Necromancer Awakening (12 page)

“I can buy that.”

“So let me begin by telling you a simple truth,” Mujahid said. “Necromancy is the most sacred gift bestowed by the gods. Through necromancy the spirit is made pure, and the dead are made worthy of their final reward.”

One of the nuns would have smacked Mujahid with a catechism by now.

“All necromancers are part of a sacred priesthood. We are priests of Zubuxo, the God of Death.”

“The death statue outside is Zubuxo, isn’t it? I was right. This place
is
a religious site.”

“Far more than you realize. Our charge is to assist Zubuxo in his eternal task of sorting the good from the evil. He takes the good and sees them on to their final reward.”

“Leaving you with the evil?”

“Us, Nicolas…and precisely. Never forget, even for a moment, the creature you summon is evil. When it awakens to this world, it will have one wish and one wish only…to kill.”

Nicolas wasn’t sure he could do this. But if learning how to bring some psycho dead guy back to life would take him home to Kaitlyn and Toby, then so be it.

“There are varying degrees of evil, to be certain,” Mujahid said. “Some spirits are so vile they can only be purified in one of the six Hells. You will not be able to summon those. But the initial instinct of the spirits you
do
summon is always the same, because it’s a survival instinct. They will kill anything within reach. You must gain control over your penitent as soon as you summon it.”

“I was taught there’s only one Hell, and it’s eternal.”

“There is another…no. Too much, too soon.”

“But there’s a bunch of different ways to be bad, right? Not everyone’s a killer, so why do they want to kill?”

“The person you summon may have been dead for centuries. They are shadows of their former selves, left only with the rotting evil the God of Death saw growing inside them. Many embrace their evil, becoming more and more sadistic over time.”

“So, it’s our job to get them to see that they’re bad?”

“A bad person doesn’t look at their reflection and see a bad person staring back. Nor do most people commit evil with the desire to cause evil. We have to help them see the
consequences
of their actions.”

“But if they can’t remember anything, then how do we get them to see consequences?”

Mujahid nodded and placed the bone between them.

“Outside of the crypt, where we first met, you summoned the warrior without knowing what you had done.”

Nicolas shook his head. A spider the size of a car attacked him, true. But he had nothing to do with summoning that homicidal skeletal dude who clawed his way out of the ground.

“Let’s get this straight, now,” Nicolas said. “All I did was get attacked. And why did it have a sword?”

“You raised a warrior from his own grave, boy. If you summoned a dead baker from under his kitchen, I’d expect him to be wielding a rolling pin.”

“Still,” Nicolas said. “Who are you to judge anyone?” The nuns told him people didn’t have a right to judge others.

“You only saw a glimpse of that warrior’s life. When you have control, and you summon with purpose, you will witness every evil act that person has ever committed. But that’s often not the worst of it.”

“What could possibly be worse?”

“Witnessing the consequences.”

“Person does something bad, something bad happens in return. Not exactly a mystery.”

Mujahid’s eyes took on a faraway look, as if he were staring through Nicolas.

“You will see futures that are no longer possible. You will come to know and love children that will never be born. You will hear songs that will never be written and see great acts of wonder that will never be possible. You will see entire civilizations that will never exist, and in your heart you will know the sentence that must be served by your penitent, for in that instant you will know the blackness of their heart better than you know your own.”

Nicolas looked down. “That’s…horrible.”

“Yes. And I despise every moment of it. But that is our sacred duty.”

Nicolas started seeing the bone in a different light. He hadn’t thought about those skeletons outside as people before, with past lives of their own.

“Do you understand what I mean by
sacred
now?” Mujahid said.

“I’m just wondering what happens when people die where I’m from?”

“Necromancy will help you understand a great many things.”

Nicolas looked up.

“For a start you’ll come to understand that there is too much to understand.” Mujahid smiled at Nicolas. “And that, my young postulant, is the beginning of wisdom. Spend a few moments clearing your mind. There is more I must prepare.”

Mujahid stood and walked to one of the coffins.

Energy flowed all around Nicolas. At first it rushed in, threatening to force him backwards. But after a few moments he managed to control the flow so that it was a slower, steady stream.

He opened his eyes and saw Mujahid staring back. “Oh, sorry.” He shut his eyes again.

“Your eyes don’t matter. You may need to summon in the middle of battle, and battle isn’t the place to close one’s eyes, boy.”

Nicolas opened his eyes again.

“First, a word about the energy you’ve been feeling,” Mujahid said. “You must be close to a source of death in order to use it. Necropotency surrounds us in this estate, but beyond these walls that is not the case.”

Mujahid took a step back.

“Look at the bone on the ground before you,” Mujahid said. “I’m going to show you the first way of summoning the dead.”

“There’s more than one?”

“The first way uses a corpse. The second does not. Always use the first when possible.”

“Why?”

“Summoning without a corpse takes its toll on you. It’s called a
pure summoning
, and it uses more energy, because you’re pulling someone from the Plane of Death and incarnating them here. They come back as skeletons of whatever race they were when they died. And they have neither armor nor weapons. Just rage and brute force.”

Mujahid looked down at the bone. “This belonged to a man I knew personally.”

“Was he a good man?” Nicolas hoped so. The thought of seeing all that evil stuff disturbed him.

Mujahid shrugged. “I’ve never known a good man who had no evil in him. And I’ve never known an evil man who had no good. Is your mind prepared?”

“I think so.”

“That is something you need to know, boy, not suppose.”

Nicolas sighed and cleared his mind as best as he knew how. “Ok, it’s clear…I think.”

Mujahid frowned. “Do you sense the symbol of power in your mind?”

“It’s always there now, like a tiny point of energy. It’s like I could point to it if I wanted to. Except I can’t and…I couldn’t. Am I making any sense?”

“Search for a place in your mind where the energy is accumulating. It’s a like a pool of necropotency. It should exist close to the symbol of power.”

“Yeah, I can feel it.”

“Right now there’s only one symbol of power in your mind. As you acquire more, they will aggregate around that pool of power.”

“How many symbols of power do you have, Mujahid?”

Mujahid’s eyes grew dark.

“Don’t ever ask that question of a priest. Ever.” Mujahid looked away for a moment. “It is rare for a Mukhtaar Lord to take on a postulant.”

“Why—”

“Too much too soon.”

“Yeah,
not good
. I heard.”

“Imagine a pathway between the pool of energy and the symbol of power. Allow the energy to embrace the symbol.”

Nicolas tried to force the power to touch the symbol floating in his mind. The power rushed out of him, but it had no other effect.

Mujahid shook his head. “Ordering something to do what it already wishes to do is pointless. The power wishes to assist you by its nature. It wants to embrace a symbol of power. But you must show it how.”

Nicolas allowed the necropotency to enter him in a slow trickle. He imagined a small river of energy flowing down a pathway, at the end of which it struck the symbol and wrapped around it.

Energy burst from his well in a torrent and imbued the skull symbol with power. The necropotency pulsed in his head like a throbbing headache, as if it begged him to release it.

“I think I did it.”

“Good. The connection will maintain itself until you cast the power or you are cut off from its source. Now, cast the symbol into the bone on the floor.”

“How?”

“We should be past that point by now, boy.
Show
it how.”

Nicolas imagined the necropotency reaching out like a cloud and touching the bone on the floor. Nothing happened, so he imagined the symbol of power flying forward and entering the bone.

His vision went black, and he started groping around like a blind man.

“All is as it should be, Nicolas. As you grow in power the blinding effect will lessen. Now, watch for the stream.”

Images poured into Nicolas’s mind. But they were flying past like debris in a tornado. He could hear bones clacking together, so he concentrated on the sound.

“You’re hanging on to the present, boy. Embrace the time stream. Merge your thoughts into it.”

A sense of goodness filled Nicolas, like the feeling he’d get after meeting a really nice person. When his vision returned, he saw a skeleton standing in front of him.

Nicolas wanted to run. He pushed himself backwards, trying to get away from it.

“No boy. Control it!”

It was the last thing he heard before the world went black.

CHAPTER NINE

Nicolas sat on the edge of his bed, frustrated by his inability to control his power.

“We need to continue your studies closer to the orb,” Mujahid said. “It’ll make this process easier.”

“Why?” Nicolas asked.

“You want to find a way home, don’t you?”

“Wait. The orb is my way home?”

Hope welled up inside Nicolas. Could going home be that simple?

“Orbs of power are more than repositories of energy,” Mujahid said. “They hold knowledge, but like all objects of magic their range is limited.”

“It happened so fast. What was I doing wrong?”

“What you made me do up there was unpleasant, and if you cause it to happen again, there’ll be consequences you’ll not enjoy.”

“Hey, I’m trying as hard as I can here. Maybe I could have focused more on the images, but I’m doing—”

“Not the images, boy.”

“Then what are you talking about?”

“How would you feel if you woke from death in the shape of a monster, and had no will of your own?”

“I would probably think I was going crazy.”

“You would be suffering beyond measure.”

“I didn’t—”

“You made me send an old friend back to the Plane of Death, because you couldn’t control what any postulant worthy of the title could have controlled.”

“I didn’t know that would happen. I’m sorry—” He stopped himself as the anger welled up inside. “No, dammit, I’m tired of saying I’m sorry. You’re part of some…sacred system of things I don’t understand, and you’re expecting me to do things no normal person—”

“You’re part of this sacred system of things too. Never forget that.”

“You think I’ve forgotten being ripped out of my life, into…this? I was an archeology student a few days ago, and now you expect me to raise the dead?”

Mujahid yanked Nicolas forward by the robes until their faces were inches apart. “I’ll give you time to learn control, boy, but know this…I’ll kill you myself before watching you torture another spirit like that. Learn. Learn quickly.”

Mujahid released him and turned away.

Nicolas looked down. “I’m not even supposed to be here,” he muttered.

“I can’t see the future, but it doesn’t require a prophet to gain insight into what’s happening here,” Mujahid said. “You think yourself the victim of some cosmic accident?”

Mujahid clutched at the chain hanging around his neck. His robes always hid whatever was hanging from it.

“Did you take control of your friend?” Nicolas said. “I mean, when I couldn’t?”

Mujahid’s face became a mask of anger.

“You
were his priest,” Mujahid said. “No man interferes with the bond, not even another priest. This was
your
responsibility. This was
your
lesson to learn.”