The Empress of Beasts, page 24
part #13 of The Wandering Inn Series
It was difficult. Aggravating. Pisces began to sweat, and then to curse. He tried reconfiguring the bone leg, assembling more parts of the Behemoth in his room. He went back to the necromancy tome and read for a bit, massaging his temples.
“Anchor the lattice…well, obviously around the center of gravity! How do you provide enough power to move bone that heavy? No, not another lesson mixed in with anecdotes of your ‘accomplishments’ every five sentences!”
He hurled the spellbook across the room and dragged his fingers through his hair. Pisces stared at the spellbook, and then flicked a hand. It flew back towards him and he settled back on the desk, reading vexed. He wasn’t like Ceria, who had only recently begun her training again. But sometimes, Pisces envied her.
Ceria was talented. She was a half-Elf, naturally attuned to magic. She had a spellbook with a number of spells he would have loved to study if he could have spared the time from his necromancy studies. And she had learned from a master.
“Illphres.”
Pisces said the word bitterly. And he remembered. A broken body rising, lifeless eyes burning with undead light. Of his regrets, and he had many, that one still stung. He wondered sometimes if Ceria had forgiven him for that. Better still though. She had seen her master’s corpse in undeath.
But she had not seen how Illphres had died. Her or the other [Mages] who had gone to challenge Zelkyr’s last test. Pisces was still haunted by that memory, too. He paused and shook his head.
But she had had a master, however briefly. Someone who could perfect her fundamentals, show her a path. A path to true magic, even if it was only as far as Illphres had gotten. She had probably been on par with a Named Adventurer. The highest of Gold-ranks at least!
By contrast, Pisces was alone. All of his accomplishments were from feeling his way blindly forwards, extrapolation using spellbooks. But theory was far from experience. And not just that; [Necromancers] were reviled almost the world over. Pisces couldn’t even find good examples of living practitioners, hear legends of what had been done, except as tales of woe. He envied Ceria her certainty.
“And yet.”
The [Necromancer] paused. He looked up, his hair disheveled, at the Bone Behemoth. With one hand, he collapsed the beginnings of the skull, reassembled the bones. He studied a skeleton.
Just…a skeleton, built in the Human frame. But modified. There was something wrong with its chest. A spiral-like design leading to a black opening. Over-long arms and legs. It made the creation uneasy to look at, but Pisces smiled. He began animating it, watching the arms and legs flex, perfecting another design he was working on.
He enjoyed this. This was elegant. Sophisticated! Not like the brute power of the Bone Behemoth. But—he sighed—that was the point. Sometimes one needed a hammer, and his team was fundamentally weak in that area. Grimalkin had pointed it out and in lieu of better spells—Pisces glanced around.
“Where are those scrolls he gave me? I should commit to learning [Acid Orb] tonight. Fourteen more hours of study should do it. Memorizing the formulation of acid is…”
He shook his head. Magic was not for people who couldn’t handle memorization or slow progress. Then again. He snorted.
“The [Sorcerer] can cast any spell he or she wishes. All they must do is design it—inefficiently. One envies the simplicity of their existence. Whereas I on the other hand have limited time to study! Especially if I must work around the Bloodfields. Well, perhaps six hours of study today. Around lunch. Ceria and the others may be back by dinner. Hm. Lyonette mentioned Erin had come up with a new food.”
He smacked his lips absently. Life wasn’t so bad now, was it? No, it was not. Hot, good food, a comfortable bed, and all the privacy he could wish for, if not always the respect. Erin Solstice had given him that. And he felt…well, indebted.
“A fascinating young woman. Truly fascinating. I only wish…”
But then Pisces paused. Carefully. And he looked around his room. It was a reflex now. And ordinarily, it only reassured him, reminded him what not to say.
Except for this time. Pisces’ gaze wandered the room. His messy bed, the unfinished Behemoth parts, bone fragments, ready to be assembled, his dresser, the undead rat sitting atop it with glowing green eyes, his money pouch, the very mild scent potion Octavia had sold him, three cookies he’d smuggled from the kitchen—
Pisces jerked and stared at the rat. It regarded him, the sunken sockets of its skeletal corpse glowing a lurid green. It was standing on its haunches, an unnatural posture. And it was looking right at Pisces.
He stared at it. The rat stared back. And something lurked behind the green glow. Another intelligence, flickering past the oblivion in the magical light in those undead eyes. Pisces’ pulse sped up. He wavered, waited. And then he swept into a courtly bow. There was no mockery in it.
Because the undead rat was not his creation. And as Pisces’ head rose, the tiny mouth opened. And a deeper voice, a…Human voice, echoed from it.
“Young Necromancer. It has been some time since we have last spoken.”
Pisces looked up. He smiled, or tried to. But he stared at the rat, with awe, trepidation—and a hint of incongruity. It was still a rat. But the presence that lay beyond it?
He had no master. No one who had shaped his beginnings. And he still had not. Not in truth. But this was as close as he could get. Perhaps closer than he wanted. Pisces lowered his head and adopted a respectful tone that Erin, Ceria—few people in this world knew he was even capable of.
“I am overjoyed to speak with you, Archmage. And I humbly thank you for the tome. It has been most instructive.”
The rat’s head turned, moving independently of the rest of the body to look around the room.
“So it would seem. Let us converse a moment, young Necromancer. Have you mastered the designs I have taught you…two months prior?”
Pisces bowed his head again.
“I have, Archmage. And I respectfully wish to speak with you about what I have learned. Ah—Archmage…”
He searched for another title. One of the speaker’s many appellations of the past, perhaps. But they escaped Pisces’ nimble mind, for once. There was no help for it. He looked at the rat. At the speaker beyond.
“Archmage Chandler?”
It was the wrong thing to say. The rat’s eyes flashed. Pisces felt the ire and his skin crawled. The voice spoke slowly.
“That name is old. Archmage Chandler was a man from a different era. Over a century dead. Address me as you will. But do so by the name they have given me.”
Pisces licked his lips.
“As you wish. Archmage Az’kerash.”
It would be an understatement to say that he had a few secrets no one knew about.
——
They called him Az’kerash. It was a Gnoll name, a title given out of hatred. Az’kerash. Slayer of Kerash. So that they might never forget what he had done. But most people in the world who knew the name lost the context. Az’kerash was just…Az’kerash. A monster needed a name as grand as it was. So the name stuck.
Once, he had been called Perril Chandler. And that fact was important too, even if few remembered it. Do not forget that he was once Human. Once a man. Even if he sometimes forgot.
He had other names, too. Titles. Archmage Chandler. Lord Chandler, Duke Chandler, Sir Chandler—all born out of estates awarded to him. And he had kept the name, Chandler, that marked him as common-born, despite the attempts to change it, to guard his own reputation, perhaps. That was a fact of a different time, completely at odds with the image of Az’kerash the world held now.
Who still remembered the Gravewarden of Therras? The Undying Shield of Calanfer? Those titles were ash, and the current rulers—if those kingdoms yet existed—would deny any recollection of such names. But they had existed. Once, a lifetime ago and a flicker of time in the scheme of the world, he had been known as an honorary Knight of the Autumn. A friend of the Order of Seasons, a paragon of the now-defunct Order of Felgeist.
No, too few. Perhaps a Dragon, a few [Historians]. Some of the nobility or monarchs well-versed in Terandrian history, or just his. An Archmage. Little more. Even a lot of the [Necromancers] who styled themselves as his second coming, a successor to his name didn’t recall who he had been.
And some days he forgot. He was only known by one name, now. A name cried for over a century in hatred. Az’kerash. The Necromancer. His legacy was most strongly felt in Terandria and Izril, where he had brought death and horror.
Terandria most of all; Az’kerash was still a household name. Not to terrify children to sleep; few slept with the thought of him stalking their dreams. Or if they did, bedwetting inevitably followed. No, he was just a legend. A tale of why necromancy was evil. Of a monster that forgot how generations earlier had loved the man.
But enough. Say enough of the past. He spoke of it not at all these days. Az’kerash was thought dead to the world. That he lived was a matter that concerned so precious few. And it wasn’t even…life. Not in the way most understood it.
He did not sleep anymore. He had no need of it. And he sometimes did not move. He stood in his workroom, in a castle built of black stone where light was unwelcome, to the west of the Bloodfields, hidden in a deep forest nestled against the High Passes.
There was no map of this place in detail. It was an uncolonized area. The one Gnoll tribe that had lived here had been slain a year ago. Few would wish to anyways, so close to the perilous mountains. It had only been a place of note for a few days last year, when two Drake armies had clashed after a long retreat by one. And then a Goblin Lord had sprung from this area, leading an army north. But after that, the forest had lain silent.
If you wished to find him, the journey was long. Difficult. The nearest village was nearly a hundred miles distant. The wilderness bleak, monsters sometimes roaming. And the forest enchanted. It was a maze of illusions, that you might cross through, or never know you had been walking by the castle as you passed through it.
If, somehow, you were to navigate it, you would emerge in a cleared space. In a bubble of silence, a place where even on the brightest spring day, the sky seemed greyer. The soil depleted. And the expanse in front of the castle was hardly empty.
There they slept. An army of the undead. Giants made of bone, undead, fresh and fallow with age. Waiting. Inside, they stood in silent rows against the walls, hung from the ceilings, crowded the dungeons. Skeletons, wearing armor. Decaying bodies.
Inwards and inwards. Towards the study. Past old libraries filled with books preserved by magic. Unused areas for dining or leisure, now dusty and empty. Into the few rooms that shone.
But the light was black. It ate at sunlight, provided an uneasy luminescence. There were three rooms that Az’kerash occupied.
The first was his work room. A vast space, given over to a few bookshelves of powerful tomes. An elaborate magical circle in the center. Preserved designs, flasks of liquid or potions stored in glass cabinets. A vast ceiling, to hold whatever might be created in the air.
The second were his personal chambers. No bed was present, but more tools. Books, of the non-magical kind. Art, hung with a connoisseur’s eye against the walls. A few mementos. And more than a few trophies.
The last room was simplest. A war room. Complete with maps, a circle meant for teleportation. Scrying devices, orbs, mirrors, and a collection of the most immediate magical items the Necromancer might use. Those were the three places he frequented. He might never leave any of the three rooms in a year. He could spend months in any one room.
Working. Az’kerash did not sleep, as mentioned. Nor did he take breaks. Here he stood, manipulating flesh and bone above him. A whale’s form slowly expanded, the gargantuan creature slowly disassembling into its parts above his head.
It was what Pisces had done—on a far grander scale. Fat separated from tissue, tendon moved, wriggling. And then it came together, reforming into a different shape. Organs shifting from their intended function. Magic moving biology. A hundred, a thousand different aspects were changing at once, too many for a normal mind to keep track of.
It taxed even Az’kerash at times. But he could and did work like this for uninterrupted stretches. Sometimes, he would talk, giving orders to the undead, or speaking into a scrying orb, or controlling something from afar. He would be working on a new creation, experimenting with a spell, while at the same time holding a conversation and moving his undead all at the same time.
It was a state that made the Necromancer absent, his attention sometimes distracted from reality. When he stretched himself, he sometimes forgot the basics, like the oddity of a young woman bursting into his chambers out of nowhere. He would be fully able to deal with her as a threat, and even be able to hold a conversation, but basic ideas like ‘how had she gotten here?’ or ‘maybe it was a bad idea to let her run off’ or even ‘perhaps a tip was in order’ escaped him.
That was, until he refocused. Sometimes, Az’kerash stopped. He would cease working on a dozen projects at once and concentrate on one issue, like, say, City Runners who had somehow infiltrated his sanctum. And then he was suddenly, intensely focused. For a while. But Az’kerash could be absentminded. Neglectful, even, of things that didn’t interest him in the moment.
If his many former apprentices had lived, they could have attested to that fact. As it was, a few could still remember who Az’kerash had been in life. Some had known him. Some had learned. All were old.
Archmage Feor could have told many stories. Az’kerash, or Perril Chandler, or Archmage Chandler could have told even more about an uppity half-Elf student. But neither were inclined to reminisce about that particular time.
So here he was. Az’kerash stared up at the whale’s form as it reformed. He ignored the fatty tissue, focused only on bone and sinew. He had more bones he was wedging into the new creation, reinforcing the structure. Sinew moved around it, simplifying the process of animating the creature; all-bone creations required more magic than flesh undead. And Az’kerash was a master. He frowned.
This new monstrosity would have sunk in the water. It would also have died; it lacked necessary organs like, oh, lungs, and a heart. After a moment, Az’kerash gave it both. Sometimes those organs helped. Even so, this whale-monstrosity would have encountered problems in life. It would have been an unparalleled killer; the teeth certainly helped with that. But digestion? Excretion? Basic mating? Problematic.
And it still didn’t satisfy him. Az’kerash paused. He moved his leg for the first time in two months. Shifted his weight. He didn’t pace around the creation; he just rotated it in the air. Frowned at its undercarriage.
“Hm.”
It was a dissatisfied sound. Az’kerash stared at the undead creation and wove a quick spell of animation. It sunk into the tendons, the entire body, custom-made, instantly replicable. That wasn’t hard for him. In the air, the whale-horror came to life. It snapped its mouth, lunged, moving the sinew and muscle in one arc. Az’kerash stared at it, doing a simulation of the creature fighting, perhaps in sea or on land. Then he shook his head.
“No.”
He waved his hand and the whale fell to pieces. The pieces of its body flew apart, landing in circles inscribed with [Preservation] spells. Az’kerash sighed slowly.
Two months. Two months of reconfiguring his latest design. It wasn’t easy. Recreating an entire muscular system could be taxing. And he still wasn’t happy with his new design. So Az’kerash, the Necromancer, stopped his work on the whale project. He raised one hand, flicked a finger.
[Lesser Teleport]. One moment he was standing in the work room, the next, in his study. An undead woman jumped and looked around before trying to shuffle towards the door. Az’kerash paid no attention. The Necromancer walked over to a chair, his muscles moving stiffly in his body. He tapped his chest absently; the flesh revitalized, his gait quickened.
Sitting, then. Not because he needed to, but because he wasn’t a savage. Az’kerash leaned back, and his mind, spread, running in parallel, refocused. [Parallel Thoughts] deactivated. He looked straight ahead, focused on the world. And like that, realized he’d overlooked something.
“Bea. What are you doing?”
He turned his head. Bea, one of Az’kerash’s Chosen, an undead made uniquely to serve his will, froze, and guiltily tried to hide what she was holding behind her back. As he turned his head, she guiltily gave up. Her putrefied lips moved. She was a creature of rot and plague. A female corpse, her features not decomposing, but terribly, terribly…ill. To touch her was poison. She spoke in a beautiful voice, a woman’s haunting tones. And like a child.
“Reading, master.”
“Why are you in my study?”
Az’kerash looked at her. He wasn’t angry. Just patient. His fingers moved, and a scrying mirror floated over towards him. Bea hesitated.
“Because I had nothing to do? And Oom is gone. I am sorry, master.”
“Ah.”
Az’kerash paused. He looked at Bea. It was the first time he had thought of Oom, one of his creations, an Acid Slime that had perished in battle with Zel Shivertail. He looked at Bea. The Necromancer read her body posture, the tone of her voice. But it wasn’t the right moment. Part of him was still focused on work. So his voice was flat. Without emotion.
“I see. Read, then. Until I have instructions for you. Replace the books later.”
“Yes, master. Thank you.”
Bea smiled, relieved. Az’kerash’ expression never changed, but Bea was used to his ways. She retreated. The Necromancer was still processing. His mind was playing catch-up to all the events that had occurred, all the things he might need to focus on now.
“Bea.”
The plague zombie halted.
“Master?”
“Where are the others? Reading?”
“No, master. Venitra is…training. Smashing undead. Kerash was reading, but I think he went to sleep. In the ground. I haven’t seen Ijvani for…a while?”
