Deus Necros

Kaiser refused to examine the carcass in detail until they had searched the rest of Bastos. He sealed it inside his storage space, isolating its influence from the surrounding land, then spent the better part of the afternoon walking through every affected farm.

Ludwig had expected the lich to make several unsettling observations about the corpse before disappearing into whatever laboratory he had constructed beneath the White Citadel. Instead, Kaiser stopped every few hundred paces to examine the air, press his fingers into the soil, or study the water passing through the irrigation channels. He inspected the barns where the starving cattle had been kept and remained motionless beside several wells for so long that Ludwig began wondering whether liches could fall asleep while standing.

Each examination ended the same way. Kaiser would rise, wipe the dirt from his fingers, and tell them he had found no trace of another source.

His two constructs followed at a distance, though distance did little to make them less alarming. Their enormous black bodies remained visible above fences and low rooftops, while the red lights inside their faces turned toward every unexpected movement. Work stopped whenever they approached. Children disappeared behind walls, animals pulled against their leads, and one farmer abandoned an entire cart of hay after a construct looked in his direction.

”Kaiser, move those things farther back,” Ludwig said as the farmer vanished around a barn. ”They haven’t attacked anyone, but every person we pass looks ready to abandon Bastos before sunset.”

”They are maintaining a respectful distance and have made no threatening movements.” Kaiser glanced over one shoulder at the black giants. ”If their appearance alone convinces people to avoid them, then the design is functioning exactly as intended.”

”You created them to frighten enemies. These are farmers.”

”The constructs do not know the difference until someone behaves like an enemy. Fortunately, the farmers appear highly motivated to avoid that mistake.”

Ludwig decided arguing would take longer than walking and ordered Kaiser to keep them near the road. The lich complied, though the faint satisfaction on his face suggested he considered the reaction of Bastos’s residents a successful field test.

Celine remained with them through the first several hours, accompanied by Thomas and a changing group of farmers who knew the land better than any map. They searched every place connected to the symptoms. Kaiser examined the pastures where cattle had continued eating while their bodies wasted away, and the farmers dug around the wells that had left people thirsty no matter how much they drank. They opened storage buildings, manure pits, abandoned sheds, and stretches of woodland near the cultivated fields.

They found old bones and dead animals, but nothing resembled the carcass beneath the wheat. None of the remains carried green growths beneath the skin, and Kaiser detected no concentrated trace of Gluttony’s Authority.

By evening, the search had expanded beyond the affected farms. Kaiser followed every faint disturbance he sensed in the land, yet each trail weakened or ended before revealing anything useful. When darkness made ordinary searching impractical, he marked several locations for excavation the following morning.

The work resumed at dawn. Kaiser sent his constructs ahead, allowing them to open the ground far faster than men with shovels, but the suspected sites produced an old tree root, a fractured old sewer pipe from probably seven hundred years ago, and the weathered skeleton of what had probably been a deer. The bones had lain beneath the soil for years and carried no trace of the influence they were hunting.

By midday, Ludwig’s relief had given way to irritation. By late afternoon, irritation had settled into a much less comfortable suspicion.

He stood beside the southern road while Kaiser climbed out of another shallow excavation and brushed loose soil from his coat. ”That makes seven places where you claimed the trace felt stronger. We have found nothing except roots, broken pipes, and an impressive amount of manure.”

”The manure pit was a legitimate false positive,” Kaiser replied. ”Decay produces several spiritual signatures that resemble the weaker edges of this effect. Once we exposed the source of the odor, the distinction became obvious.”

”It became ’stinking’ obvious before you told one of your constructs to dig into it.”

Kaiser looked toward the black giant now standing several paces downwind. Mud and considerably less pleasant material covered both of its hands. ”The construct lacks a sense of smell, so I doubt it feels inconvenienced.”

Ludwig rubbed one hand down his face. They had found only one emaciated pig buried beneath a single field, yet its influence had spread across several farms. It had hollowed crops while making them appear healthy, pulled moisture from irrigated soil, ruined the relief provided by clean water, and driven animals to consume food without gaining nourishment. People had eaten and drunk until their bodies hurt, all because of one carcass hidden a few feet beneath the ground.

Finding ten more would have been worse for Bastos, but at least the scale of the damage would have made sense. One source implied that whoever possessed such things needed very few of them.

Celine finished speaking with one of the farmers and joined Ludwig beside the road. Dust covered the lower edge of her clothes, and the strain of two days spent searching had begun to show around her eyes.

”They have finished checking the last woodland site,” she said. ”There were no dead animals and nothing unusual beneath the roots. Unless Kaiser has another location marked, we have searched everywhere connected to the affected water.”

”He has run out of suspicious manure, so I believe we’re finished.”

Kaiser ignored the remark and looked back toward the distant field where the carcass had been found. Farmers were already clearing away the dead wheat, gathering the collapsed stalks into piles while priests tested the exposed soil. Nobody knew whether the field could be replanted safely.

Celine followed his gaze. ”One animal caused all of this. That should make the problem feel smaller, but it doesn’t.”

”If something carrying only a fraction of Gluttony’s Authority can alter this much land while buried underground, then the real thing would not need weeks to destroy Bastos.” Ludwig looked toward the farms stretching beyond the road. ”There would be no gradual warning and no time for priests to argue over what they were sensing. The territory would simply begin consuming itself.”

”Then we should be grateful that Gluttony is not here.”

Ludwig nodded, though the thought provided little comfort. Someone else had brought a fragment of his Authority into Bastos, which required knowledge, access, and a reason to choose this land.

Kaiser approached them and gave the surrounding fields one last examination. ”I would end the search. Since the carcass was removed, the remaining trace has continued weakening in every direction. We no longer have a pattern to follow, and random excavation will damage more farmland than the original source did.”

Ludwig turned toward him. ”Can you guarantee there isn’t another carcass outside the affected area?”

”Of course not. I can only tell you that we found one source, removed it, and watched every known symptom decline. There may be another vessel beyond the territory, but we possess no trail leading to it.”

”That distinction matters.”

”It always does,” Kaiser said. ”Certainty is rare. Evidence is what remains when certainty refuses to cooperate, and all the evidence currently points toward a single source.”

Ludwig disliked the answer because it was reasonable. Continuing to dig without a trail would accomplish nothing beyond frightening farmers and ruining fields that had survived the first incident.

The search ended soon afterward. The carcass remained sealed inside Kaiser’s storage space, cut off from Bastos while the last traces of its influence faded. Reports began reaching the manor before sunset. Livestock had resumed eating normally, and for the first time in days, the animals stopped once they were full. The people afflicted by the unnatural thirst no longer emptied entire waterskins without relief, while the soil around the irrigation channels slowly began retaining moisture again.

Everything suggested that Kaiser had removed the only active source. Ludwig should have found that reassuring, yet the absence of another carcass only made the first feel more deliberate.

That evening, he stood inside Celine’s office before a communication crystal. Van Dijk’s face appeared within the flickering surface after several seconds, and his attention sharpened as soon as he saw Ludwig.

”You found the source?”

”We found one source,” Ludwig said. ”Someone buried a preserved pig beneath the southern wheat fields. It carried enough of Gluttony’s Authority to affect the crops, water, livestock, and everyone living nearby.”

He explained how the green growths beneath the carcass’s skin had pulsed when disturbed and how the surrounding wheat surged the moment Kaiser tried to remove it. Once the body entered the lich’s storage space, the unnatural hunger vanished and the false crops collapsed. Even the previously dry soil began accepting water again.

Van Dijk remained silent until the explanation ended. His gaze then shifted slightly beyond Ludwig. ”Is Kaiser still there?”

Ludwig looked toward the other side of the office. Kaiser had settled into one of Celine’s chairs and was studying a bottle of Bastos wine with enough concentration to suggest he intended to steal it.

”He is currently evaluating whether your sister keeps anything worth drinking.”

”I am examining the local production,” Kaiser said. ”It may be relevant to the condition of the soil.”

Van Dijk’s expression flattened. ”Put down the wine and bring the carcass to the academy. I want it contained in a proper isolation chamber before you begin cutting into it.”

Kaiser lowered the bottle without returning it to the table. ”I have better containment facilities at the White Citadel, and I am entirely capable of examining a dead pig without supervision.”

”I know what you are capable of. I also have records concerning transferred Authorities that I want compared against the carcass, including several cases older than the institutions currently pretending they invented the field.”

That caught Kaiser’s interest. He set the bottle down and leaned forward. ”How old are these records, and which Authorities were involved?”

”You can read them when you arrive. I am not discussing restricted material through a communication crystal.”

Kaiser smiled. ”Fine. Prepare the isolation chamber and have the relevant records brought out. I will bring the vessel intact.”

Ludwig stepped closer to the crystal before Van Dijk could end the connection.

”I’m coming with him.”