The empress of beasts, p.29
The Empress of Beasts, page 29
part #13 of The Wandering Inn Series
“I wish to serve you forever, Master. What am I doing wrong? How can I fix myself?”
The Necromancer looked down at her. And he touched her face.
“Forever is a long time, my dear. Even the undead fade. I would that you could stay with me. But…”
Bea looked at him. And Az’kerash paused.
“You lack only for one thing, Bea. You, Venitra, Kerash, Oom, and Ijvani. One thing that would elevate my Chosen, allow you to correct your flaws. Without it, you are unchanging. With it, you might deliver me that forever.”
“What? Master—if it is anything, we will find it for you. Salt, or flour. Or…”
Az’kerash laughed softly. Bea held still, hopeful. But he shook his head.
“It is nothing you can make. Or if it is, every hint of it was scoured from the earth. It is something I failed at a hundred thousand times. But still, I persist.”
“What?”
“Life. Someday, I will complete the secret to creating life. And someday, perhaps, you will level, Bea. If I could only understand what I lack. But neither Zelkyr nor I ever finished the secret. And I fear my friend died, leaving Cognita shackled. And you—you are forever my child. You will not grow. But I love you for that.”
Bea closed her eyes. It hurt. Even when he told her he loved her. Because she knew she was incomplete. And she would know it forever. But maybe—she looked up. And he nodded.
“Someday, master? You promise?”
“Yes. I will keep trying. I promise you. Forever.”
He held her. And she took all the comfort from his promise.
After a while, Az’kerash rose. He brushed Bea’s cheek, and then left her standing in the dust. He walked through his castle, past an army of undead led by Kerash. A silent Venitra watched him walk into his work room. The Necromancer stared up at his creation hanging in the air. And then he waved a hand.
The thing he worked on next was simple. It was so simple, it was beyond his grasp. The Necromancer raised his hands. And all of his craft, all of his being went into it. A twisting word, a magical script compressed a million times. A library’s worth of words, drawn in magic. All the power he could command, shimmering into a point. It was a word, but incomplete.
Power scorched through the air. Az’kerash pointed and the charged air turned the sky dark. The objects in the room, the other magical wards, began to fail as the magical script condensed further, into a shining point. He raised both hands, and his eyes opened wide.
Flesh moved among bone. Organs moved, forming together. A heart rose, beating, imitating life. Lungs heaved, a body filled with blood and every component floated in front of him. He pointed, and the mote of light struck its chest. For a second, the heart beat. And the eyes opened. Az’kerash pointed.
“Live.”
The eyes opened—and the magic blasted outwards. The Necromancer raised one hand. The shockwave sent every object in the room flying. He stood as it blasted outwards, and the undead in his castle looked up, their eyes flickering for a moment.
And then it was done. The Necromancer stood amid failure. And he exhaled. He turned away. He walked towards his quarters.
Things to do. He didn’t sleep. He didn’t rest. But some things were beyond him. Perhaps even immortals needed to stop. There, Az’kerash sat. He thought of this day. An aberration among countless others. And at last, he waved a hand.
In a dark room an undead rat sat up. It regarded a sleeping young man, sprawled out in his bed, snoring after a late night of…fun. Childish though it may be. Az’kerash regarded him. And he thought of the man he was. He turned his head, staring at the incomplete foot, the attempt at a behemoth.
So young. So inexperienced. But—so familiar. The Necromancer paused, looking down at Pisces. Then he raised a finger.
In the room, the bones stirred. They floated out of Pisces’ bag of holding. They reshaped themselves. And a creature of bone rose. A monster far larger than a Bone Horror. Smaller than a giant. The Necromancer paused as it began to touch the ceiling. Then—he was struck by a thought.
He smiled, and twisted his fingers. The bone bent, reshaping itself. The form kept building, but compressing itself, doubling over, moving sideways, to fit in the enclosed space. The Necromancer kept working, assembling the final product.
He finished it at last. The twisting structure of bone filled the room. A behemoth, compressed through contortions of bone, but complete. And animated. The spell matrices twisted in Az’kerash’s sight, a complex knot due to how the creature was aligned. But it was whole. And its eyes flickered to life. The head rested just above Pisces as the [Necromancer] tossed in his bed, oblivious of the change.
The Necromancer paused, looking at the behemoth. It pleased him, in a slightly perverse way. The young man would have to decipher it to understand how it worked. It was a riddle made of magic only a [Necromancer] could solve, and even then—tricky. He had to admit. But it was familiar.
Homework. The kind he’d used to give to students, a lifetime ago. For a moment, the Necromancer smiled. And then the little rat floated forwards. It scribbled on the skull of the undead creature facing Pisces. A spell. The little paw engraved the magical words deep in the skull, a black spell, a death magic.
Call it a whim. Call it a chance. Az’kerash turned away. He had work to do, and Pisces was only one of his concerns. But—he spared one last look as the rat collapsed onto the table. He would not watch the boy today. Perhaps tomorrow. To see how he had done. Perhaps, to see him and his team. The strange inn.
But the Necromancer’s amusement faded. His eyes darkened. And he looked at the slumbering form one last time. He whispered.
“Someday, you will see the depths of their hatred for you, boy. Rejoice in your today, for that tomorrow lies ahead. Inevitably.”
He turned away. And the Necromancer thought of the future. The past was dead. He sat back in his chair and closed his eyes for nine seconds. And he thought of nothing at all. Then he opened his eyes.
“…Where did Ijvani go?”
6.52 K
The Wandering Inn had breakfast. It had breakfast every day, in fact, except on rare days that involved calamity, monster attacks, or breakfast turning into brunch because everyone had been up last night partying. It happened every single day.
And it generally wasn’t interesting. It was, in the scheme of the day, a quiet opening to the more interesting events that took place. For example, this morning the inn’s customers had breakfast.
Lyonette was serving a yogurt mixed with sweet blue fruits. There was toast and butter if anyone wanted any. The Horns of Hammerad were there. Seborn and Moore were eating with Lyonette and Mrsha. Jelaqua had not returned last night. There were a few other regular guests, including Bevussa, alone, who had come for the blue fruits. She had a sweet…beak.
Relc was here. He wasn’t talking about drinking or moaning about his familial relations. He was eating two huge bowls of yogurt and fruit after a late-night of patrolling and yawning. He was drinking it down with a tankard of mead, but that was about it.
At his table, Pisces the [Necromancer] was eating just fruits. He was reading from a parchment scroll and frowning as he ate. Ceria yawned as she picked at her toast.
“So, yeah. We’ll have to go into Liscor with the other teams tomorrow for the Bloodfields briefing.”
“Mhm.”
Yvlon ate with a fork, maneuvering it with some grace despite the metal arm guards she now almost always wore. She only took them off when the skin underneath needed washing and then—carefully. She had an infection, just a bit of red swelling and pus along where the metal was fused with her flesh she hadn’t told anyone about. She chewed as Ceria went on.
“I think we’ll take it easy today. I’ll practice. Obviously.”
“Got it. Need help with the hot tub?”
“That’d be good.”
“I will heat the water, Captain Ceria.”
“Thanks, Ksmvr.”
Not even that was funny. Pisces kept eating. After a few minutes, a familiar voice echoed through the room.
“Hello everyone!”
Erin Solstice bounded into the inn. Everyone looked up. Erin turned around, beaming. She’d been out this morning. To get her hair cut. She turned.
“How do I look?”
“Good.”
Erin wavered. Her inn’s guests had all looked up and some had suffered from that instinctive rectal and stomach-clenching that they had learned to associate with Erin and sudden and often dangerous events. But her cut hair? They went back to eating. It was almost a letdown. Erin sulked as she went over to the table.
“It looks nice.”
Lyonette tried her best as she let Mrsha feed her slices of blue fruit. The Gnoll waved a paw and nodded encouragingly. Erin sighed.
“Thanks. I mean, I’m not expecting applause or anything—I just got it cut. But it’s nice to see people noticing.”
She looked around meaningfully. Seborn looked up from his bowl. He stared at Erin, nodded once, and went back to eating. Erin sighed. She sat back at the table, yawning.
It wasn’t that she’d had an eventful morning; she’d gone to the [Barber], and sure, he’d been a snazzy Gnoll (since Drakes didn’t have hair, obviously, that was a real issue Erin hadn’t thought about), but he’d been very excited to do her hair! It had been a fun experience, but…Erin yawned again. She’d had a more interesting day yesterday.
Not that anyone cared. She’d told them a bit last night, but it was still low-brow stuff compared to the usual. It was sometimes good that way. Erin stared at Mrsha, feeding a smiling Lyonette, Relc, yawning and muttering about sleeping for twelve hours until his next shift, Pisces reading while he kept missing his bowl, and Bevussa using her talons to eat.
Erin frowned—she was going to talk to Pisces later for that thing this morning—and then noticed a shivering Drake sitting at a table as far away from hers as possible. Erin called out cheerfully to him.
“Hey Teliv! What’s wrong? Want more breakfast? I can get you other food if you don’t like yogurt!”
Teliv the Drake [Host] and sometimes [Negotiator] jumped at Erin’s voice. He looked up.
“What? No! No, no thank you, Miss Erin. No more food. I’m not hungry.”
He pushed his barely-touched bowl back unsteadily. Ceria looked up, her mouth full, and glanced at Erin. Teliv had a familiar look in his eye; she knew it because she’d had it about half a year ago when she first visited the inn.
“Erin, did you do something to Teliv?”
“Me?”
Erin tried to look innocent. She shrugged.
“No…we just went to Esthelm. Nothing big.”
“Hah!”
Teliv’s bark of laughter made some of the other diners look up. Relc scooted his chair closer, looking sleepily interested.
“Ooh, I know Erin went to Esthelm yesterday with some of the Watch. I didn’t get to go. Captain Z said I was unsuitable for diplomatic missions. What’d Erin do? Burn it down?”
“Relc! I wouldn’t do that! It was fine! We went, they loved us, especially the food and the stuff we gave them, and we signed a deal! Liscor’ll get some ore and we’ll even get visitors!”
Erin protested. Ceria raised her brows and the guests in the inn looked at Teliv for his take. He shook his head.
“That happened, but—the Hobgoblin entered the city! He snuck in after following us! That was only the start!”
He pointed at Numbtongue. The Hobgoblin looked up and grumbled something. This time Seborn glanced at Erin.
“That wasn’t a huge incident?”
“Whaaat? No! I mean, Esthelm’s cool. Cooler than Liscor. They didn’t get that upset. In fact, some of them knew Numbtongue!”
Erin smiled at Numbtongue.
“He was like a hero! Only, he didn’t get a parade and it was mostly awkward. But they let him in! And they liked me and him. They even gave me a hat. Let me get it!”
She hurried into the kitchen, remembered she lived upstairs, and came down in a clatter with a wreath on her head. The flowers were still fairly fresh, but showing the first signs of wilting after being outside so long. Now, in the inn, they’d be preserved forever in their near-freshness.
“See? I got one for Numbtongue, but he must have lost his. It was only a bit of a fuss.”
The Hobgoblin had left it with the graves. But that wasn’t a breakfast topic. Nor did he speak. He just folded his arms, content in silence. Teliv shuddered.
“Only a bit of a fuss? We came so close to a diplomatic incident. Four times! The Hobgoblin wasn’t even the worst of it. She encouraged a near riot!”
He pointed a claw at Erin. She tried to look innocent. Bevussa opened her beak in a grin. She turned as Relc began munching on some toast and sipping his drink happily. Erin hesitated as Lyonette, Mrsha, and Moore stared at her. Seborn drained half his mug of water and went back to polishing one of his daggers.
“I wouldn’t say a riot. Look, there was a jerk. He was all about stealing people’s money and charging ‘travel fees’ and stuff. Like [Bandits]. I…helped get rid of him.”
“She organized a coup.”
“Well, not really—”
Ceria raised her eyebrows and nodded to Yvlon. The woman nodded back. They had the same thought as most of the guests. Definitely a coup.
Well it sounded like Esthelm had been interesting. Noteworthy, even. But this was breakfast. Erin’s protests became weaker as Teliv found himself recounting the tale to those who were interested in the story. He began relaxing as they shared their first ‘Erin moments’, and he found someone had bought him a round. They began talking over breakfast.
And that was about it. Nothing interesting was happening. No one cared about her hair. Erin sighed. It wasn’t a fancy cut. Neither she nor her [Barber] had quite trusted that; he was good at styling fur, not Erin’s mane. She edged away from the conversation around Teliv so she wouldn’t have to hear all the embarrassing and mainly accurate things they were saying about her.
What to do? Well, she could clean a pot in the kitchen that had some caramelized sugar stuck to the bottom of it. Or get ready for lunch; Lyonette had her in the kitchen to replenish their food stocks. And maybe later today Erin would see about getting a nice bath since she was somewhat hairy from the cutting. Then she could visit some people in Pallass, maybe. But Erin wasn’t intending to stir up trouble.
“Some days are quiet. Nice.”
Erin sighed wistfully. She was done with trouble. Even Esthelm had been pushing it. And she really hadn’t started a coup. She wandered across the inn, and came to an almost abandoned table. The Horns had all left Pisces to go about their business; the [Necromancer] was still absently eating.
“Hey. Pisces. Psst. Pisces. Whatcha reading?”
Pisces looked up. He blinked as Erin slid into a chair next to him. He rubbed at one eye, yawned; Erin yawned too since she’d had a late night.
“Ah, Erin. Merely refreshing myself with a summary of the latest events. This is just a small collection of newsworthy topics I purchased at the Mage’s Guild.”
Erin blinked blankly at Pisces. He sighed and lowered the scroll, keeping it unraveled with one hand. She noted cramped handwriting and what looked like dates.
“So, you’re reading a newspaper?”
Pisces paused a moment, and his sleepy gaze flicked up towards Erin’s face before relaxing. He spoke casually as he speared a bit of fruit.
“I have no idea what you mean. But if you are referring to something similar to Olesm’s chess newsletter, you could say so, yes. However, the difference is that I requested the requisite information and paid a nominal fee for it. Normally I could get some information from [Criers] or gossip, but I prefer it to be tabulated and organized.”
Erin frowned. Newspapers were still a thing of mystery to this world, probably because paper was still somewhat expensive.
“I don’t get it. Explain it to me again. And does this have anything to do with the reason you woke us all up this morning by screaming?”
Pisces flushed. He had indeed woken the inn up with an ear-piercing shout, another pre-breakfast oddity. But he’d rushed out of his room to assure everyone that nothing was wrong. Erin assumed he’d stubbed his toe. Now she glanced sideways at the [Necromancer] and detected a bit of embarrassment and—Pisces coughed.
“That was purely an accident, Miss Solstice. A happy one, I assure you. I was simply unprepared for…well, a happy accident.”
“Does it have anything to do with the huge bone thing in your room?”
He jumped and stared at Erin. She shrugged.
“Mrsha peeked. I did too. It’s filling the entire room! What if we need to clean it?”
“I’ll thank you to respect my privacy! And it’s an ongoing project. A rather…tricky one.”
Erin bet he’d scared himself. And no wonder, with all those bones jumbled up! But she let Pisces collect himself and sniff haughtily a few times.
“Okay, so what you bought from the Mage’s Guild for…how much? It’s a…news…parchment. That has all the latest events?”
Pisces sighed.
“No. It cost me, let me see—nine copper pieces, since I provided the parchment. Hardly expensive, although then again, fairly steep to the layperson given how simple the task is. But I suppose that is how the Mage’s Guild earns some of its revenue.”
“Spare me the economics! How’s it different?”
Erin waved a hand. Pisces sighed, longer this time.
“I asked them to write down all the information they had on the Tiqr conflict and they did. Happy? This is all the information on the event publically available for the last—”
He checked the parchment.
“—month. I am refreshing myself. Of course, I knew some of the information already, but one must keep up with the latest events to be truly cosmopolitan.”
“You just want to be a know-it-all. What does it matter what’s happening in Chandrar?”
Erin narrowed her eyes at Pisces. He looked mildly offended.
“Erin, Chandrar is an entire continent. It is also home to the King of Destruction, who was once in a position to threaten the entire world. I believe even you know of him? Why would I not care what is happening in the world outside of my immediate area?”
