He had to think a little. At the very least to bring his thoughts into order. Oh, Dark, he hasn’t been alive for seven hundred years!
Reive looked down at the breathless girl and narrowed his eyes. She’d already managed to enrage him. The necromancer bent down, heaved her up by her feet and presumptuously slung her senseless body over his shoulder. But first he cast a glance over his talkative acquaintance and decided her figure was quite what it ought to be. As they say, everything was in place.
Not like him.
Reive looked at his own left palm. He wrinkled his nose. If he hadn’t knocked the girl out a minute ago, she’d have been screaming like a frightened peacock by now. But he had to admit there were some problems with his hand. It hadn’t fully reconstructed itself. It was a bare bone scarcely covered with flimsy flesh.
The necromancer thought a little.
He wasn’t dead. But he wasn’t alive either, in the accepted sense of the word. This was an interesting effect of the curse. However, apart from his hand which would scare even a draugr, everything else was all right.
Reive put his hand to his breast and confirmed that his heart was beating. He wasn’t one of the undead.
He pursed his lips in a grim smile.
“Well, who else has doubts I’m the Undead King?” he said and then boldly smacked the senseless girl on the bottom.
The necromancer didn’t think about why he was carrying this girl, this chance acquaintance. It was clear to anyone not burdened with a conscience – he was going to use her as a live magic crystal. His current level of energy was only enough to show tricks to kids. The grave hadn’t only held Reive under the ground but also diminished his magic powers and didn’t allow him to restore them.
Still, the necromancer had tried. All these years. Every time he noticed some warm-blooded creature run across his field, he fell upon it through the ground with the ghostly cords of the Dark, sucking out its life and magic in their entirety. They were usually foxes, moles or hares. Sometimes, when a human being came into sight, the necromancer tried to kill him, too. But the last time this had happened was so long ago that Reive didn’t even remember whether he’d managed to do it. Mages usually resisted, and only complete non-mages were helpless against Reive.
However, after people fainted several times and the anarel dried completely, people stopped going to the Ash Field. The place had a long and storied history and had finally fallen into disrepute. Since then, it became difficult for Reive to maintain his strength. This was the reason why one of his hands had been almost completely destroyed.
Reive raised his head and looked at the horizon. The edge of the forest was already visible and that was where the necromancer was headed.
He closed his eyes and checked his orientation. Correct! Dark told him: the royal castle Firel was ten miles in a straight line.
His castle... He’d be home soon...
Approaching the forest fringe, the necromancer tried to return his thoughts to the present. Frankly speaking, it wasn’t that simple, considering how used he was to complete solitude. He was used to entertaining himself with flights of fancy and play of the imagination. But now, he had a girl with him, who, it must be admitted, managed to distract him even in her unconscious state. Her whole being exuded a faint scent of vanilla. Such a warm and homely one that the man involuntarily half closed his eyes and inhaled it deeper. It reminded him of a home-made bun fresh out of the oven. How much he wanted to bite into her with his teeth and feel how soft and sweet she was inside.
“Oh, Dark, I haven’t eaten vanilla buns for quite a long time!” the man grinned, not thinking about pastry at all.
He hadn’t had a woman for a very long time. However, he wasn’t used to dealing with unconscious women. This is why he wasn’t going to use this opportunity even a little.
A short time later, Reive wandered into a close thicket and, looking around with twilight vision, he found a bear’s lair. It was a small narrow cave, a perfect fit for two people who had decided to spend the night in the forest.
Of course this perspective would hardly appeal to his companion, but the necromancer didn’t see any other options. He couldn’t appear in the city for the time being. He’d spy out what it was like there first. Know the game.
Reive dropped the girl into the corner of the cave and threw a pile of branches onto the ground. Then he set to work building a fire by the exit. He had to fortify himself. After all this was his first meal for half a millennium.
Without worrying that the girl would wake up too soon, the man left the lair and quickly found a fox nearby. The scarlet currents of life unerringly led him to his victim. Having stolen up to the animal, Reive put his bony hand out, curling his fingers like the claws of a raven. He simply sucked the life out of the animal.
The Dark unwillingly reacted to its former master’s orders. The necromancer made a wry face, feeling that recovery would take more time than he had hoped.
However, his hand was now completely whole. As soon as the animal’s energy flowed into the man, the injured wrist at once grew over with flesh and was covered with dark skin under which veins were throbbing distinctly.
Satisfied, the man seized the fox by the tail and returned to the “camp”. He sat down beside the entrance, and fashioned something like a brazier from the branches.
Though Reive came from a noble and rich family, he knew quite well how to prepare game and roast meat. He’d learned a lot since he captured his first city with a band of ghouls when he was twenty-one.
Once he had finished preparing the food, the necromancer turned his attention to his clothes. Unfortunately, his magic was only able to save the long jacket with silver buttons. Everything else had rotted.
A little later, Reive found a turbid pond near the lair. It was all swamped by mud. But that didn’t stop the necromancer. He plunged his head into the cold water, and finally felt truly alive.
So, when it was time to awaken his green-eyed companion, he looked quite presentable.
He put a portion of meat onto a leaf of burdock for her, and carefully lay down next to her on the branches.
The girl’s eyelashes fluttered. She was about to come to her senses. The necromancer pillowed his head on his hand, lying alongside the girl, and waiting calmly. He was desperately thirsty, but he didn’t want to leave the girl. Strange as it was, he liked being with her. Perhaps he’d missed human society for all these years. Maybe, just out of curiosity or something else. He didn’t give it any thought.
Reive closed his eyes and explored the surroundings with twilight vision. There was a large patch of darkness ten steps away from the lair. It seemed to him that it was a man. Maybe a hunter mauled by a bear. A dead body going nowhere which would transform into an undead all by itself.
Reive decided to help it, turning over a suitable invocation in his mind. Level seven seemed a good choice: the creation of a half-thinking zombie. Nothing complicated.
Pushing himself up from the ground, the necromancer sat down resting his elbows on his knees. His eyelids slowly lowered. When they rose, his eyes turned red. The Undead King didn’t have to pronounce words of the ancient language. His energy and experience allowed him to do magic almost silently.
He barely moved his fingers, forming the required symbol with them and pronounced one key word, “Kherileyr!” (Arise!)
The earth didn’t shake. The wind didn’t throw up clouds of sharp dust into the sky. But if there had been other necromancers nearby capable of ordering dead material, they would have felt the Dark coming to life. A fine but strong black thread thrust into the dead man’s body like an arrow, filling it with a web of twilight magic.
Reive sighed and lay down again on his back, crossing his legs and clasping his hands behind his neck.
When the zombie stumped up to his new master, glaring maliciously with a greenish light coming from his dark eyes, the necromancer said, “Bring me some water. You’ll find the bowl near the place where you came from.”
The zombie nodded and went out slowly. After his awakening, his legs could hardly obey him.
The necromancer pursed his lips as if smirking. Today, he read his new servant like a book.
“What on earth is going on here?” came an annoyed girl’s voice, as soon as the dead man disappeared.
The necromancer turned his head and smiled, meeting the blazing eyes. The girl blushed erotically again.
This just won’t do! I didn’t understand what had happened but, at some point, it was as if I’d been switched off from the outside world. I have never fainted. it's pretty safe to say that this loss of consciousness was no accident. It was the work of the stranger. “Why am I lying on a pile of branches in some lair? And why’re you smiling in such a way?” I gasped in embarrassment. The man didn’t even think about explaining himself. He only smiled more broadly. I felt so uncomfortable my throat suddenly dried up. It’s bad enough that this brazen guy brought me who knows where, without having him strip. He was only wearing something like a jacket or a long coat with shiny silver buttons over his naked body. His black hair down to the shoulders had a sheen to it and framed his fine-featured narrow dark face. His dark chestnut eyes were shining impishly under thick eyebrows, and his full lips curved ironically. To my regret, those lips were bit of all righ
At first, Reive didn’t understand what had happened. A black stain appeared on Angelina’s chest, encircling her lungs with long sticky tentacles. She was suffocating. The necromancer frowned in puzzlement. His sharp eyes were used to noticing changes in any situation, and they moved from the burdock where the meat lay, to the branches where the girl was shivering, and then all along the walls of the cave. Reive tried to grasp the reason for her seizure. He could find no reason. There wasn’t any poison in the food. The dry brushwood didn’t emit any black magic. And the shelter itself was an ordinary lair. It could mean only one thing: Angelina was ill. Regrettably, Reive wasn’t a doctor. He was a necromancer. If she kicked the bucket right now, the best thing he could do would be to make her into a nice clever undead girl. Say, a stryga. Or a lich. Though he didn’t even have enough ma
A pretty girl with long honey-brown hair. With large eyes twinkling like stars. And with a cruel smile which had overturned everything inside the necromancer. As if someone had ripped his stomach open, tearing out his bowels with a jagged knife. Her face transformed. Now there was a pale man who had grown grey before his time. He was quite young but had wrinkles under his dark green eyes. The man glared hatred and contempt at Reive, and it was this glare that moved Reive to murder. The necromancer raised his eyes, driving the delusions away and trying to return to reality. But completely unexpectedly, the nightmare became reality. The grey-headed man didn’t disappear. He was sitting on the brushwood beside Angelina with a ghastly smile. The girl didn’t notice him. “What, you didn’t expect to meet an old friend of yours?” Ulfricus said calmly, his dead green eyes burning into Reive. “I killed you,” the necromancer answered scarcely audibly, clenching h
Without raising her eyes to him, she continued, “My name’s Angelina Vallebour. I grew up in the family of a potter, Ilona Vallebour, in the province of Arc. But the woman who replaced my mother wasn’t my real mother. I knew that from childhood, but it wasn’t done to talk about it, even to this day. My real mother gave me to Ilona. And every month, she paid her large sums of money, so I would need for nothing. I shouldn’t have known who my parents were. But one day, I overheard the truth.” The girl paused. Then, she shot a nervous hunted glance at the necromancer. Reive stiffened feeling how the young graduate’s voice held his attention. It wouldn’t let him go. It forced him to keep listening to her story. “So, my real mother turned out to be a very influential woman. Duchess Myria Clarian Castro-Arcs. The owner and sovereign of the whole province of the Arc. The sister of His Majesty the King. She concealed my birth because I’m a child born out of wedlock.”
He’d began acting weird, as if his sight had suddenly unfocused. Then, his face reflected deep despair. I wanted to touch it and run my finger over the slightly down-turned corners of his eyes until his confident mocking expression returned, with the light predatory gleam in its very depth.I didn’t know what came over me but I raised my hand and touched his palm. It was so smooth and hot... For just a moment, an unjustified irrational anxiety exploded in my breast. Then, through the nerves on the tips of my fingers, little lightning bolts began to spark. The longer I didn’t pulling my hand away, the stronger this strange sparkling tension grew between us.Nevertheless, I could be satisfied with my action. The confusion and the oppressive misunderstanding disappeared from the man’s eyes. Now, his eyes were flaming. He was looking only at me. It seemed that it was about to burn me to ashes.No one had ever looked at me like that before. An
“Sure,” Reive nodded calmly, gesturing to the monster. “Put it here and go out. Wait outside and guard the entrance. And don’t you try to stick your nose in here. See how you’re scaring the lady!” The necromancer gestured with his hand and the horrid scream-producing zombie gave me a nod. A cold wave ran down my spine. For a second, a blood-red flame flashed in his eye sockets. Then, everything became as it was before. It occurred to me that this zombie was very lucky: he still had his eyeballs. Now they were yellow-grey, with black pupils. From a distance, they might seem quite normal. If they didn’t flash with such a hungry red light, of course. I desperately wanted to huddle against Reive. To seize his hand, to hide behind his back which didn’t shudder like mine from each movement of the zombie. Then, I realized: a man who could raise the undead was much more dangerous than the undead he raised. I shifted my gaze to
What’s happened?” the girl asked anxiously.The necromancer clenched his teeth. It seemed like he was going crazy.Was this a side effect of being raised from the dead? Or was it because of the damned locusts who’d been finishing him off for seven hundred years?“It’s okay. I just remembered something unpleasant,” he said, scarcely hearing himself. His gaze was focused a little to the left of the girl – to the place where once again his old enemy was standing. Damn Ulfricus Ayris, smiling repulsively.Yet, Angelina obviously didn’t see anyone.Reive slowly closed his eyes, mentally ordering the spirit to get lost. To the place ordained for traitors.“And where is the place for people like you, Reivy?” the ghost smirked.The necromancer opened his eyes, but that asshole Ulfricus didn’t disappear. Inste
The remains of the fire glowed drearily before my eyes. The sun was going down, and I was no longer thinking that I had spent the whole day with a stranger who was really strange. That I had almost slept with him in a bear’s lair. That I had almost died from a seizure. And now, I’m watching the dying embers with him in the company of an undead called Zomzom.For the first time in a long while, I was feeling calm and comfortable. Even though everything should have been the other way round, I felt good. I had already told Reive the history of my own birth. I told him something that no one else had ever heard from me during the five years I studied at the Academy. During my whole life! So, there was no point in holding back from telling what will happen.“In a month, there will be a royal wedding,” I uttered gloomily. “My birth father has found a new fiancée. And now, all the rich and high-born people are gathering in the