Dirge for a Necromancer (15 page)

“I wasn’t planning on it, no,” said Kimohr Raulinn.

“You have five seconds to get off me before I burn you.”

“All right, all right,” said Kimohr Raulinn, rolling off Raettonus and sitting up. “That’s really no way to treat a god.” He sat cross-legged on the bed as Raettonus slid himself up against the headboard into a sitting position. Kimohr Raulinn’s robe had pulled up slightly, and Raettonus could see a bandage on his ankle, soaked through with blood.

“What happened there?” asked Raettonus, nodding toward Kimohr Raulinn’s bandaged ankle.

Kimohr Raulinn pulled the hem of his robe down over the wound. “Oh, nothing to be concerned about,” he said. “An accident, only.” Raettonus frowned at him. “Has anyone ever told you just how silly you look when you pout?”

“I wasn’t pouting,” Raettonus said. “What do you want?”

The god grinned broadly through the fanged mouth of his mask. “Oh, I don’t want anything,” he said. “I’m not here for myself. I’m here for you, really. For what you want.”

“Can’t you ever speak plainly?” complained Raettonus.

“That’d take all the fun out of speaking,” said Kimohr Raulinn. “I might as well go the full way and start dressing plainly and eating plainly and acting plainly. Then I could be just as boring as everyone else, hm?”

Raettonus sighed and rubbed at his eyes with the palms of his hands. “What on Earth did I do so wrongly to be cursed with having to talk to you?”

“I think we both know the answer to that, Magician Raettonus,” Kimohr Raulinn said with a chuckle. Raettonus scowled and turned away. “Well, if it’s any consolation, you’ve done horrible things but I still like you.”

“It isn’t,” said Raettonus. “Not at all.”

“I’ve been speaking to Sir Slade,” Kimohr Raulinn said. “We’ve become fast friends, he and I.”

Raettonus turned back toward him. “Master Slade?” he asked. “This is a lie, isn’t it? You’re just trying to get a rise out of me.”

“Not at all,” Kimohr Raulinn said. “I revived him, just as I said I would. Why, he’s just the same as if he’d never died at all. He’s not like one of your walking corpses, you know—nor like Deggho dek’Kariss. Oh, yes, I know about Deggho…ah, but Sir Slade the Gryphon is alive again—truly alive. I came to bring him to you, in fact.”

“Then where is he?”

“He’s still in my temple in Kyshem’mur,” Kimohr Raulinn said. “I left him there while I went to check if you were in a mood to see him.”

“Of course I’m in a mood to see him!” exclaimed Raettonus. He scowled. “That is, if you have him at all. I have my doubts.”

“Oh, Magician—you really should learn to trust a little more,” Kimohr Raulinn said, pinching the blond man’s cheek. “Trust others. Trust yourself. I could feel you watching me in your dreams. What would make you think those experiences were merely fantasy when you already knew your dreams can transcend that?” He sighed and disappeared, fading away in the span of a few seconds.

“Hey, wait!” called Raettonus. “Get back here—where’s Master Slade?”

The room was quiet, save for the fire crackling in the brazier. Frustrated, Raettonus spun and kicked the bronze brazier, sending it rolling across the floor, spilling out embers and hot coals. They sizzled on the grimy stone, and one or two landed on discarded sheets of paper and began small fires. With a defeated sigh, Raettonus righted the brazier and got down on his knees to collect the still-burning coals. He picked up a couple of red-hot embers that had rolled under the bed, grumbling to himself, and tossed them into the brazier. He turned and saw a fire had started on one of the tapestries hanging on the wall. “Christ!” he shouted. “That—I’m going to get blamed for that.”

He closed his eyes and reached out his hand, concentrating on that place between places. He fumbled his fingers across a book and a necklace before he found the pitcher and withdrew it quickly, the contents sloshing over the brim. It splashed down his tunic, leaving little behind to throw at the fire, and when he did fling the water, he mostly missed. The fire hissed slightly, but continued to burn. Raettonus cradled the empty pitcher on his lap and sighed.

Suddenly, a thin stream of water arched over Raettonus’ head onto the fire, extinguishing it.

Raettonus turned quickly, and in the dimness of his chamber he saw a tall, broad-shouldered figure standing, watching him with glowing blue eyes. Raettonus lifted one hand toward the brazier and bid the fire grow. His heart was in his throat as light filled the room; he was afraid he would not see what he hoped so violently for. But when he could see clearly, it was Sir Slade that he saw, watching him with a smile on his face. There were tears on his cheeks.

Raettonus couldn’t remember getting up, but the next moment found him hugging Slade tightly, burying his face in Slade’s chest, and crying like a little child. Slade didn’t say a word; he just held him gently and let him cry. Raettonus clung to him firmly, shaking with sobs, as Sir Slade rubbed his back soothingly. The blood rushed out of his knuckles, leaving them blanched, as he grabbed hard to Slade’s tunic as though he were afraid that his master would disappear forever if he should let go or ease his grip even a little.

“It’s all right, Raettonus,” said Sir Slade softly after several minutes had passed. “It’s all all right. Here, sit down.”

He helped Raettonus onto the edge of the bed, where Raettonus sat, still crying, gripping Sir Slade’s wrist tightly. Every time he tried to speak, another sob shook him, so Raettonus said nothing. For half an hour, they sat in silence while Raettonus tried to calm down enough to speak. There were a thousand things he wanted to say to Sir Slade, but most of all he wanted to say, I’ve missed you. Instead, when he could talk, he asked, “What happened to your eyes, Master?”

Sir Slade’s eyes were glowing faintly in the firelight, and the color within them seemed to swirl about his pupils. He smiled. “I was going to ask you the same thing,” he said, taking Raettonus’ chin gently in one large hand and turning the blond man’s face toward himself. “They used to be green. What happened?”

Raettonus looked away. “I screwed up a spell—a big one,” he said. “I…I didn’t think. It was stupid.” He stared at the floor. “They took away my soul for it, Master; I don’t know who they were, but they took away my soul. That was well over seven centuries ago.”

“Seven centuries?” asked Slade, raising his eyebrows. “Mercy. That’s…that’s a long time.” He looked at the tapestry of Daebrish, which lay proud and unburnt upon the wall. “Kimohr Raulinn—am I saying his name right?—he told me this world is called Zylx, and this kingdom, Zylekkha, it’s a lot different from our home. He said you’d been here for a long time, but I never imagined it was that long. What’s home like after all these years?”

“I don’t know,” Raettonus said. “I never went back. After you died… After you died, I spent all my energy trying to get out of our world, and once I succeeded, I didn’t want to go back. I’m a stranger there, anyway. When you died, I…I had no one left.”

“I’m sorry,” said Slade.

He shrugged. “Master, you have nothing to be sorry for,” Raettonus assured Slade. “It’s not as though you meant to die. You didn’t get the plague on purpose.”

“Well, no,” said Slade, looking down. “But…I was out of my mind with fever toward the end. I want you to know that if I weren’t, I never would’ve asked you to—ah… Kimohr Raulinn told me you still have nightmares about it. About…killing me. I’m…I’m so sorry, Rae.”

“All this time,” Raettonus told him in a whisper. “I’ve spent it studying so that some day I could bring you back to life… It’s all I’ve wanted since you died.”

Slade smiled and put his hand on Raettonus’ cheek. With his thumb, he brushed the tears out from under his eye. “Well, I’m alive now,” he said. “It’s going to be all right.”

Raettonus smiled and nodded, even though he knew it wasn’t going to be all right. After all, he was still immortal and Slade was not. Sir Slade was going to age and grow old and die again in Raettonus’ arms. Even if he didn’t get sick again, Sir Slade would die all too quickly. He was going to leave Raettonus behind just like he had seven centuries before.

He tried to smile as his joy turned to acid in his mouth.

Chapter Eleven

“Who’s this? How’d you get him in here?” asked Diahsis when Raettonus came to him with Sir Slade to get Slade a room in the citadel.

“Look at his ears!” said Slade softly, clasping his hands tightly as though fighting the urge to reach out and touch one of them. “He’s an elf!”

“You’ve put an enormous hole in the side of the citadel,” Raettonus said to Diahsis. “And you’re concerned how I got someone in?”

“Who are you?” Diahsis asked, turning to Slade.

Slade smiled politely, not understanding common Zylekkhan and therefore having no idea what was being asked of him. After a moment, a thought seemed to strike him. “Would you mind terribly if I sketched you? It’d be a wonderful addition to my notes.”

“What’s he saying? What language is that? Are you a Zylekkhan spy?” Diahsis demanded.

“Does he look Zylekkhan to you?” Raettonus said. “It’s English he’s speaking, from my world.”

Slade looked to Daeblau, who was standing guard behind Diahsis with Dohrleht at his side. “How about you?” he said. “I’ve never seen a centaur before today, either. Could I draw you?” He’d been upset when Raettonus had gone to see Brecan off without him, having wanted to see the unicorn before Raettonus sent him north for some of Slade’s clothes. However, as soon as they’d stepped out of Raettonus’ chamber into the citadel’s vast halls, where centaurian soldiers busily patrolled, Slade had forgotten all about it.

Daeblau smiled weakly. “What’s he on about?” he asked.

“He wants to sketch you,” Dohrleht told him.

“From your world, eh?” said Diahsis to Raettonus, crossing his arms. He pondered this for a moment, examining Slade. “So does that mean he’s a magician too?”

“We’re not all magicians in the world I came from,” Raettonus said with a sigh. “But, yes, he is.”

“I could tell by his eyes,” said Diahsis, smiling proudly and leaning back in his seat. “They’re blue and glowing. That’s not something normal.”

“How do you know? It could be perfectly normal for my world.”

“Is it?” asked Diahsis, raising his eyebrows.

“No, of course not,” Raettonus said. “Don’t be dense.”

“Can I touch his ears?” Slade asked Raettonus.

“Master, I don’t think he’d appreciate that much,” Raettonus said.

“I only want to touch them,” he replied. “They’re pointy. He’s a real live elf.”

“What’s he saying?” asked Diahsis. “Tell him to speak in common Zylekkhan or not at all.”

“He doesn’t speak Zylekkhan,” Raettonus snapped. “He speaks English, French, Greek, and Latin.”

“Well I’ve never heard of any of those languages,” Diahsis said with a shrug. Slade reached out and softly took the general’s ear between two fingers. Diahsis’ eyes widened, and he clenched his teeth together. “Excuse me, why is he doing that?”

“He’s never met an elf before,” said Raettonus turning to Slade. “Master, he’s not too happy about that.”

“Oh—sorry,” said Sir Slade, withdrawing his hand quickly.

Diahsis sighed and rubbed his ear where Slade had touched it. “Look, fine. Whatever you like, Magician,” he said. “The room next to yours should be empty; he can have it. Just—just teach him some Zylekkhan. Actually, I don’t care what language you teach him, just not that awful language from your homeland. It’s hideous.”

“I’ll take that into consideration, General,” said Raettonus. He turned to Slade and motioned that it was time to leave. Reluctantly, Sir Slade followed him out of the room.

“This is amazing,” Slade said as they walked down the halls. “All these centaurs everywhere… I didn’t think anything like this existed!”

Raettonus frowned. “It’s not all that breathtaking, Master,” he said. “There are far more things out there than centaurs.”

“What else is there?”

“Well, there’re dragons—”

“Dragons?” said Slade. “Mary—real flesh and blood dragons? Could we go see some?”

“Well, there are dragons in the mountains,” said Raettonus. “But I sent Brecan off, so we don’t have a mount to ride. We could walk, I suppose, but it’s a very difficult path…”

“I don’t mind,” said Slade. “I’d like to walk, actually. It’ll be good for me. My muscles feel all tight like they haven’t been stretched in ages.” He smiled softly. “I suppose they haven’t been.”

“All right, then,” said Raettonus. He didn’t think it was the best idea, but at the same time, he couldn’t bring himself to refuse Sir Slade anything. So they started for the door to the citadel.

* * *

The sun was shining bright on the Dragon’s Teeth Mountain Range, and the air was cool and fresh. Centaurs toiled beneath the Kaebha Citadel’s walls, dragging blocks and placing them in the wall. Slade watched them as he and Raettonus made their way along the path. “So,” he said, once the centaurs were out of sight. “Tell me—how did you end up here?”

“Well,” Raettonus said. “Some time after your death, I was trying to clean some of the clutter in your castle. I was mostly trying to find books about necromancy, but I couldn’t help but get distracted by some of the things you had in there… One of the things that particularly caught my eye was an enormous crystal—it was almost the size of a full-grown man.”

Slade nodded. “Lord Brigham the Blue and Gray gave that to me,” he said. “He was a good magician, Lord Brigham. One day he gave that crystal to me—he said he didn’t want it anymore. He seemed so sad…”

“It took a long time for me to figure it out, and even then it was only by accident,” Raettonus continued as they picked their way down a rocky slope. “I’d been studying it by firelight, but it only works by sun or moonlight. When I stumbled upon this fact, I found that in natural light it produces rainbows that shift and change independent of their light source. These rainbows are doors to other worlds. Later along, I found out it’s called The Junction of Realms, and there’s a similar crystal in every world. Not all of them connect directly; sometimes you have to go through thousands of worlds before you’ll find a Junction crystal that opens up to the world and the time period you’re looking for.”

“Time period?” said Slade. “You can go to different times in the same world?”

Raettonus nodded. “It’s a whole mess to try though,” he said, frowning. “There are charts beneath most Junctions, but they aren’t readable in any language I’ve ever seen. I’ve been trying to map out the realms, but there are millions. They go on and on forever, and some of them are so similar you wouldn’t know they were different from one another unless you looked very carefully. I met a man once, here in Zylekkha, named Pike Desoto, who came from an Earth with all the same names as our own. I thought he was from a future version of our world, but Kimohr Raulinn said something to me that leads me to believe he was from a different, similar Earth. Indeed, I’ve been there often and didn’t know it from ours. At least, I suppose I wouldn’t know it from ours. The passage of time in a realm does strange things, after all, and that muddles up the prospects of separating them out from one another.”

A swift wind kicked up, flapping Sir Slade’s cloak about his muscular body. “Raettonus,” he asked. “What’s your earliest memory of me?”

“My earliest…? I suppose it’d be when you first brought me to your castle,” Raettonus said. “It was pouring rain and I was terrified. We rode through the graveyard, and all the corpses were stirring beneath the dirt. I thought… I don’t know what I thought, but I was scared.”

Slade smiled his sad smile. “My first memory of you is seeing you when you were a grown man, just outside Lord Brigham’s estate,” Slade said. “I was talking with Sir Rhodes and he noted you wandering around. I could feel you watching me, but every time I looked, you looked away. Years later, I got a message from Sir Rolf the Phoenix, requesting that I take his son on as a ward. There just aren’t words for how surprised I was at how familiar you were. My heart nearly stopped when I saw you. At first, I was certain I was mistaken. I thought I must have seen a relative of yours that day. But as you became a teenager, I knew I had it right—that Sir Rolf’s son was the same man I had seen watching me.”

“I…I didn’t mean to run into you that day,” Raettonus said. “I mean…I thought maybe I might, but…”

“Why did you turn away every time I looked at you?” Slade asked. “I always wondered that.”

“So you wouldn’t see my eyes,” Raettonus mumbled. “When people see my eyes they know. Even if they don’t specifically know that pale red eyes are the sign of someone whose soul has been taken away from them, they know something’s not right. People flinch away from me when they see my eyes and I…I didn’t want to watch you flinch away from me.”

Slade stopped on the road and grabbed Raettonus’ wrist. “Raettonus,” he said sternly. “I would never flinch away from you. I love you like a son. You know that.”

Raettonus looked into Slade’s swirling blue eyes, and Slade didn’t look away. “Yes, Master,” said Raettonus with a thin smile. “I know that. I…I was only afraid to startle you. And Sir Rhodes…”

They resumed their trek down the mountain. “It’s too bad you never spoke to me back then,” said Sir Slade. “I spent a long while after that wondering who you were and what you were doing at Lord Brigham’s, and what it was about me that had caught your interest. I—I could tell you now, I believe, that I had quite an obsession with you between that day I saw you as an adult and the day I showed up at Sir Rolf’s home and found you there again, only a child.” A rocky outcropping above them cast them in shade for a moment as they passed beneath it.

“So,” Raettonus said quietly. “My father was a knight, huh? Sir Rolf? Did you know him?”

“No, I didn’t,” said Sir Slade. “Not well, anyway. He was quite a bit older than me. I met him a few times when I was a squire. Not more than two or three words had ever passed between us though. Imagine my surprise the day he sent me that letter about you.”

Raettonus frowned and tapped his fingers on the hilt of his rapier as he contemplated asking a question for a moment. Finally, he inquired, “Why did my father send me away? You never told me. I lived with you for thirteen years, and you never told me.”

“I…I really couldn’t think of a good way to bring it up,” said Slade with a sad smile.

“I asked you and you wouldn’t say,” Raettonus said. “When I was a child, you said I’d see him again someday—that he’d come for me. But that wasn’t ever true, was it?”

“N-no, it wasn’t…”

“I don’t really care that I never got to know him,” Raettonus said. He balled his hands up into fists, and little flames began to appear along his shoulders. “I just want to know who just sends a four-year-old kid off like that? His own son, and he just throws me out and never looks back…”

“It’s not as clear-cut as that, Rae,” said Slade, taking Raettonus’ hand in his own and rubbing it to try to calm him. “Sir Rolf was a superstitious man—you have to understand that he didn’t comprehend what you were, and it scared him. Between those slight points on your ears and the pyromancy, he thought you were a changeling.”

“A changeling?” spat Raettonus.

“His wife—your mother—she got sick a short time after giving birth to you, and she passed away,” said Sir Slade. “He told me that’s when he suspected you weren’t human. He wrote a letter to me, urging me to take you away after you started a big fire that killed one of his horses and seriously burned a couple of your siblings. I tried to convince him that you weren’t a changeling or any such creature—that you just needed some instruction. Sir Rolf refused to believe that. He said he wouldn’t have you in his house, and either I would take you away or he’d leave you deep in the woods and all alone.” Slade sighed deeply. “I know what it sounds like, but I’m certain your father wasn’t a bad man. He was just short-sighted and full of grief and misplaced anger.”

They went on in silence for some time, with Slade still holding Raettonus’ hand in that gentle way he had, as if he were holding the hand of a small child. Raettonus began to regret asking about his father at all. It hadn’t been important, anyway. If his father hadn’t feared him and thrown him away, Raettonus never would’ve met Master Slade. His life had been cruel and painful, but so long as Slade was in it, Raettonus wouldn’t have traded any of it.

“So, is the whole country like this?” Slade asked after a while. “Mountains?”

“No, not even close,” said Raettonus. “Up north there are plains, and farther north than that there are forests that go on and on… To the east there are desert wastelands too, but they’re not nearly so nice.”

“I’d really like to explore this world of yours,” Slade said. “Once you’re done with your engagement here, I think we should travel it. Wouldn’t that be nice?”

“Yes, Master, it would.”

They continued down the twisting mountain path, along cliffs and across bridges, past little trickling streams and rivers that cascaded over the stone as waterfalls. Raettonus noticed goblins watching them from the cliffs below every now and then and pointed them out to Slade. “Poor things,” Sir Slade said, peering down at them. “They’re so ugly with those flat faces.”

“That reminds me,” said Raettonus. “There’s a goblin whose body I’d like you to examine.”

“A goblin’s body?” asked Slade. “I’m afraid I don’t know anything about goblins, so I’m not sure how much help I could be, but certainly I’ll look at it if you want me to.”

A shadow passed above them, and Raettonus looked up to see Guardian Nekkdan gliding along on his great, feathery wings. He tugged at Sir Slade’s cloak gently and pointed skywards. “Magnificent!” exclaimed Slade breathlessly. “A real dragon!”

“We can talk to him if you’d like,” Raettonus said. “He shouldn’t be dangerous.”

“It can talk?”

“Guardian!” shouted Raettonus in Taurkyna, waving the enormous beast toward himself.

Nekkdan craned his neck in the direction of Raettonus and Slade, and after a moment turned himself around toward them. He landed on the path before them, where it broadened out enough to accommodate his bulk. “Magician Raettonus, isn’t it?” asked Nekkdan. “I’d seen you here not long ago.”

“I’m spending time at the Kaebha Citadel,” said Raettonus, approaching him.