Published at 14th of October 2023 4:59 pm

Chapter 28 – That Which Lurks Within Us (Part 1)

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A silent tension permeated the room.

The necromancer averted her gaze from his face, though Vanalath maintained his own. A million questions swirled in his mind, the first of which was this: how could she be dead, yet not a ghoul?

But she didn’t even meet his eyes.

Originally, as he didn’t know how he would react after seeing this woman, he intended to speak with Orimo regarding his class. But now that he saw her, he couldn’t stop himself.

“Why did you seek to have me killed in that ritual?” he asked, speaking Dhaalkesh so that Orimo would not understand.

“Killed? Ah, yes... yes, I did that.”

Her tone was distant, ungrounded. Vanalath waited to see if she would continue. She did.

“You met him too, didn’t you?” she asked, answering his question with another.

Vanalath thought that perhaps venting his wrath in the grove had been the correct decision, allowing his anger to leave him, though he knew the reservoir still lay within, far from dormant. Or perhaps it was the sight of this woman, living yet dead, that stalled his momentum.

He asked, “Who?”

“The Master. You heard his voice?”

He instinctively knew whom she spoke of. She still hadn’t answered his question, but he replied anyway.

“I saw an eye,” he said.

“An eye? I’ve never seen that. Nor have I seen any part of him. But I have heard his voice. For what seems as long as I can remember, I’ve been hearing it—words but not words. Often, they are invasive, keeping me awake on long nights. Other times, they sound so familiar that I think them my own. The voice makes me forget. Entire years of my life vanish, all at once. It has been eating away at me for so long. Now, the only things left are—”

She cut herself off with a strange, involuntary twist of her head. As she did, the glint of metal caught Vanalath’s eye, causing him to narrow his eyes. Something was sticking out of her neck at the base of her throat: a thin, silver needle. Looking closely, he found that there were several other needles on her body. One was lanced through each hand, and two protruded from the crooks of her arms. The needles stuck out less than half an inch, and other than the ones in her hands, there was no telling how deeply they were embedded. There may have been even more concealed elsewhere.

Breaking the silence, Vanalath asked, “Did your Master tell you to kill me? Is that why you tricked me into taking part in the ritual?”

“Tell me to kill…? Hah! A joke, I see you’re joking now!” She giggled, a manic smile peeling back her lips and revealing her teeth.

“No, I thought to kill you because I wished to seal him away! I thought to kill you because I hoped it might at last dig his voice out of my head! My head…”

She clutched her temples, smile fading. “My h-head?”

Something seemed to switch in her. Her voice changed and she spoke as if possessed, the words spewing forth low and fast.

“Head it’s in my head pushing aside my memories filling me with vile thoughts terrible fears ignore the dark look at the light there’s a light in a dark room flickering and small how is she scared of the dark when she is the dark don’t look up the dark draws closer look at the light it’s weaker dimmer now fading fast and the dark crawls closer—”

The woman shrunk inward, uttering strings of gibberish. Her arms wrapped tightly around herself, fingers clawing at her sides and back. She clutched at herself so desperately that if she hadn’t been wearing a thick robe, she would certainly have drawn blood.

At that moment, Iokina stepped out of the shadows behind the woman, wielding a small hammer in one hand. The hammer was a delicate, polished tool that looked more ornamental than practical. Vanalath had seen the stitched-up ghoul earlier but paid her no mind, his attention absorbed by the dead-not-dead woman before him. Now, Iokina approached her mistress, and when it looked like the necromancer had stopped moving, she gingerly reached around, pulling from the pocket of the comatose woman a silver, three-pronged amulet, which she held by its cord as if to admire it. This was the talisman that the necromancer used to control her ghouls, the same amulet that she had made Vanalath touch before marching on the hunters, enabling him to command more undead than he was naturally able to. Iokina reached out, gently tapping the two needles embedded in the woman’s hands with her hammer. Then, she tapped once on the amulet, and a note sounded out, so clear that it might have been a bell she struck rather than a piece of jewelry. After the noise faded, the necromancer’s posture seemed to loosen, her whitened fingers relaxing where they had dug into the fabric of her clothes. Iokina slipped the amulet back into her pocket and retreated back into a darkened corner of the cottage.

After a moment, the necromancer spoke up. “I apologize for that unseemly display. The attuning will take some time yet.”

Attuning?

“Before you ask, I don’t blame you for killing me, Vanalath. It was deserved. I had been intending to die soon, anyway. The conversion of my Shapes had yet to be completed, but it would only have been another month at the most before I was ready.”

Despite not wearing a mask, Vanalath’s face may as well have been one. What was she talking about?

“You should explain,” he said, finding a seat for himself among the spare furnishings. “And this time, don’t leave anything out. How do you appear to be living?”

The necromancer considered the question for a moment. Then, she pulled the amulet from her pocket and held it out.

“This,” she said, “is me. Yesterday, that was not the case, but now it is. This talisman is my phylactery. It holds my soul within it. I’ve become a lich, a true undead.”

- - -

Two years ago.

The woman fled through a dark corridor, clutching a small pouch to her chest. She was in a vaulted, massive tunnel, greater than even the cavernous corridors of The Institute, where she last recalled being.

Behind her, wood scraped against stone as ghouls clumsily dragged her belongings along. There were over a dozen of them, transporting various cases, perhaps filled with supplies, or perhaps empty. She wasn’t sure which. Some of the undead were barely ghouls any longer, but skeletons. One held a lantern with its single hand, the light madly bobbing and swaying in its unsteady grasp. The dim light it cast failed to reach the two walls on either side, not to even speak of the distant ceiling above. Two of the undead carried what seemed to be a wrapped corpse. Glancing at it caused spears of hatred to pierce her chest.

She had only the barest understanding of why she was running or how she had come to this place. In the chaos of her mind, all she knew was that she had to flee. She had to run, to find a refuge and gather her strength. Only afterwards, would she make them pay. Only then would she show them the consequences of their actions.

Her gut ached. Oh, how it ached. Eventually, the pain forced her to stumble to a stop and lift her robe to inspect herself. There, a scar cut vertically through her navel. It was a recent injury, and it had been tended to sloppily, stitchwork barely holding her flesh together. When had this occurred? She didn’t remember. She couldn’t remember. The voice had begun to push away her life’s memories, her very self succumbing to its influence.

Why was she here? Where was here? Why were ghouls aiding her in her escape? Why did she not remember?

With bloodless fingers, she undid the knot of the bag she carried, peering inside. There, she saw two items: the first was a silver amulet, a relic she recognized one meant to control undead. That explained why she was being aided by the ghouls, at least.

The second item, she recognized as well, though she didn’t want to. Encased in its orb of enchanted glass, the Deathstone was clinking around the interior of her bag. The Deathstone. Like some knickknack she had picked up at a curio stall, the gray orb lay in her purse, fog within it roiling. She hurriedly closed the pouch, heart pounding in sudden terror.

She had the Deathstone. She must have stolen it—but how? When? Did it matter? They would be coming for her, now. There was nowhere in the world where she could hide if they wished to find her.

Then, she heard a soundless voice.

Hush, child.

Startled she jumped to her feet, but no presence made itself known within her dim circle of light.

“Who’s there?” she called.

You need not fear the designs of man. Listen to me, and you can escape the hounds that even now hunt you.

“Who are you? Where are you?”

In your purse. Look and see.

Hesitantly, she did as she was bidden. Inside, she once again saw the two items. This time, the Deathstone appeared darker than before, the strange fog within having retreated and left a black void in its wake.

Heed my words, and you can trick them. All can be within your grasp if you only reach out and take it.

- - -

Seven months ago.

With her skirt hitched up to her knees, the woman waded through shallow water, kicking up mud with her feet. She was searching for something that was supposed to be here, but wasn’t.

The previous afternoon, she had placed two more fish traps in the river, bringing the total number to fourteen. A lump of anxiety worked its way up her throat when she arrived at the bank and didn’t spot a single one of them. Now, she scoured the shallows for any sign of them. With luck, they had been dragged downriver some distance and weren’t too damaged.

It had taken her weeks to make those traps. Gathering the materials, stripping plants, twisting the fibers into twine, binding the frames, making the nets, staking them… it would have taken someone more experienced a quarter of the time that it took her, but she had been proud of her efforts. This winter she was going to be entirely self-sufficient.

It was her first winter since her exile. With Iokina’s campaign of slander spreading from the village of Gyida to Yayu, it was unlikely that anyone from those two villages would come to her for trades, even for minor things. Before, she could trade for the items she didn’t know how to make herself—clothes and tools, among other things. She would perform simple rituals in return, helping the villagers fix minor aches and pains, locating lost sheep, or giving them “lucky” trinkets (that had minor, short-lived enchantments on them). With the nearest shaman two weeks away through dangerous mountain paths, this arrangement had worked well for both parties. That was, until it didn’t.

Why hadn’t she thought to bring anything more useful with her from her homeland? Books, candles, chalk, and surgical instruments were all well and good, but even a tiny charstone or a simple golem aid would have saved her months of effort on the hundreds of small tasks that living out here demanded. Simple crafts were easy enough—her training had made her quite dexterous—but anything that demanded stamina always left her feeling weakened and drained.

Perhaps if she hadn’t stopped the transformation halfway through this wouldn’t have been—no. Don’t think like that. She was going to live like a human. Not a monster.

…But honestly, she could hardly believe these people had never even heard of charstones. Back in Ostros, even an elderly widow barely scraping by could afford at least one of the magical devices to warm her hovel at night. The rumors had been true, it seemed. Whether it was people or ideas, nothing crossed the Divide.

Well, except for her.

She was brought back to the present when something waved under the surface of the water, and she plunged her hands into the icy liquid. However, rather than a net, she pulled up a handful of river weeds. She dropped the grayish reeds back into the water, biting her lip in disappointment.

She’d made her traps after watching the other women across the river in the mornings. Her creations might not have been as sturdy as theirs, but they still shouldn’t have been swept away by the current. She had made sure to stake them deeply. Had a large fish come downstream from the lake and uprooted them? No, she could imagine one or two of them going missing because of that, but not all fourteen. A flood was equally unlikely—those only occurred in the spring, and there was no sign of damage along the bank.

‘I only have enough smoked fish and other foods to last me a month once the frost sets in. Should I try gathering berries for preserves? No, I don’t have time for that. Once I had these twenty traps set up, I was supposed to gather firewood. I don’t have the time to rebuild these traps. I need to find them. It’s either that or starve.’

Then, she spotted a piece of twine snagged on a protruding rock. Hope surged in her chest, and she splashed forward, not minding the water that soaked into her roughspun dress. However, when she picked up the twine, all that came up with it were a few fragments of shattered wood. She glanced up, finding similar pieces scattered along the bank, forming a trail. She followed it with her eyes, spotting a pile of something in the distance.

She stepped out of the water, following the trail of destruction. In a daze, she picked up the longer, potentially reusable scraps of twine, placing them in the basket she had brought with her, though it had originally been intended to carry fish.

Had a monster come down from the mountains? That couldn’t be right. Much of the wood looked like it had been cut, as if by an—

‘Stop. It was a monster, or maybe a freak flood.’

She refused to follow that line of thought. The idea was bubbling away, waiting to be brought forward, but she didn’t recognize it. She couldn’t afford to do that, to lose even more of herself. The last time she had done that, more of her had divided. He had returned. It was all she could do to hold on to these last few pieces of herself.

What was it about her mind that led her to dwell on the darkest truths? Why couldn’t she just forget? She’d forgotten plenty of other things. She was supposed to be making a new life for herself, leaving behind the past. It wasn’t her fault. She did her best. It was the fault of these Yaranians, these Children of the Mountain—

‘No no no, stop dwelling on it. Don’t think about anything. If you must think, think of the lakes of your homeland, shimmering and vast. Think of the way the sunlight reflected off them, how bright clouds roved across their surfaces, appearing like great leviathans swimming miles below you. Think of how you would sit on the docks or go out in a rowboat and spend hours looking into those lakes, forgetting the world.’

A distant laugh woke her from her memories, and she looked up from where she had been staring into the river in a daze. On the opposite bank, a group of four women were gossiping as they walked in her direction. Had she approached one of the villages? No—she was nearly a mile upstream from Yayu. Why were they so far out? They didn’t seem to be fishing or picking wild berries. This was the busiest time of the year, so a jaunt by the river seemed out of place.

As they neared, she recognized them.

‘They’re women from Gyida! But that’s over six miles from here. Why would they…?’

Then, she recognized Iokina among their number, and a terrible premonition settled in her gut. Iokina appeared to have spotted her, as she stopped walking.

“Why, if it isn’t the witch herself! What do you think she’s up to, scrounging along the bank there?”

Though Iokina was speaking to her friends, her voice was high-pitched, and more than loud enough to carry.

One of them mused, “Perhaps she’s poisoning the water?”

Attempting to ignore them, the woman continued her route along the bank, approaching the large pile she had seen. As she neared it, she saw it was the burnt-out remains of a fire.

“But what is all that mess around her?” Iokina mused in her piercing voice. “They look like fish traps. What are they doing out of the water?”

They looked nothing like fish traps. They were scraps of unrecognizable debris.

A second woman taunted. “Are witches unable to build traps to withstand this gentle current?”

“Don’t speak like that,” a third chided. She was some farmer’s wife. “Didn’t you know her only talent is bedding men?”

She thought she heard a voice, calling her in the distance. She ignored it.

The fire was apparently a recent one, as it still smoked. The skeletal remains of her traps were charred black, resting on a pile of ashes. They wouldn’t have burned easily, as they had been soaking in the water for days, so whoever who started the bonfire must have gathered a lot of dry fuel.

The voice she heard was no voice, but rather more like a far-off tolling of bells. It made the woman feel suddenly dizzy.

This act wasn’t just cruel. It was wasteful.

The second woman spoke thoughtfully, “How will she make it through the winter if she can’t feed herself?”

How long had this act of destruction taken them? Perhaps she could have understood it if the traps had been stolen, but they hadn’t been. Did Iokina live the sort of life where even the smallest thing could be discarded rather than used? Did any of these women? Did the fact that Iokina was the headsman’s wife of some tiny village make her immune to the concerns of poverty?

“I suppose she will bewitch some poor man and have him serve her.”

And all because that same headsman decided to proposition her one day seven months ago, Iokina had taken it upon herself to destroy this foreigner. Never having liked the exotic woman, she amassed public opinion against her, branding her with the title of “witch” and exiling her. But that wasn’t enough for her.

The “witch,” as she was now known, knew cruelty. She knew of a cruelty far beyond any of the small, vicious acts Iokina was capable of. Yet somehow, this little act of destruction was going to be the final straw. After all she experienced, all she ran and ran and ran from cruelty, from her past, from the divisions of her mind, from the promises of retribution and his voice, it all came to this point, like tiny streams joining together into some vast river.

Iokina drove in the final nail. “She should go back to where she came from.”

The woman smiled, turning to stare at the group of village wives. The smile was gentle, but there was a terribleness in it, one that made their spiteful words stick in their throats. She smiled as they flinched, smiled as they turned and bustled off, back to the safety of their tiny village, unaware that this unknown crack of the world where they had lived their entire lives would soon become a graveyard, that the fate of all Yarang had just been decided by a wife’s petty jealousy.

She smiled because the woman they taunted just decided that she had enough of trying to live like a human.

When she returned to her cabin, she approached a corner of the house where a pile of useless-looking items lay. She began to fling aside layers of mats and broken tools that she had intended to repurpose during the winter. Underneath, there was a small chest locked with a magical lock, the only chest of its kind in the entire valley. She opened it by pressing her thumb on the keyhole and muttering the passphrase she had set upon locking it the last time. It was a simple sentence, spoken in Dhaalkesh.

“I will never open this chest again.”

It opened with a click, and within lay several vials filled with a red fluid, and several more that contained a black, viscous substance. Various strange instruments were packed in the empty spaces, as well as one last item, nestled in the center: the Deathstone. Its gray-black surface appeared just as she remembered it.

You have come back.

“Indeed,” she whispered. “I’ve returned.”

Let us continue where we last left off.

After preparing a simple ritual circle that encompassed her workspace, she began what could only be described as a medical operation. She filled an odd-looking container that looked like the stomach of some animal with several vials of the black substance, placing it on a tall stand above her seat. Then, she connected a spare tube to the top of an empty vial and inserted the other end into her arm. To do this, she made an incision and quickly wrapped the insertion point in a bandage. Afterwards, she repeated the process with the tube connected to the stomach-like container, inserting this tube in her other arm.

As the first vial slowly filled with blood, the second tube distended as the black fluid drained downwards, oozing its way into her veins. She shuddered as the long process began. It was going to be painful. But what was physical pain?

She would complete the process this time. For the first time since the inception of Brands, the Bright Path would be abandoned.

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