Published at 14th of October 2023 5:35 pm

Chapter 31: Serpent's Kiss

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Walter hadn’t dined with someone since… since he was alive. Unless you counted draining living creatures to death.

He didn’t remember dinner time being so awkward though; his guests hadn’t spoken a word since they all sat around his table in his apartment. Was the food terrible? Walter was not fond of seasoned deer, even while alive, but the cook had prepared a meal straight from some noble’s personal pantry.

Having adopted his human form, Tye himself had no meal to consume, since he didn’t need to eat animal meat; he instead observed the people around him like a snake with mice.

Hagen stood behind him like a grim, silent shadow. Lady Yseult was at his right, her hands joined in silent prayer, while Annie was on his left, thoughtful. Percy was at the end of the table, paying more attention to Lady Yseult than his plate; although he alone had touched his food.

Tye had thought things would settle back into some form of normalcy, in spite of the current circumstances, but he had been wrong. Annie was still thinking over the notes he granted her access to, Lady Yseult was still distressed about her god’s silence, and Percy was half convinced the necromancer would have them all murdered by the end of the meal. Why else would Hagen be present, after all?

In truth, Tye simply no longer bothered with hiding his true self. Hagen was his most trusted companion, and even if he was a grim specter while on duty, his presence calmed the necromancer. Unfortunately, Hagen had politely declined to sit around the table and instead decided to stand menacingly next to his superior. The Dullahan seemed to take a malicious pleasure in making the mortals in the room uncomfortable.

Distressing.

Not that Tye could blame the others for their silence, since he himself hadn’t spoken up; instead, Medraut occupied his thoughts. The necromancer knew his friend had changed in the decades gone by, but he never expected such madness to take hold in the knight. The truth he delivered was just as distressing.

Was Medraut correct? Was Ragnarok unavoidable?

No, of course not. Just like death wasn’t some fundamental part of reality, but a mere design flaw nobody bothered to correct. The prophecies said Nidhogg would help cause Ragnarok, but Walter Tye didn’t want to. So he won’t.

No force in the universe would make him kill the world.

However, Medraut clearly wouldn’t stop. He would attack Nastrond and try to start the apocalypse sometime soon. Blinded by his rage, he would not listen to reason, and fight to his final death to watch the Nine Worlds burn.

Besides killing his old friend, which Tye didn’t want to… there was only one way to make him reconsider.

Or rather, one person.

“I will attack Helheim tomorrow,” Tye spoke up.

Everyone turned towards him at once, silence stretching.

“My first escape from Helheim was a hasty, desperate thing.” Hagen chuckled behind Tye, remembering fleeing on the [Death Coach] past the frontier between Helheim and Midgard. “Even while I carefully planned it, I could take only a few souls with me. My order’s masters, including my own mentor, remained trapped in Hel’s embrace. I have vowed to free them, and I shall.”

Annie’s eyes widened. “You can’t mean—”

“Now that Hel is vulnerable, I intend to invade her realm, in person, and free my people from her grasp,” Tye replied, shocking everyone present. “If you have people down there that you want me to rescue, I will take their souls back with me; if I can find them.”

While Spook, Duke, Asclepius, and Cywyllog were his main priorities, Tye intended to release all the Pale Serpents he could find. One day, Helheim itself would be emptied entirely.

There was a flash in Yseult’s eyes; one of curiosity and hope, but one she quickly squashed. Tye refused to read her mind out of courtesy, but he was tempted to gain insight into what troubled her.

“Walter, what you do is wrong,” the priestess finally spoke up. “I understand rescuing people who do not deserve the torment of Helheim… but many earned their stay there.”

“Like me,” Hagen declared proudly, Tye silencing him with a glare. The Dullahan delighted in mocking honorable people, especially knights or priests.

“You suggest killing criminals?” the necromancer asked the priestess.

“The most dangerous,” Yseult argued, “or at least leave them in their afterlife.”

Tye shrugged. “If our society can think of nothing besides killing its criminals to deal with them, then it lacks imagination. Imprison and reform those who can improve, turn to stone those who can’t.”

“The death penalty is forbidden in my country,” Percy said, his stance on the matter surprising Walter. “Many countries on Earth don’t kill their prisoners, and most are safer than those who do.”

Huh? You learned new things every day.

“If everyone becomes immortal or an undead being while our population increases, our resources will dwindle,” Yseult argued.

“Then we will move to the Nine Realms, and those beyond,” the necromancer replied. “The Aesir and Vanir are what, thirty, forty? Yet they have a world each. Two whole worlds, for two clans and their servants.”

“You wish to invade the gods’ realms?” Lady Yseult looked at him in blasphemous horror.

“I would start with diplomacy,” Tye replied dryly. “Then again, my attempts haven’t been met with warm overtures. You of all people should know.”

“And if strangers deny you, shall you send swarms of monsters to make them behave?”

“The privileges of the few should not get in the way of the needs of the many,” Tye replied coldly. “Besides Asgard and Vanaheim, there are a thousand worlds outside Yggdrasil’s system according to Earthlanders. I doubt we will run out of space anytime soon.”

“Then what, you will invade the elves, the dwarves?” the priestess continued. “You will keep running ever forward, Walter. Where will it end?”

“Even if we lack space, we have other options. Magic can reshape reality as we see fit; we can create food or drink, or even new worlds for us to settle. We have eternity to figure out solutions now, and nothing is beyond human ingenuity.”

“I doubt that,” the priestess replied sadly.

“You can have faith in the gods, but not in mankind?” Tye asked icily. He never condemned her for her belief, but this debate only clarified on which side they both stood.

“There won’t be an eternity, Walter,” Yseult replied. “You are a Calamity. You hasten Ragnarok merely by existing.”

“I am an undead, beyond the cycle of souls, beyond fate’s decrees,” he replied. “Whether I destroy the world is my choice, and it won’t happen.”

No matter what Medraut thought.

“Just as you chose to become the devouring dragon you were meant to be?”

The question bothered the necromancer greatly. “I did not destroy the root.”

“For now,” Yseult replied, her gaze distant. “For now.”

Tye observed his old friend closely, trying to make sense out of her reaction. Why did she look so hopeful for a second, only to cling deeper to her distrust? Something about her god, perhaps?

It clicked. “Lady Yseult, isn’t your god in Helheim?”

Tye knew he had nailed it before she even answered.

“Balder is the god of light and beauty,” Lady Yseult began, looking away in sorrow. “The kindest and most beloved of the Aesir. Everyone loved him, but a great light casts a large shadow on the envious.”

“Balder was slain through treachery by an arrow made of mistletoe,” Hagen said. “It’s a famous story, mostly because Loki’s worshipers won’t shut up about it.”

“Hel said she would release him only if all gods wept for him,” the priestess lamented.

“But Loki did not,” Tye remembered. “Thereby outing himself as the murderer.”

“He called it a mere prank,” Lady Yseult said with disgust. “That was the last straw for the Aesir, who ordered his death; only for Loki to turn into a Calamity. Unable to slay him, Odin sealed his former kin in Helheim.”

“But then, how can Balder still grant prayers, if he is dead?” Percy asked, confused. Annie, meanwhile, remained silent; listening to the discussion but her mind clearly wandering off somewhere else.

“Hel struck a compromise, treating Balder as a guest of honor, and allowing him to still grant spells and prayers.”

“No,” Tye denied Yseult’s words, his intuition flaring up. He had grown somewhat familiar with that madwoman, and she was as relentless as a lion stalking a deer. “Hel does not make compromises. There is something else at work.”

“Yes,” Hagen said. “And I have been in Helheim far longer than you, chief, but I never heard of an Aesir being trapped there. Loki, sure, but Balder?”

These words greatly disturbed Lady Yseult, but she distrusted Hagen too much to believe him. “Tye, the meaning of this story is clear,” she said. “It is pointless to try to cheat death. Even gods cannot evade it forever.”

He wondered how she would react to Medraut’s revelations about the true nature of gods, although Tye wisely waited to find hard proof first. “Lady Yseult, you do not understand the true moral of this story. First of all, every single god wished for Balder brought back to life, but they couldn’t force Hel to obey. And second...”

The necromancer frowned.

“Gods go to Helheim when they die, just like us mortals.”

The more the discussion continued, the more a frown marred Lady Yseult’s face, even when she tried to rationalize her stance. “The Aesir are fair, and hold themselves to the same standards which they apply to us.”

Oh yes, except they never tried to raise their mortal followers as they did with one of their own. No, there was something else at work, some ancient secret which the Aesir kept under wrap.

Come to think of it, nobody knew Hel’s level. Could it be...

“Lady Yseult, please follow me to Helheim,” Walter offered the priestess. “We can clear this up, and ask your god directly.”

Her face turned red in anger. “I would have already, if you didn’t prevent me!”

“I haven’t,” Tye replied.

“Your Perk—”

“My [Godslayer] Perk prevents people with divine classes like [Priest] and [Paladin] from contacting their deities, if their level is lower than mine,” Tye admitted. “But I can selectively exclude individuals from this effect.”

Lady Yseult froze.

“Your god does not answer because he doesn’t want to,” Tye said, “Or can’t, for an unrelated reason.”

She clearly didn’t want to believe him, but perhaps she still felt some embers of trust due to their old friendship. Lady Yseult’s fingers fidgeted, doubt sinking in.

“The living cannot survive in Helheim,” she said. The necromancer took it as a step forward.

“You underestimate me.” Tye snapped his fingers. A zombie servant entered the room, holding a silver plate with three crimson potions on it.

The priestess immediately recognized it. “Your treatment…”

“The improved version,” Tye replied. “The elixir of life. It is almost perfect, although there are still vulnerabilities in the regeneration which I’m struggling to remove.”

Annie finally spoke up. “I think I know how to.”

“You know how to improve the elixir?” Tye asked, suddenly interested.

“No,” Annie admitted. “I skimmed over your notes, and I realized… you don’t have to improve the elixir. It already grants regeneration and eternal youth.”

“With a vulnerability to [Fire], [Acid], and [Silver],” Tye pointed out.

“You are having tunnel vision, silly.” Annie smiled. “You don’t have to alter the elixir to remove these weaknesses in a person. You can alter the person separately.”

“But magical items can be lost—” Tye paused, as he suddenly understood what his once-apprentice meant. “My spell tattoos.”

“They can be tweaked to provide resistance, even immunity, to these elements.” The witch nodded. “The procedure will take more time than drinking one potion, but it will be far easier than developing the perfect elixir.”

“Fascinating,” Tye admitted, having never considered this path. “Any idea on duplicating the [Necromancer’s Stone]?”

“We don’t actually need the stone for the potion,” Annie said, “or at least I don’t think so. The elixir already fundamentally altered the biology of those who drank it, with their very blood carrying the gift. We can simply apply the base elixir to a universal donor, and then transfer their life-giving blood to others.”

“An immortal blood bank.” Why hadn’t he thought of it?

“For the [Naglfar] spell, you already proved the stone could be made at all,” Annie continued. “Maybe we could find another method to recreate it, without all the destruction that comes with it.”

“Annie, do you agree with him?” Lady Yseult interrupted her younger friend, aghast.

“I don’t agree with all of Tye’s methods,” Annie said, glancing at her mentor. “I believe you could have achieved the same results with less pain and murder.”

“It would have been slower,” Tye pointed out. “It was better to find immortality and resurrection as quickly as possible, to make the sacrifices invalid. With [Naglfar], death is a mere inconvenience.”

“You could have achieved the same results with less pain and no murder,” Annie insisted stubbornly. “But the knowledge inside the notes can improve the lives of everyone. Ignoring immortality, your slime machine could be repurposed to mass-produce potions, elemental transmutation could help us create better material more easily, your rat hive mind could be expanded to create a kingdom-spanning information system…”

“Innovations built on disregard for life and savagery,” Lady Yseult argued.

“But what’s done is done,” Annie replied. “Even if it comes from a ghastly source, knowledge is knowledge.”

It was so refreshing for Tye to discuss magical theory with someone who understood.

“I… I don’t want to die.”

Tye glanced at Percy, who looked terribly nervous. The squire was shy by nature, and so it took some coaching for him to speak up.

“I have died once, briefly,” Percy reminisced, “When the mummy slew me.”

“My apologies,” Tye said.

“I’ve seen what’s on the other side,” Percy said grimly, his face pale. Since he had died ingloriously from an assassination, he had clearly served time in Helheim. “I stayed there for a mere half a day, but… that was enough. I don’t want to go back there. Even while immortal.”

“I understand,” Tye replied. “Will you accept my offer still? What do you want Percy?”

“I… I would like to protect the living,” the squire said. “I understand why you… why you would want to save the dead, but there are so many refugees in need right now. They need protection from bandits and monsters, food, and shelter. That’s a knight’s duty. What I dreamed of.”

“You can take the elixir, but stay in Midgard,” the necromancer said. “I will need people like you to maintain order, that is true. If you wish to point your bow at the enemies of the living, be my guest.”

“Maintain order?” Lady Yseult frowned.

“The region, and the Yggdrasil root below it, will need to be fortified against the forces of the Calamities in the near future,” the necromancer admitted, causing the priestess to pale in worry. “I will need all the bodies to throw at them. Immortal soldiers, in particular, may offset our lack of numbers. Beasts will also be raised as undead.”

“Many will escape your control and rampage around,” Lady Yseult pointed out. “You already spread undeath everywhere.”

Good, Tye thought, for that was the plan. He would fill Midgard with so many undead, that the prophecies’ data would rot in their own corruption. The necromancer withheld that information until she agreed to become more flexible in her thinking.

Annie, the most willful, grabbed the potion first. “Tye, you can make spell tattoos against the potion’s vulnerabilities?”

As the necromancer nodded, Lady Yseult looked at her junior with worry. “Annie, consider what you are doing,” the priestess pleaded. “This will be permanent.”

“You will stop aging around your early twenties, which the elixir will take for your physical prime,” Tye said, shrugging off his friend’s worries. “I fail to see why anyone would refuse it.”

“I… I don’t want to die either,” the witch admitted. “I… I wouldn’t mind going to Valhalla, but…”

“But?” Yseult asked.

“What are my odds?” Annie frowned. “What are my odds of going to Valhalla?”

“Annie…”

“What are my odds of not being assassinated? Poisoned? Dying of old age? Dying in an accident?” Annie continued, the priestess having no powerful answer to this. “Even if I pray hard to a god, what are the odds that they accept me? I’m… I almost died of disease, if Tye hadn’t saved me. What were my odds, milady?”

These words hit Yseult rather hard, since it mirrored her own situation.

“I’m trying to think rationally, and… my chances aren’t good,” the witch said. “I don’t want to put my life in someone else’s hands. So I won’t.”

Lady Yseult said nothing.

So Annie drank the crimson potion without hesitation.

Tye felt incredibly proud of her, smiling wide while Yseult’s eyes hollowed. Annie, meanwhile, frowned. “[Major Lifegift]?”

“Can you show me?” Tye asked.

Annie took his hand, which felt extraordinarily warm to the touch, before revealing to him her personal information.

Annie Viviane Silverberg

Level: 40 (Witch 30/Scholar 9/Necromancer 1)

Type: Human (Humanoid).

Party: Nastrond.

“Nice new class,” he said before looking into her eyes, the witch reddening like a tomato.

Clearly, Annie had done more than study theory; one couldn’t access a new class at her level without serious practice.

[Major Lifegift]: You gain immunity to [Diseases], including magical ones, and you recover twice as much HP from healing effects. You stop growing upon reaching your physical prime, and should you be magically aged, you return to that age within one minute. Additionally, you gain natural [Regeneration], allowing you to regenerate from wounds, organ failures, and loss of limbs; this effect will be interrupted by contact with [Fire], [Acid], and [Silver]. This perk cannot be negated or removed.

As he read, Annie’s fingers hesitantly brushed against his. Even without reading her mind, he could sense some conflict in her; a desire for closeness, mixed with fear.

Clearly, even if she felt conflicted about his methods… her intentions weren’t entirely academic. “Do you wish for us to work together like old times?”

“With restrictions,” she said, before letting his hand go.

“My offer was to work in an organization allowing free thinking,” Tye pointed out.

“Fewer restrictions shouldn’t mean none,” Annie argued stubbornly. “And… I want to bring back someone.”

Someone Tye himself wasn’t willing to return.

Gwenhyfar.

Tye had the feeling they would have long debates over this, but the necromancer took this as the price of gaining the apprentice he always wished for.

Emboldened by the sight, Percy too took the elixir, albeit with some hesitation.

Leaving only one potion on the silver platter.

“Milady, I truly wish to keep you at my side,” Tye argued. He was extraordinarily fond of the priestess, almost irrationally so. “A new world will soon rise, and I would like you to be at my side.”

“A world of undeath and rot,” Lady Yseult replied harshly.

“A free world where no one ever dies,” Tye argued. “My previous victims were necessary sacrifices.”

“You cannot measure human pain,” she replied, her own voice brimming with agony. It suddenly occurred to the necromancer that so many tragedies at once had embittered her pure spirit. “I will not partake in this.”

“But if you don’t take it, you will never know the truth,” Walter pointed out, sensing a hole in her psychological defense. “You will not survive the mists of Helheim, and you never know if your faith was deserved.”

“You poison my mind, Walter, with such insidiousness,” Lady Yseult replied, more and more distressed. The very foundation on which she had built her life collapsed from under her; after years of faithful service to the gods, challenging their system in any way sounded like a betrayal. Her lover’s treason and the collapse of Avalon had only hardened her mind. “My god has nothing to prove to me. Just as you, as my friend, had nothing to prove; I trusted you unconditionally. This is faith.”

“Faith is earned,” Tye replied. “I understand that you may not trust me after I lied to you, but what have the gods done for you to earn your trust to begin with? They didn’t cure your disease, I did.”

“Walter.” Her tone hardened.

“I am only offering the truth,” Tye replied, the tension rising. “If you do not take this elixir, you will not go to Helheim. Whatever dark truth awaits there, you will never learn it. You will have proved your faith, and perhaps earned your peaceful afterlife. Maybe it is better this way.”

Perhaps out of respect for their old friendship, she listened in silence.

“But if you do not take this potion,” Tye continued, his cold eyes peering into her own, “you will never know if your faith was deserved. If you have any doubt, if even a small part of you believes that I am not some great evil out to destroy creation and that my path may hold some merit… then you will take the elixir, and you will see the truth for yourself. The choice is yours.”

“Is it?” she asked, distrustful. “What will happen if I don’t take it?”

“Nothing.” This was getting tiresome. “Milady, I have given you every opportunity to walk away. Every opportunity, and yet you never took any of them in spite of all your protests. So let me ask you this simple question.”

The necromancer approached Lady Yseult closely until he could feel her warm breath on his face.

“Why are you still here?”

The priestess looked away from him and at the potion, an agonizing silence stretching over the room.

She wasn’t trying to convince Tye that he was wrong.

She was trying to convince herself that she was right.

Tye disliked to admit it, but he had set up this scenario, carefully rehearsing it. He wanted Lady Yseult firmly at his side because she was an extraordinary woman, kind, strong, and wise in her own way. But with Medraut ahead, he needed people he could trust. People who shared his views, who could question him without going behind his back. He wanted Lady Yseult as his trusted lieutenant like he hoped Laufey might have become once.

Her hands fidgeted, for perhaps for the first time in her life, the priestess truly questioned herself. For years she had trusted others unconditionally; her lover Tristan; her god Balder; Avalon’s supremacy; even Walter himself. The necromancer offered her the chance to continue on her path or develop a healthy skepticism.

Long before Laufey, Tye had learned this lesson with Asclepius and Calvert. One should be slow to open their heart, least they have it pierced. It needed to be handled with care, shielded, and then opened only to those who truly deserved it.

With the patience of undeath, the necromancer waited for the priestess to make a decision; the other humans in the room silent as tombs and shifted uncomfortably on their seats.

Lady Yseult closed her eyes and breathed deeply. A tear appeared at the edge of her left eye.

“Forgive me.”

Five seconds later, the zombie servant took back the silver platter, and the three empty bottles on it.

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