Book of The Dead

The moment Dove’s voice echoed out from the skull, Tyron knew he had succeeded. A wave of relief washed over him as the tension, grief and focus that had sustained him over the past twenty four hours drained away. He slumped forward, smiled wearily down at the skull, then groaned as he felt a wave of power swell inside his head.

He didn’t panic, he’d felt this once before. As his mind succumbed to the will of the Unseen, he slumped to the side, catching his head on his arm before it hit the ground.

”Hold down the fort,” he mumbled before his eyes fluttered shut and he was gone.

From within his new housing, Dove watched with the strange, ethereal vision of an Undead as Tyron lost consciousness.

”You must be kidding.”

His voice had an echoing quality to it, thinner than it had been in life. He’d only been returned to this mockery of an existence for a few seconds, but Dove could already tell he hated it.

”Kid, get up and release me already. Hey. Tyron!”

There was no response from the young mage and Dove gave up trying to wake him. He’d seen this before, the sudden loss of awareness, even the way the kid’s eyes flickered behind his lids. Whatever he’d done must have been damn impressive, even though he had absolutely no idea how the Necromancer had managed to do it. Suffice to say, even the Unseen decided it was an act worthy of great reward.

With nothing left to do and desperate to distract himself, Dove began to contemplate the magick that had caused him to be returned in this way.

Obviously he was in a ritual circle, unsurprising to say the least, but what sort? He couldn’t turn his head, couldn’t move anything in fact, so no matter how much he wanted to turn and look behind him he couldn’t. Judging by the runes he could determine from his low vantage point, the ritual had something to do with attachment, or storage?

So the kid had somehow managed to manifest his spirit and then lock it into a medium? How in the hell? He had a sympathetic container in the form of his own skull, that would have helped, but this sort of magick was… so far out of the wheelhouse of a first rank Necromancer it wasn’t even in the same province. This should have been impossible.

To do this, Tyron would have had to have invented most of the magick on the spot. Perhaps he had some frames of reference to work from, a couple of skills and spells he could base his work from, but he’d been flying blind for most of it. If it hadn’t worked he may very well have killed himself, and for what?

The kid was insane. Straight up insane.

”By the superlative spheres of the goddess kid, you are fucking special.”

He had to admit it.

”But the second you wake up you better kill me or I’ll eat your ankles.”

Tyron dreamed. Distorted images, imperfect visions and words half comprehended flickered through his head at an insane pace. It was dizzying, disorienting and a wonder at the same time.

This had happened to him once before, when the Unseen had granted him a vision and unlocked his Mystery. Despite having experience, it was all he could do to try and take hold of the tiniest sliver of what was being shown to him.

Words of power rumbled out of the sky overhead, igniting stars and raining fire across the world. Pure, unformed arcane energy danced through the air, in and out of all living things, changing and imprinting them as it went. Vast currents of magick, wide as oceans, filled his eyes as they crashed and swept from realm to realm.

One image after another flashed before him, never appearing longer than the time it took for him to register what he was seeing before it was gone. Sometimes he didn’t even have that long. On and on it went until Tyron felt as if his mind was bleeding from the constant stimulus that was being rammed into his head.

Then it was gone.

His eyes flew open and he wheezed out several coughs. His face had slipped off his arm and been mashed into the floor for the latter part of his vision.

”Holy shit,” he rasped as he sucked in a few breaths.

He weakly pushed himself up and onto his knees, his head hanging low. He felt as if his head had been struck like a bell. His eyes were watering.

For a long moment he knelt there on the floor and tried to get his bearings.

”I uh, hate to break in when you’re recovering, but you didn’t happen to set those wards did you?”

Dove’s voice broke through and Tyron’s head snapped up.

”FUCK!”

”For a genius, you really are stupid, you know that?”

Tyron staggered to his feet and cast about blindly.

”The wards are in my bag. Wherever you fucking left it, go now! Right in the middle, there’s a small wooden box. Hurry up!” Dove snapped.

The urgency in his voice pushed the weary Necromancer to move and move quickly. He turned and staggered up the steps out of sight for the skull-bound spirit and so Dove could only wait anxiously until Tyron returned several minutes later, a small carved box in his hands.

”That’s it, now do what I tell you and don’t fuck it up. If you do, you’ll either die on the spot or the magick will have the opposite effect, drawing the rift-kin towards us.”

”How does that work?”

”Does it fucking matter right now?!” Dove yelled before he relented. Explaining might help the kid focus. ”If you don’t create the formation properly, then the wards don’t mask each other, which means they basically just advertise themselves. Sensing the magick, the rift-kin will be on us like a rash.”

The young mage nodded and closed his eyes as he listened intently to Dove’s explanation. To set the wards wasn’t exceptionally complex, but precision was of the utmost importance. Fortunately, that was Tyron’s specialty and Dove watched, amazed, as he methodically and purposefully enacted the steps in order. His hands never wavered, his words never faltered. The confidence required to perform magick like this was absurd, bordering on insanity. How many people could act with such clarity and focus when their life was on the line? How many people could take hold of the arcane, an ephemeral energy beyond mortal understanding, with such ease? This kid didn’t even have a Class a month ago.

When the final words were spoken and the stones placed in configuration, the entrance to the cellar was warded. If everything worked as intended, the monsters would ignore it, no sign or scent from within would pass outside and the wooden doors would be invisible to them.

Obviously nothing was guaranteed. Soon enough this entire area would be flooded in kin, and if enough of them ran through there was a chance one of them would stumble through the warding. In any case, they’d done everything they could.

”You don’t have long, kid,” Dove spoke up as Tyron hunched over, drawing slow breaths to recover his energy. ”Once the break happens, we’ll be dead if we poke our noses out the door. I know you’re tired, but you need to get your backside up there and gather up enough food and water to last us…” he trailed off for a second, ”… to last you for a few days at the least. A week if possible. Get your bone boys to help carry things and then bring them down as well.”

”How long do you think?” Tyron croaked.

”I’m surprised it hasn’t happened already. It could go off any second. We should be far enough away that the building won’t collapse on our heads, which means we just need to last long enough for the rift-kin to disperse. Go out and get it. You’ll have all the time in the world to sit on your arse afterwards.”

He nodded wearily before he straightened and moved back up the short ladder and into the house. Despite his overwhelming fatigue, Tyron managed to gather quite a bit. The farmers raised their own animals and had no shortage of cured and fresh meat. There was a well dug within the compound and with the help of his skeletons he was able to secure enough food and drink to last. Tired as he was, he still managed to poke around for anything of interest; books, money and anything else he might need if he survived. Then he remembered the most precious resource of all.

”Ah shit,” he groaned to himself.

He wasn’t going to do it himself, so he set the skeletons to gathering all the bodies slaughtered by the star wolf. He didn’t want to spend a week locked into a cellar with them as they rotted, so he found a bedroom on the opposite side of the residence and had the skeletons stuff them under the bed. With a little luck they wouldn’t be crushed by rampaging monsters and he could raise them later. The adults anyway. The others he would bury.

With one last glance to the north and the violent storm that was now visible even this far south, he turned back and climbed back down into the cellar.

”I think we have what we need,” he croaked to the skull that still sat in the centre of the ritual circle where he’d left it.

He leaned against the wall and slowly lowered himself until he was sat on the floor. Almost immediately his head lolled forward as his eyes began to flutter shut, but Dove refused to let him sleep.

”Hey, HEY! Kid, you can sleep in a minute.”

Tyron lifted his head slowly.

”What. What is it now?”

”Kill me.”

The Necromancer stared for a moment.

”What?”

How was he supposed to kill him? Dove was extremely dead, he’d detached and skinned the head himself. He couldn’t remember the process much, his head had been fuzzy, at best, as if he were drunk on the magick rushing through his thoughts. Frankly, he didn’t want to remember. Butchering people wasn’t something he wanted to become familiar with, though it was almost inevitable that he would.

”You know what I fucking mean,” the skull snapped. ”You’ve had your fun, the wards are set, you’re as safe as you can be, given the circumstances. Set me free. Release my spirit, or whatever, from this skull and let me be about my business. There’s a few pricks who owe me money that I wouldn’t mind haunting. Or maybe there’s an afterlife. I spent so long praising the Goddess and her attributes that I’m sure she’d let me have a look at the real thing. So get on with it. It’s been nice knowing you, and I was glad to help you, but it’s done now.”

Tyron listened as Dove’s ghost spoke, his frown deepening as he went on. When the once-Summoner had finished speaking a long, awkward silence fell around them. Tyron dropped his head, avoiding looking into the glowing orbs in the skull as Dove grew more incredulous.

”Tyron. Hey. Hey!”

Still no response.

”You are fucking kidding me,” Dove raged. ”You aren’t going to do it? You’re going to keep me like this?”

”Not forever,” Tyron rasped. ”Just for now. A couple of weeks, I promise. I need help, Dove. I’ve been doing this on my own and no matter how good I am, I’ll make a mistake eventually. It’s a miracle none of the sketchy bullshit I’ve done has blown up in my face already. You can teach me. Just a bit.”

”Kid, listen to me. I’m not too keen on life as a skull. You understand me? I don’t even have hands! How am I supposed to feel… things? Fuck, I don’t even have skin! This is no way to exist. I want out.”

”I will. Alright? I will. Just not yet,” Tyron pleaded. ”I need a little time. A chance to get my shit together. You know the odds I’m up against, how am I supposed to succeed on my own?”

Dove was prepared to retort when he paused. Even in this form he could still sense the change in the air.

”Did you feel that?” he whispered.

Tyron peered upwards at the dirt ceiling before he tilted his head to the side, as if listening. A sound that wasn’t a sound swelled, growing louder and louder. Like a breeze blowing through the trees, or a wave rushing toward the shore, it grew and grew. He couldn’t understand what it was at first, then it struck him. Magick. The arcane energy that suffused the air all around them was moving. Slowly at first, then with growing speed, it began to shift, joining together into currents that rushed over the land and through the sky, all moving toward one point. The rift.

”Hold onto something, kid. This is going to get fucking wild.”

The young Necromancer swallowed thickly and positioned himself next to a support beam, wrapping both arms around it. As an afterthought he had his skeletons gather around, shielding him from any falling debris. The sound continued to build, rising to a crescendo that threatened to overwhelm him, until it suddenly stopped.

Here it comes.

The world shifted. That’s what it seemed like. Tyron felt the ground beneath him jump, and he crashed to his side as loose dirt showered down on him from above. He lay still for a second before the rumbling began. It grew quickly into a deafening roar that nearly shattered his ears. He quickly stuffed his hands over his ears, but it didn’t help. Again, the ground lurched. Then again. Not as large as the first time, but in a constant wave that grew faster and faster until the floor beneath was constantly shaking. His body bounced up and down, slamming painfully into the dirt again and again. He curled over, desperate to protect his head, but it was so hard to think. Everything was so loud.

Even more than his ears, his mind was screaming. All the magick that had rushed inward before now exploded out the other way. A grand tidal wave of energy that overwhelmed his senses and blanketed his mind. Blood dripped from his nose onto the floor but Tyron didn’t notice, his awareness crushed beneath the stimuli.

On and on it went, until he was sure he was dead, until he was sure the world had ended. He blacked out more than once, and when his awareness returned, nothing had changed. The ground quaked beneath him, the magick crashed all around him and the roar went on and on. Parts of the house above had no doubt collapsed. All he could do was hope that the cellar would hold. It was quite deep, dug to store meat in the cool, the ceiling reinforced with beams, but it hadn’t been made to withstand this.

When at last it was over, Tyron didn’t trust himself to release the white knuckled grip he had of his own head. After some time had passed, he realised that it wasn’t the floor that was shaking, but rather himself, and he slowly unwound. His skeletons still crouched around him and he instructed them to shift away and give him some space. The cellar was chaos. Everything that had been neatly stacked before was strewn across the ground, even Dove was partially buried beneath loose soil. Sections of the roof had indeed come loose, but thankfully hadn’t fully collapsed, though they might before he left. He’d need to be careful.

Every limb ached, every joint protested as he took stock. Most important of all, he checked the wards and was relieved to see that they had held their position, locked in place by the magick.

”That was something,” Dove remarked. ”Holy shit. I never thought I’d live to see it. Though I suppose I didn’t.”

Tyron nodded, relief written all over his face.

They’d survived the break.

”Don’t be happy yet kid,” Dove warned him. ”The worst is yet to come.”

As if summoned by his words, a piercing cry rang out from far away. After a second it was joined by a second, then a third and fourth and so on until he could no longer tell how many contributed to that unearthly shriek.

”Those fuckers,” Dove said softly, ”never saw one until the other day. Deadliest pricks on Nagrythyn.”

”What are they?” Tyron asked.

They have to be in the broken lands. That’s almost two days away. How the hell can I hear them?

”Trust me kid,” the skull warned him, ”you don’t want to know.”