Book of The Dead

“Did you see his hands?”

“Yes. For the fifth time, we all saw his hands.”

“The movement was so crisp. No wasted motion. I could barely see him flip from one sigil to the next.”

“We know.”

“And he said he was working slowly. If that’s slow, then how fast can he go?”

Georg sighed and pushed away the notes he had been attempting to study for the last half an hour. In the dim light, it wasn’t that easy to see, but he found it difficult to sleep at the moment. Much like life on the farm, there was always more that could be done when studying Necromancy.

“Richard. He’s good, alright? We know he’s good. If he wasn’t, would he be worth learning from?”

His fellow Necromancer, lean, with pointed features and a permanent nervous expression, threw his hands up in frustration.

“Good? Good doesn’t begin to fucking cover it, Georg! I’ve seen others do magick. Admittedly… not much… but he blows all of them out of the water. Almost everything he’s showing us he taught to himself!”

Again, Georg sighed. They’d been over this so many times. Once Richard got a thought into his head, he found it extremely difficult to push it out. Hopefully, his current obsession would run its course soon.

“I don’t care,” Georg told him honestly. “It doesn’t matter if he’s the best milker in the paddock or barely average. I’ll get cream out of him all the same.”

Richard turned to him, aghast.

“Did you just compare Tyron Steelarm to a cow?”

“S’fine,” Georg shrugged defensively. “Gets the point across, doesn’t it? As long as he teaches me how to do this…” he wiggled his thick fingers with an air of general frustration, “... nonsense, then I’m satisfied. I want to make the best of my Class.”

“You aren’t seeing the big picture! Someone with his skill could take us so much farther….”

Georg thumped a fist to the table, causing Richard to jump. Recognising he’d lost his temper, the farmhand quickly apologised.

“Sorry. It’s just…. You need to stop doing this to yourself.”

And to me.

“Doing what?” Richard asked, lowering himself into a seat at last.

“You’re making yourself nervous! The more you build up Tyron in your mind, the more desperately you want to impress him, the more likely you are to fail when you try to work your magick in front of him. You know damn well what happened last time—”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“—and it’ll happen again if you keep getting yourself worked up.”

The bookkeeper’s son slumped in his chair and hung his head.

“You’re right. I know you’re right. It’s just… there’s a lot of pressure. This is an illegal Class, right? If we don’t become strong quickly…”

There was a rattle at the door, and a moment later, Briss pushed it open and stuck her head through.

“Am I interrupting?” she asked.

“No,” Georg growled, folding up his notes. Clearly, he was destined not to get any work done tonight.

“Good,” Briss muttered as she slipped through the door and closed it behind her, totally oblivious to Georg’s frustration. She looked at Richard, still curled up like a slater at the table. “Is he stressing himself out again?”

“What do you think?” Georg replied.

Heedless of his suffering, Briss scuttled next to Richard and started poking him in the side.

“Hello? Snap out of it, Richard. You’re fucking this up for yourself.”

A few more pokes and Richard snapped, flapping his arms until Briss backed off.

“He emerges from his shell!” she declared triumphantly before seating herself at the table. She rummaged around in the small leather bag she carried over her shoulder and pulled out her own notes. “Now, you guys can help me with this phrase. Is it supposed to be ‘Rhu-al-atten’ or ‘Rhu-al-att-hen’,” she asked.

Georg frowned, unsure.

“The latter,” Richard stated dully. “You have to emphasise the accent on the final syllable.”

“I knew it,” Briss breathed, closing her eyes and trying to commit the phrasing to memory. “I’ve been stressing about that for hours. When I wrote my notes, I wasn’t clear enough.”

“Isn’t it spelled out on the sheet we were given?” Georg asked, confused.

“It isn’t. Not on the one you’re thinking of,” Richard answered the question. “It’s not part of the ritual. Briss is working on her fundamental phrases.”

Exhaling a big puff of breath, Georg leaned back in his seat and stared up at the low roof of the house they dwelled in.

“I don’t know how you commit so much to memory so fast. The words get tangled in my head before I get halfway through the list.”

“Chunking. Break the list into smaller groups and work through them one at a time. Trying to do too many at once will stall your progress.”

Richard, of course, was the source of this sage advice.

“How can you be so good at this while also being such a mess?” Briss asked innocently.

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Richard slumped flat on the table, miserable.

“I’m just good at memorisation. My father taught me how to manage lists from a young age.”

“Useful talent for a mage, it turns out,” Georg noted.

“What does it matter if I can’t manage to hold it together long enough to finish the ritual?” Richard said.

“You failed once,” Georg pointed out. “It’s normal to be bad at something before you can get good at it. More practice is all you need.”

“I wonder how much time we really have?” Briss muttered. “Even Tyron told us he would only have weeks with us.”

That sombre statement caused a hush to fall over the trio as they thought about the implications. Learning magick from scratch was proving to be exceptionally difficult, no matter how skilled their teacher was. To even get started with their new Class, they would need to become proficient enough to cast a complex ritual. It was a steep hill to climb.

None felt that more than Georg. He struggled to remember the arcane phrases, his hands refused to move the way he needed them to…. He spent hours on the drills he was taught every day, but his progress remained glacially slow.

If he wasn’t able to learn enough to make his start as a Necromancer before Tyron left, what was he supposed to do?

Richard cleared his throat as he straightened in his seat. He and Georg had been living in this small house since the Awakening, while Briss stayed next door, sharing with some of her friends who were Bone Shapers. It wasn’t much, a single room with a firepit, some straw beds and a table, but it had one luxury the rest of the town struggled to get their hands on: an enchanted light source. Not that it was a particularly good one. Now, as the night drew close, it barely provided enough illumination to reach the edges of the small room, shrouding the wooden walls in shadow at the corners.

“I’ve been wanting to ask… though I didn’t want to be rude or anything… but…. What did you two want to get out of this Class? Why do you think you received it?” He shrugged his narrow shoulders. “For me… I’ve always wanted to be a mage. I didn’t even necessarily want to be a slayer, I just always wanted to learn magick, I didn’t particularly care what kind.”

“So you got your wish,” Georg said quietly.

“I did, I suppose. It’s exciting… most of the time. The rest of the time… I just feel terrified. Mr Steelarm… Tyron, he talked about wanting to bring down the Magisters. I guess I’m only now starting to realise that we won’t have a chance to keep our Classes unless he succeeds.”

The bookish young man looked uncomfortable being this open about himself, but he pushed on.

“Maybe it won’t even end at Classes. With everything that’s been happening,” he gestured vaguely toward the east, “maybe they’ll just kill us if they find us. In which case, we can’t even survive unless Tyron… wins.”

Briss looked at him, compassion on her features.

“Oh, Richard. Your family is here in Cragwhistle, right?”

The young man nodded.

“They aren’t just going to take your Class away. They won’t even just kill you. My grandparents were taken by them, right when it all started.” She teared up a little, recalling the painful memories. “My nan and pa were tortured, until they gave up the names of everyone they knew, just to make it stop. Our neighbours were taken next, and we would have been taken after that if my mum and dad didn’t take us away that very night.” She drew a shuddering breath. “It won’t end with just killing you. They’ll stick hot knives in you until you talk. Then, your family will be next.

“We came here after that, looking for protection. Instead, the gods gifted me with this Class, and I’m going to use it to keep my family safe.” The willowy girl nodded to herself. “Tyron has shown us that it’s possible. He’s gone through the rift, by himself. That alone should tell you how strong a Necromancer can be. If the three of us work together, then we might be able to protect Cragwhistle.

“That’s what I want to do.”

Her words fell heavily into the silence. Richard looked shocked and saddened to hear her story, as well as fearful. Perhaps he’d never fully considered just how much his family was at risk, simply from being here, in this place. Were he to be caught, as a Necromancer, all of his relations would go down with him, there was no question of that.

For a smart person, Georg had no idea how he managed to overlook the obvious. Briss turned toward the farmboy, who sat at the table, staring at his calloused hands.

“Everyone worshipped the Three where I grew up,” Georg said, “so I kind of fell into it as well, I suppose. S’fine, really. I don’t think it really matters that much which set of gods people worship.”

“If you ask a god, they might disagree,” Richard said faintly.

Georg shrugged.

“I suppose. I mean it doesn’t make much difference to the people. I seen a lot of people pray, but I never seen a god muck out a stable. I pray to Raven every now and again, and Rot a few times, but I’ve never heard a whisper back. For the most part, my life has always been about getting the work done.”

He closed his hands into fists on the table. Even now, his hands seemed smudged with dirt, despite not having worked a field in weeks. Sometimes it felt as though the earth had bonded with his skin, and no amount of washing would get rid of it. Not that it bothered him; hands were for working.

“I don’t know why I was given this Class, and honestly, I feel like it was a mistake most of the time. I don’t see how I’m suited to it. But since I have it, I want to make the most of it.”

He turned to Richard.

“Your parents are bookkeepers or somesuch, right? Briss, your family are coopers?” the other two nodded in confirmation. “Well, my family have been Farmhands. Classed Farmhands, for generations. We’ve never even been able to make enough to own our own land, not even out here.” He looked down at his hands again. His mother and father had hands just like his, except… more. More calloused. More dirty. More scarred.

“As a Necromancer, I’ve got a chance to make something of myself. You said it yourself, Briss. Tyron is on the other side of the rift, by himself. He keeps every core he finds for himself, right? With that kind of money, I can buy some land. My brothers and sisters won’t have to work themselves to the bone for someone else’s farm anymore. That’s what I want.”

Of course, there was more to it than that. Briss had spoken the truth. Unless Tyron was victorious, and Cragwhistle remained free from the purge, his goals would go unrealised. He needed time. Time to grow strong and carve a path forward. Being impatient wouldn’t get him anywhere, he knew that. Steady progress was the important thing: every day, get a little bit further forward.

“I’m with you, Briss,” Georg announced before he turned a level stare toward Richard. “You’d better get on the same page as well. Maybe you didn’t want any part of this fight, but you were thrown in all the same the moment you got this Class.”

Without another word, he reached down and picked up his notes, rifling through them until he found a blank page, which he placed flat on the table in front of him. From his belt, he withdrew the small whittling knife he always had, and made a small cut in the meat of his thumb. Just another scar to add to the collection.

Richard noticed what he was doing first.

“Are you… sure?” he asked hesitantly.

Georg nodded.

“I’ve thought about it. I’m learning too slow, my hands can’t keep up with my head. If I have to burn a feat for it, then I will.”

“General feat slots are…” Richard started to say, then caught himself and shook his head. “Sorry, I know you’ve given it the right amount of thought. It’s your decision.”

“I think it’s the right decision,” Briss encouraged him. “Tyron suggested it himself, so it must be useful for a Necromancer.”

I hope so, Georg thought to himself.

Unfortunately, he hadn’t levelled once in his Necromancer Class, but that was to be expected. The process to select a new General Feat was a simple one, and in moments he’d confirmed it, writing out his choice with his own blood on the page. Then, he ended the ritual.

“How does it feel?” Briss asked, curious.

“It’s… strange,” Georg said, looking down at his hands. “Like a tickling running up my fingers and into my head.”

“It can take a while for a feat like that to finish taking effect,” Richard said. “You may not even notice a difference until morning.”

“Well then,” Georg said, picking up a page of his notes while doing his best to ignore the sensation, “may as well get back to learning. Are you going to sit there moping, Richard? Or are you going to get back to it?”

The bookish young man looked down for a moment before he forced a laugh, picked up his own notes, and began to read. After a moment, Briss joined them. Soon, the three students were immersed in the world of magick once again, memorising phrases, practising gestures, and trying to make sense of it. Together.