth opened to bare its teeth. It made no sound in its throat, betraying no hunger, no anger. It was an automaton built to kill and that was what it would do.

I reached for Ellisyr's sword, girded to my waist, but my injuries dragged at me. The ghast flung its arm out, catching me in the chest and sending me sprawling. No spells came to my lips. This was a fight for survival in a pit, brutal and base.

It ended with me atop the creature, stabbing it over and over with the elven blade until it moved no longer and its face was a ruin, leaking its nauseating gray blood over the shattered rocks. I staggered to my feet, wiping the weapon on my robes. The sword of my lover's husband had saved my life. Ellisyr wouldn't have appreciated the irony, but then, he was dead.

I found myself chuckling and the sound was chilling. The noises of battle had vanished, and now all that greeted my ears was my own footsteps, scuffling and echoing over the rubble. Oddrin led me to Spire, and I sheathed the sword and leaned heavily on the staff.

The spell winnowed out. Darkness enclosed over me. I crouched instinctively, reaching out with my senses for noises of other ghasts stirring. I could only hear the rushing of my blood. Oddrin found my shoulders, wrapping about them shedding his blue glow in a tiny aura. I was very small in a very big place.

My breath came in quick, panicked gasps. Alia, Velena, and Xeiliope were gone. Dead maybe. I was in a ruined city infested with endless hordes of ghasts. I fought against the rising tide of terror, reminding myself of my deeds. I had faced an elf lord in battle. I had defeated an orc chieftain in single combat. I had cast Vexacion's city into the abyss.

A hand closed over mine. I whirled, ready to smite what I found.

It was a child. A ghoul child. She was small and slender, wearing a bit of sackcloth as a makeshift smock. As with every ghoul, she was hairless, lacking even eyebrows. Her flesh was white, tinged blue, like that of a corpse. Her pointed ears twitched as she cocked her head at me with innocent curiosity. Her pure black eyes looked into mine and her lips peeled back from her sharp teeth. Her hand was cool to the touch.

For whatever reason, this calmed me. I saw no malice in her face. She whispered something in the Tannic dialect of the Ghoulish language, and though I could not understand her words, I understood her intent, as she tugged at my hand. I allowed myself to be led.

I walked hunched over, Spire in hand, Oddrin giving me the fitful illumination I needed to see a few feet before me. She led me to a tunnel in the wall and then inside. Behind us, I heard movement, unmistakably the sounds of ghasts freeing themselves from rubble.

The little girl turned and put her finger to her lips. The digit ended in a hard, black claw, curved at the tip. She uttered no sound. I nodded.

She led me deeper into the dark and I took care to step where she stepped and nowhere else. The sounds of the ghasts diminished behind us, and though I was in agony, I felt safe. My heart ached for my companions, and I knew I would find a way to come to their rescue or else wreak terrible vengeance on the necromancer.

Perhaps there are those who wonder why I did not employ Fidget. A companion of sorts, one who could fight. I can only say that I did not think of it. Perhaps the fall scrambled my brains more than I realized. It was only later when I recalled the figurine that I cursed my foolishness.

After a long walk, the tunnel turning and branching numerous times, it finally opened up into a chamber. The ghoul led me to a wall and let go of my hand. I sank to a seated position in exhaustion and pain. Oddrin threw his glow over her. She watched me, her head once again cocked as though she could not imagine such a strange creature as me.

I touched my chest. "Belromanazar," I whispered.

She touched hers. "Maireili."

Yes. This was how I met my Maireili for the first time. Most chronicles skip over this inauspicious meeting, never mentioning how or why she joined my household. It was not here, for she was a child. The first thing she did upon meeting me was save my life, a more impressive first impression could not be made.

"Thank you, Maireili," I said, though she could not understand me.

She smiled. "Diotenah," she said. Then she bared her teeth and flung her hand out as I had seen the necromancer do.

"This is the necromancer's name," I said.

"Diotenah." She pointed at me, then pointed at my blade.

"You wish me to slay the necromancer. We find ourselves in accord. Do you know anything of my friends?" Then gestures. I pointed at myself. One. Then added fingers. Two, three, four. "Friends."

Maireili, bless her, has always possessed a keen mind. Though I knew it not then, she had lived in Tann on her own for years, after her parents had been taken for Diotenah's army. She was resourceful and clever, and knew the fallen city better than even its mistress. She understood my meaning swiftly.

She nodded to me. "Diotenah."

I started to rise. She shook her head, putting her hands out. She put her hands together, rested her head on them and closed her eyes, then pointed to me.