A Different Kind of Deadly (5 page)

I jolted so hard that I felt my brain rattle
against the inside of my skull.

The landing was sudden, swift, and I heard
rocks crashing all around us from the impact. My immediate response
was to look at Leo, who was setting his dislocated shoulder back in
place. Apart from this, he was a bit shaken, but whole. I felt a
little safer now that I realized I was traveling with two monsters
instead of one. I just hoped that they would stay on my side in all
of this.

Diana walked away from the ditch
she made, setting me down on a bed of moss.

Leo joined me, proceeding to pull out some
food from his bag.

"You haven't eaten yet, Marvin." He handed me
a loaf of bread. "You're gonna need it."

I put the bun against my lips, but didn't feel
particularly hungry. My attention was on Diana, who stood at the
edge of the plateau we'd landed on.

In this vast continent of Dalani, I didn't
think that there was a place deeper beneath the surface than
Nethermount, yet here we were, not only in a place, but a world
different from anything I'd ever known.

Steam hissed through fissures in the ground,
emanating an eerie emerald glow. Moss grew every place that wasn't
volcanic rock, black and smooth, and strange in its lack of
edges.

I mistook the ceiling for a sky at first, but
quickly realized that these were not stars, but glow worms
-millions of them hanging from stalactites like living icicles, in
every shade of cyan an artist could dream of. The air reeked of
sulfur and bled with magic, making my skin tingle until it closely
resembled a furious itching sensation.

It was a prairie, a swamp, a paradise, a
siren, and easily the most terrifying cavern in the
world.

"The Moor of Souls," I said to myself, tasting
the name for the thrill it gave me.

"The outskirts," Diana corrected me, pointing
to the distance. "The true Moor doesn't begin for another twenty
miles."

"Twenty..." my jaw dropped. There was simply
too much I didn't know. "I'm not going anywhere until I get some
answers."

Leo helped himself to the food I wasn't
eating.

I approached Diana until I was eye level with
her.

"What
are
you?"

"A Doll," she replied, her pink
eyes shining. "Your Doll, now."

"Yes, but exactly is a Doll?
What's a Doll Contract? Why is it such a bad thing that I had to
get thrown down here because of it?"

Leo stopped chewing to look at me. "Marvin...
you really don't know?"

"You do?" I asked, surprised.

"Well..." Leo scratched the back of his head.
"It was discussed at the communal classes when we were younger. You
always studied at home. But still, I'm surprised that Lady Formosa
didn't tell you."

Tully climbed up Leo's shoulder and made a
nest of his bed-ridden hair. I sat back beside him on the moss,
motioning for Diana to do the same. Leo readied his
explanation.

"This happened way back when the Houses were
formed. It's called the Dollhouse Incident. We dabble in bodies,
right? Transplants, grafting, that sort of thing."

"Right."

"Well, a Doll is basically a soul transplant.
In order to make one the necromancer and the candidate need to
draft it in paper."

"So a Doll Contract is a physical contract?" I
asked.

"You got it." Leo waved a fork at me. "It can
have any number of clauses and stipulations, but once its agreed
on, the Contract can't be amended. But it requires a vocal
component -both parties have to agree to the conditions
aloud."

"Okay. I'm still not seeing a
problem."

"The problem," Diana interrupted,
"is that a Doll Contract only recognizes an agreement, which means
that someone can scream 'no' all they want, but it'll take just one
'yes' to seal their fate. A number of necromancers took advantage
of the critical flaw. In the worst cases, they raided the surface
to drag people beneath the sands, where they extracted
cooperation."

I swallowed hard. "You mean that we...
tortured people?"

Diana lowered her head. "It was a dark time in
our history, Marvin. All Contracts shared some commonalities.
First, a Doll couldn't speak unless they had a Contractor. Second,
if one Contractor kills another, then that Contractor owns the
Dolls of his opponent. The conditions of previous Doll Contracts
continue to apply, or in the case of conflict, the condition will
change in favor of the new owner."

"Wow," said Leo. "I didn't know
that."

"Naturally," Diana scowled. "I eradicated
every Contractor left in Nethermount."

My eyes bulged to the size of
saucers.

"But Diana... The Crone said you formed a Doll
Contract. How can you do that if you're a Doll?"

"My Contractor died, Marvin." She closed her
eyes. I heard the springs of her joints winding taunt as Diana
squeezed her fists against the earth. "It made me a Rogue Doll. I
could choose to make anyone a Contractor without their agreement by
pledging myself to their service. Unlike the Contract made when
creating a Doll, this kind of vow has only one condition: the Doll
and her Contractor share one life, and all its
consequences."

She turned her head at Leo. "Could you ask
your bird to peck my cheek?"

"Sure." Leo fanned Tully off of his head.
"Give her a smooch."

The parrot skeleton hopped up Diana's arm and
perched itself on her shoulder, doing as it was asked.

Somehow, I felt its beak against my face at
the same time.

"So if I die then you die as well?"

"Correct." Diana smirked. "Why do you think
Mahlah sent us down here on this fool's errand? Killing you would
be the only way to kill me."

"Then why didn't she just cut him down back in
the Hall?" Leo asked before I could pose the same
question.

"Because anyone I chose to be my Contractor
would be the Inheritor," Diana explained. "The equivalent of
becoming Inval's heir. If Marvin wanted, he could abolish the
Houses, disband the necromancers of Nethermount; ban the act of
raising the dead altogether."

Leo scoffed. "That's barbaric. Marvin is too
cultured to do something like that."

Diana and I exchanged concerned
glances.

It was because I was cultured that I would do
something like that.

"Hold on." I shook my head. "If that makes me
Inval's heir then was your Contractor..."

Leo and I stared at Diana for a
long moment. I saw memories swimming in her eyes. The humanity of
her features added a haunted element to her expressions. Her smile
only reached half her face, and for the first time, she looked as
fragile as the pale porcelain she was made of.

"Yes." The dark lashes framing her eyes fanned
down to the floor. "I was sickly, you see. I caught an illness that
for all his effort, Inval couldn't cure. He said that he sensed a
new power in the East, and he was convinced that it would hold the
answers he didn't have."

"So he made a Doll Contract, to preserve you
until then," I finished.

"But the Houses were newly founded. Its
necromancers were young, naive, and dangerously ambitious." She
grimaced. "Inval left me to watch over their growth, but their
fascination with the Contracts forced me to tear Nethermount apart
before this epidemic spread even more out of hand."

"So how did you end up in that coffin in the
attic?"

Diana jerked a bit.

"Mahlah placed me under a spell while I was in
shock."

"Shock?" Leo and I asked together.

"A Doll..." she began, with evident
difficulty, "can sense her Contractor. I sensed Inval. I felt him
die."

I looked back on the first time I'd met Diana.
I jumped halfway across the attic when she sat up and began to look
around. Her painted mouth parted as though trying to speak, and
then she went very still.

A Doll without a Contractor couldn't speak,
and she didn't attempt it again for many long minutes.

Diana trembled, and I listened to
her joints rattle. In my childish naiveté, I thought that she was
broken, never realizing how right I was until now.

"Diana..." The question came before I had the
chance to register that I was asking it. "What were the conditions
of Inval's Contract with you?"

"There was only one."

"What was it?"

She looked at me like she did that first day
we met in the attic, her petal pink eyes swimming with tears of
light.

"He'd come back."

9: Uhh

I wish
I could say that I registered everything Diana had told us,
but it was too much to take in all at once.

All this time I'd been whining about being a
disappointment and a coward, while she was the one that had
suffered the most. A Doll couldn't cry, but I had a feeling that
even if she was able to, Diana wouldn't. She was brave, and strong,
and I was...

Marvin.

I barely touched the food Leo gave
for me to eat, so it wasn't long after Diana finished talking about
her origins that we started off into the Moor. I was tired after
the first five miles, which said a lot about my endurance. Leo,
being a member of monstrous House Soma, hummed and moved without
ever having to catch his breath. Diana didn't know the definition
of fatigue, thanks to her immortal vessel.

She noticed when I started to fall behind
them, and without a word, picked me up so I was now riding on her
back.

"This is so embarrassing," I muttered into her
hair.

"You're going to have to put up with it," she
replied practically. "True necromancers need to have good stamina
to reach their full potential."

"One little problem, Diana; I'm not cut out
for it."

"It's
because
you're cut out for it that I
became your Doll, Marvin."

I opened my mouth to say something, but closed
it after some consideration. Diana knew better than anyone how
terrible I was in this field. How could someone like me, who
couldn't look at a corpse without it being caked in cosmetics, be a
necromancer?

At the same time, I felt a measure of
disappointment. I loosened my grip around her neck, sinking further
down Diana's back.

"I thought you saved me because we were
friends."

"You decided that on your own."

Ouch.

She may as well have kicked the air out of my
lungs.

But... it was only natural for
Diana to think that way. After all, she was the disciple of Inval
himself. She was a match for the Crone of Astheneia, and then there
was me, a pathetic worm who spent his free time daydreaming about
gardens and pissing about because I wasn't happy with my
life.

My face burned with shame, thinking of all the
times I'd spent talking to a Doll who was probably sick and tired
of hearing the same old story. Diana's philosophy had always been,
"if you don't like yourself, then change."

I wished I was at a point where I could
apologize. As it stood, anything I could say now would only serve
as an insult to the both of us.

As much as I don't like the path I'm on at
present, I know that the only way I can make it up to Diana is by
becoming a necromancer.

"Leo," I said aside.

"Yeah, Marvin?"

"Do you have any bones on you? Besides Tully,
I mean."

He scratched his matted hair. "I
should."

"If its bones you want," Diana chimed in,
"We're nearly at the Ivory Arch. Look over the top of my head, it's
right down the next hill."

I craned my neck, and spotted brilliant white
against our dark environs. Diana upped her pace, leaping like a
gazelle over gas and steam fissures. Several times, when I was
convinced she was going to trip, her joints bent at impossible
angles to get the necessary traction without sacrificing hardly any
speed. Even Leo, modified monstrosity that he was, had trouble
keeping up when Diana moved this way.