Book of The Dead

Tyron stared at the massive double door entrance to the Red Tower, a strange pulse thudding in his temple. Beyond these doors lay the people who killed his parents. Beyond these doors, somewhere, the array that was used to torture them could be found. Soon, he would destroy it all. He couldn’t wait to destroy it all.

He didn’t even realise his teeth were clenched as he stood, his face impassive, but his heart pounding in his chest and fury flowing like liquid fire through his veins. A voice called to him, but he didn’t hear it. All he could hear was his parents’ dying words, all he could see was his father’s face as he slid the knife into Beory’s chest.

“Hey! Are you listening?” Filetta demanded, shaking his shoulder with one ethereal hand. “Hello?”

Gradually, the Necromancer returned to himself, his eyes beginning to focus on what was in front of him once more as he turned toward the wight.

“Wh… what is it?” he demanded.

“I’ve been calling your name, are you alright?” Filetta demanded. “Don’t come apart now, things are about to get serious.”

“It wasn’t serious before now?” he muttered, startled to realise just how little attention he’d been paying to his surroundings.

He began to sort through the connections that bound him to his minions even as he searched with his eyes, ensuring the situation was still under control. As far as he could tell, it was, but time was still slipping through his fingers, time he couldn’t afford to lose.

“It was serious before, but now there’s a chance you might actually succeed, so it’s more serious,” Filetta told him bluntly. “How are we going to get this damn door down? Your big boys have been working on it for a while now, and it hasn’t budged.”

As she said, his Bone Giants had been hitting the door with all the strength they could muster, using their massive, heavily enchanted blades to hack at the metal, sending sparks flying with every strike. Despite the powerful blows, they weren’t making much progress. A forbidding mass of black iron carved with sigils of binding and protection, the door was almost as hard to break as the gate to the compound.Sensing the magick around him, Tyron tsked when he found the Magisters were holding back from drawing on their central array. If they tried to tap that well of power, he could syphon off as much power as he needed, but they had already gotten wise to his trick. The door to the tower, much like the rest of it, was heavily enchanted, drawing on mighty arrays and stores of arcane power within the building. Unlike certain other components, these were things he had never been permitted to touch.

Tyron watched as his Bone Giants continued to swing their weapons in mighty arcs, slamming the blades into the door only for them to bounce off, another burst of sparks flying into the air. The door was taking damage, but at this rate, it wouldn’t break until it was far too late.

If he didn’t get into the tower, the Duke, the militia, the Gold Slayers, all of them would descend on him, trapped inside the compound with nowhere to go. He had no doubts as to how that fight would go. His skeletons would be torn apart, no longer able to leverage the advantage of numbers. Overwhelmed by high-level mages, he wouldn’t be able to act to prevent his horde from being decimated. Worse, his magick could be suppressed entirely by mage-hunters, the invisible bonds that joined him to his minions cut like ribbons.

He couldn’t allow that to happen.

“Clear the door,” he commanded Filetta. She looked at him, incredulous, knowing he could do the same himself with a thought, but hesitated when she saw the expression on his face. Eyes as hard as flint and lips pressed together, Tyron looked grim, yet more determined than she had ever seen him. She reached out through her own conduits, ordering the undead to move, clear a space around the doorway.

Other wights queried her, but she continued to issue wordless commands, and they followed.

Soon a wide space had been cleared, revenants and skeletal mages gathered around, raising powerful shields as Tyron worked, oblivious to it all.

Striding forward until he stood but five metres from the door, he reached inside his armour and withdrew a pouch drawn tight with red string. As he untied the knot, he sensed the air, testing the conditions. The sun had fully set, night had truly arrived over the city. Without wind or rain, the evening was clear, the stars peeking through the dark overhead to shine weakly over the courtyard.

He drew in a long breath, closed his eyes, and visualised what he needed to do. One hand reached into the pouch and withdrew a handful of glittering sand. Cores that had been ground down to a powder were an effective ritual medium, yet one that was vulnerable to the weather, given how fine the grains were.

Moving without hesitation, he began to make wide, measured gestures, pouring out the sand to form lines and curves. He didn’t pause or stop to consider at any point, withdrawing more sand as soon as he needed to, moving from one sigil to the next as he worked his way outwards, an increasingly more intricate ritual circle forming as he went.

Filetta stood and watched, unsure what he was trying to do, but unable to look away. In only five minutes, the circle was fully formed and Tyron finally grew still, stepping to the centre and inspecting his work. He cast his dark eyes over each line, each sigil, checking for even the slightest mistake. Finding none, he nodded with satisfaction and reached out his hand.

A revenant stepped forward, a creature that had once been Herath Jorlin, a staff held in its hands which it offered to its master, even as the soul trapped within cried out with futile rage. Not even bothering to look, Tyron grasped the staff his mother and father had commissioned for him and grounded it between his feet. When he took his hands away, it remained in place, held by an invisible force as it anchored the circle.

When all was ready, he took another, slow breath, and began to speak.

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Even within the tower, they could feel the impact of his words upon the world. Reality itself shivered and warped as Tyron worked his will upon it. The soldiers behind the door looked at each other, uncertain, while the mages shivered, fearful of the power that rattled in their chests and set the very magick in the air to quivering.

While he spoke, the circle lit beneath his feet as the ground cores began to absorb the power he poured into it. At first it glowed bright with white light, illuminating him from beneath to the point he looked like a spirit himself, shrouded by a blinding glare, but as he continued, the light darkened, becoming tinged with a sickly green. That colour deepened, until the entire circle was filled with a darker colour, the colour of roots and rich earth, the colour of moss and mould, of decline and death.

His words coming faster and louder, Tyron took hold of the staff once more and raised it high overhead. The light around him grew so bright that he was impossible to see, even with his minions’ undead senses. Then he slammed the staff down once again as he spoke the final word, and the circle suddenly dimmed.

Filetta watched, uncertain what had happened. Seconds ticked by without change. Just as she began to wonder if something had gone wrong, Tyron staggered to one side, catching himself at the last moment with his staff.

She started to run towards him, but a silent command froze her in place. The Necromancer turned to look at her, his eyes bloodshot, and he shook his head.

Soft at first, but growing in volume, a laugh echoed out from somewhere Filetta could not see. The sound was like nothing she had ever heard before, laughter formed of chittering rodents and swaying vines. The air itself felt heavy and humid, as if it wanted to press her down to the ground.

Something was here, something that should not be here.

When she looked back towards Tyron, she saw him looking down towards his feet, where a large rat stood, gazing back up at him.

The Necromancer nodded, once, and the rat turned away and began to skitter towards the great metal doors of the tower. The world seemed to hold its breath as the tiny creature reached out with a single paw, then let it rest against the cold iron.

Filetta saw the change immediately. Where the paw had touched, the metal began to turn red and flake away. Like a sickness, the rust spread rapidly, long twisted lines snaking up the front of the doors and then widening as more and more of the metal corroded. As if the doors were experiencing millions of seconds for each of theirs, it rusted away right in front of their eyes. With the internal structure weakened, the bottom right half of one door dropped to the ground and fell outward with a mighty crash.

When she looked again, the rat was nowhere to be seen. Tyron stood, still as a statue as the rot continued to spread through the metal, turning all to dust, until finally the hinges gave way and the great doors collapsed. Two giant metal doors crashed down, stood still for a wavering moment, then fell outward, collapsing at the Necromancer’s feet with a resounding boom.

Before the dust could settle, Filetta felt Tyron’s silent prompting and began to march, more undead falling in around her.

Behind the gates, ranks of soldiers and mages stood, ready and waiting, but she could see in their faces they weren’t up to the fight. As the soundless skeletons marched forward, blades raised, the men and women in front of them looked afraid, hesitant, resigned, grim or downright terrified. Black mist billowed through the now open doorway, reaching inside and surrounding the defenders, stealing away their sight and sealing their doom.

Tyron watched, impassive as his skeletons marched past him and into the tower. The ritual had taken a lot out of him, but he would recover. Thankfully, the favour of the Crone, Raven and Rot counted for something.

He drew in a deep breath, feeling the cold air bite at his lungs. He was close now, so close. Just a little further.

Just a little further, and it would begin.

Focus returned to his gaze as he glared at the Red Tower. Fresh waves of hate rolled through his gut, and he grit his teeth to hold back the anger. Raising his hands, he began to cast, surrounded by black mist and grinning undead as he passed over the threshold.

Screams were already rising from within as he completed his spell. Once again, bursts of vitality came to him, death filling him with life. Already the entryway was scattered with corpses, twisted faces screaming eternally in death. He paid them no mind. These were not the people he had come to destroy.

The horde of undead poured into the tower, a river of bones and magick, crashing against the defenders and sweeping them away, breaking apart their formation and driving them deeper into the building. Tyron directed them all, rooting out every nook and cranny of the ground floor, leaving no stone unturned, using all the knowledge he had gained from working within these walls.

Staff gripped in one hand, he moved toward the stairs to the upper levels. Skeletons bore the cauldrons alongside him, black mist still spewing forth in great torrents.

“Kill!” came a desperate, barked command.

Tyron’s vision filled with light as he rounded a corner. The air sizzled with the heat of magick, and the mist was burned away by thick beams of red light that streaked toward him. He didn’t step back, but allowed his skeletons to stream forward, thick shields braced and covering him. Arcane energy crashed against black bone, and the bone gave out first. Skeletons crumpled, their shields burned away and bones shattered, but more took their place. Tyron waited while flecks of magick stabbed into his armour and charred his cloak, his heart beating painfully in his chest.

When the light finally faded, dozens of skeletons lay at his feet, but still a thick wall of shields was raised before him.

“Stay back!” the voice called again. “Come any closer, and you’ll wish you were dead!”

The Necromancer tilted his head to one side, as if looking at a puzzle.

“That’s an interesting thing you said,” he replied, reaching within his cloak and rummaging in his pockets. “The idea that living could be so painful that you would rather be dead and have done with it. It shows how limited you are in your thinking.”

Tyron withdrew his hand, a perfectly spherical core held in his palm, its surface covered in intricate sigils. He held it up between two fingers, letting the light gleam off its surface as the Magisters stared at him.

They were in two ranks defending the stairs, staves in hand, red robes on, a glittering barrier of light raised between him and them. He stared each of them in the face. There were less than twenty, some still young, others with long grey beards and lined faces worn with the passage of years.

“When I’m done, you will understand that death… is far from the end,” he promised them. “Your life will leak out of you, breath and light will fade and you will die.”

He shook his head, a wild look in his eyes.

“But it won’t end. I will take your soul and lash it to your bones. You will raise your hands against your brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, all at my irresistible command. Your spirit will cry, and beg, and scream for the oblivion that lies beyond death.

“You. Will. Not. Have it.”

With a flick of his fingers, he sent the core rolling down the corridor. As it passed, light flickered and faded as barriers, traps and alarms turned inactive. Eventually it rolled against the solid wall of red light that covered the entrance to the stairway, and that too faded away, leaving the Magisters exposed.

“Run, if you want. It won’t save you. But you can run.”