A short fantasy story about a thief and a necromancer with a long history.
There are many ways in which a man may be judged, Vincent thinks as he stares out over the audience. Theatre is one, of course. Everyone likes a good spectacle, and heckling a bad one is almost as fun. Sport is another, the joy of cheering for the underdog until your voice is hoarse.
Public execution, he’s decided, is a strange mix of both. The drama of the theatre; the uncertainty of sport that makes gamblers so gullible. Money exchanges hands below him. A small child with wide eyes is munching on a salted treat. There is the sort of buzz he associates with the races, just with a little more bloodlust.
The noose itches. He wonders if they’d untie his hands so he could scratch, but decides ultimately it would make little difference.
The constable asks if he has any last words.
Vincent shrugs. “Would it make a difference?”
“No, but we have to ask.” At Vincent’s blank expression, the constable adds, “It’s tradition.”
“Tradition is what got me into this mess in the first place.”
“No, stealing ceremonial plates is what got you into this mess.”
“It’s not stealing if they were yours to begin with.”
The constable ignores him. The plates are hundreds of years old and they belonged to the old gods that the town only remembers twice a year.
Hanging seems a bit extreme, but apparently they take tradition very seriously in this town. Seriously enough that the lack of evidence – there is never evidence – is not enough to deter them from passing the sentence.
He sighs. This is not the way he intended to die. Then again, to be fair, he never intended to die at all. Maybe, when he had reached his millennium, he might have decided to rest. But six hundred and twelve is no age at all.
They pull the lever.
The hatch drops.
Vincent stands to the side of it, looking in mild bemusement at the constable who shoved him out of the way. He mutters apologies to the crowd as he loosens the noose, and drops his voice a reverential whisper. “Milady of the shadows wishes to speak with you.”
“Hang me,” Vincent says, completely deadpan. “If milady wishes to speak with me, she can raise me when I’m dead.”
“Don’t be like that Vincent.” A gentle, familiar voice from behind him. He shivers. The small boy with his snacks is gaping at the side of the makeshift stage. There are no more yells of annoyance, no more buzzes of anticipation. A woman in a long white veil has joined the spectacle and there is silence. The madam of necromancy tends to have that effect.
He is released into her custody. She has a driverless carriage waiting. It pushes into a smooth, calming motion the moment they’re both sat down.
“Honestly Vincent,” she says, pushing her veil away to reveal a delicate tanned face and deep honey hair. “Can you go one century without getting yourself into trouble?”
“What’s with the get up?” She frowns. He gestures to the veil and the dress. “The bride of death look. It’s new.”
She sighs. “It’s been seventy years, dear, I was bound to have a new outfit. And people expect a certain look these days when they meet the head of necromancy. Pallid skin, black hair, dark eyes. I’m afraid my healthy good looks rather disappoint.”
“Head of necromancy.” Vincent shakes his head. “There’s enough of you to have a leader now.”
“Oh do grow up Vincent. We choose different paths to suit our different powers; you don’t hear me judging you for stealing your way through life.”
“And what is it you want me to steal for you?” She stares. He smiles. “Melissa, you wouldn’t have saved me unless you needed me. What does the mighty necromancer need from the lowly thief?”
Melissa holds his gaze before, finally, lowering her pretty blue eyes. “I need you to steal a soul.”
***
Melissa lives in a grand chalet on the corner of four countries that don’t quite meet, so that she is in a country all her own. It’s a world away from the cell Vincent’s spent the last few days in. With the Holy Wars raging, necromancy has become a booming business: there are hordes of mourners wanting to talk to their loved ones, and a fair few powerful men wanting soldiers who can’t feel pain.
He takes his time washing away the dirt of his near-death experience. It’s only the third time he’s been caught. The last two times he was young, just testing his limits, and he was sloppy. This time he was overconfident. He didn’t make his shadowy replica of the plates substantial to the touch, so when they went to use them in their ceremony their hands passed through the whispers of his magic. A foolish mistake. He would have been fine, except after he used his powers to escape his last death sentence and condemned an entire town to the shadows he promised himself next time he was caught, he would remain caught.
Fate stepped in. This time, he promises himself there won’t be a next time.
Melissa is waiting for him. She’s ditched the bridal get up and instead is resplendent in a long navy skirt and a loose white top, a world away from her milady of the shadows persona. She passes him a glass of some strong-smelling, dark liquor as he takes a seat opposite her. The smell makes his nostrils itch. He takes a sip, and makes a face.
“What proof is this?”
“Ninety percent.”
“It burns.”
“It cleanses. Can we dispense with the small talk? I really am on a tight schedule here.”
Vincent lowers his glass, a slow grin stretching over his lips. “I haven’t seen you this worked up since the coast lands declared all magic witchcraft and all witches terrorists. What’ve you got yourself into?” She bites her lower lip, working at it in a way that reminds him of when they were children, both under a hundred, and the towns were plains and the people were tribes who worshipped them. His smile disappears. “Lissa? Tell me about this soul.”
She waves a dismissive hand, but her smile is a little half-hearted. “It’s a soul. We necromancers deal in souls, don’t you know?”
“Lissa.”
She sighs. “It’s all just rather embarrassing. I’m being blackmailed.”
“Blackmailed?” He raises an eyebrow. “You’re the most powerful woman in the world.”
“And you’re the most powerful man, yet you were about to be hanged.”
“Okay, okay.” He holds his hands up in surrender. “Tell me what happened.”
“It’s stupid.” He holds her stare until she sighs, slumping back in her seat. “This war. It’s just the longest in a long line, and I’m tired. So I’ll help the widows and orphans talk to their loved ones, but I won’t raise the dead to fight another battle. I can’t do it anymore. The thing is, there aren’t any other necromancers who can do what I do.”
“Bit conceited.”
She smiles, a cold, hard smile. “Show me another necromancer who can stand at the edge of the battle and raise all the dead soldiers to fight for her, and I’ll apologise.”
He nods. “Fair enough. Carry on.”
“The various warlords –”
“They call themselves kings now.”
“- they’re all trying to persuade me the error of my ways. They shower me in gifts, rubies and emeralds, the occasional hematite. They all want me on their side. They tell me about how they fight for truth and justice, how theirs is the just war because it is holy, and I smile and nod and show them the door, and that’s fine. But one of them decided to take a different tact.”
“The blackmailer.”
“The blackmailer.” She sighs. “He has a group of necromancers working for him. Together, they attacked. And now I am down one rather important soul.”
“Whose is it?”
“Does it matter?”
He shrugs. “I’m just curious. Do you keep them all in jars somewhere? How exactly does soul rearing work?”
She stares him down. “Suffice to say they have something that belongs to me, and they are holding it as leverage.”
“And you want me to steal it?”
“Yes.”
There’s a tremor to her voice. He has a sneaking suspicion: there was a man once. There have been many men and women in both of their lives, but he was her fairy tale ending. He withered, aged as mortals are wont to do, and she mourned him like she had never mourned before. If there was any soul precious to her, it would be his.
“These holy wars,” he says, shaking his head. “We were the first religion. Do you remember? The wastelands to the east, the tribes who bowed to us.”
“The God of Illusion and the Goddess of Death.” She smiles slightly. “I never liked being an object of worship.”
“Do you remember what they used to say about us?”
“We were omnipotent, and omniscient, and all other sorts of oms.”
“No. They said that we were benevolent, until wronged, when we would fill with righteous anger and strike down our enemies.” He smiles. His eyes sparkle. “I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty damn full of righteous anger right now.”
***
The king lives in a grand castle in the centre of his realm, and he may call himself a king but Vincent can see why Melissa insists on calling them warlords. There is no opulence or glamour in this court, only dour faces and armoured men on battlements that are built to withstand an army. Vincent isn’t sure which religion these men are fighting for, what God has made their war so just, but he understands the wariness and weariness in their eyes. They find no joy in conflict, not anymore.
He keeps his head bowed as he passes through the gates with other travellers. There is a constant ebb and flow through the castle’s courtyard. He wonders, for a man so used to war, whether the king has ever considered attacks may come from a single traveller, not an army.
He is able to walk through undeterred, until he turns and attempts to walk into the kitchens. A guard is there in seconds, his movements quick and trained, the spear blocking Vincent’s way.
Vincent sighs. “Can’t a man get some bread in peace?”
“Not from here,” the guard says sternly. Everything about him is stern. “Move along.”
“Yessir.”
Vincent steps away. At least, half of him does. The other half walks around the guard unnoticed, a shadow flitting over him just for a second, and into the dark halls of the kitchen. He can still feel the substantial half of him walking away, before it pings back to him. There’s a sudden snap, like an elastic band against his skin, then he is whole again and striding through the kitchens.
He grabs a bit of bread, and winks at the young girl standing beside it.
The inside of the castle matches its gloomy exterior. A couple of centuries before there had been real kings, kings so fat they couldn’t walk, kings with so much gold it weighed them down. Those kings died in horrid uprisings that filled the land with blood and fire, and the cycle began again. Vincent liked the old kings. They were corrupt and greedy, but they had a sense of humour. These new kings are too serious for their own good.
The soul is in a tower, locked away and defended by those pesky necromancers. This much Melissa was able to tell him. How she knew, she refused to say. Once upon a time they told each other everything, but he supposes seventy years is a long time to go without seeing someone and their different paths have pulled them apart.
Until now.
He walks in shadows, tiptoeing on the very edge of sight. Not that there’s anyone around to see him. It seems to be assumed that no one will get past the stern guards outside. He can hear the muffled sounds of people moving through the courtyard beyond the walls, but it’s like he’s hearing it from underwater. Otherwise, there is no sound. Just the very light footsteps of a thief, too quiet for human ears.
The necromancers are easy to spot. They wear long black robes and hoods and symbols that mean nothing but are probably supposed to be occult. There are three of them at the foot of a stairwell, sitting around a small table with goblets in their hands.
“It’s not that I’m complaining,” one of them says as Vincent tiptoes closer.
“Bill, that’s exactly what you’re doing.”
“Look, we’ve been stuck here for days. If she was gonna come she’d be here by now.”
Oh Bill. Vincent grins. The fear in his voice gives the poorly-named necromancer away, and Vincent moves closer, unseen, unnoticed, until he’s so close he can lean down and whisper in Bill’s ear. “She’s already here.”
Bill pales. He looks around, looks straight into Vincent’s eyes, but sees nothing.
“Sod this.”
The necromancer gets to his feet. One of his friends groans; the other laughs.
“The king’ll have your head if you leave your post Bill.”
“She’ll kill me if I stay.”
Bill runs. One down, two to go.
Vincent touches a hand to the tower’s wall. There’s the sound of footsteps. The necromancers share a glance. The footsteps are coming down towards them and the tension in the necromancer’s shoulders tells Vincent no one is supposed to be up there. He smiles, and makes the noise a little louder, a little more intruding. He waves his hand, and Melissa’s voice teases down the stairs.
“Ready or not…”
The necromancers flee.
Laughing, Vincent drops the shadows around him and starts up the empty stairwell. This is going better than he could have hoped. The necromancers don’t know his kind of magic; as far as he’s aware, no one else does. Melissa may have decided to teach others to use her gifts but he was never inclined to do the same. Now he just has to replicate the soul, take the real one and get out of here in time for Melissa to shout at him for taking too long.
He stops dead at the top of the stairs.
The tower glows.
In the centre of the circular room, on a plinth of diamond, is the soul. It’s not in a jar, it’s just there. Floating an inch above the plinth. Glowing a gentle gold that pulses through the room.
“Oh Lissa,” he says softly.
Her soul responds to his voice. He feels it, a sudden intensity in the pulsing, a brightening in the glow. It feels warm. It feels familiar. It feels like a childhood spent running in the wilds, when there was only the two of them and they had no idea why they came to be or how they had these powers but they were sure one day they’d know. It feels like the old days, when answers still seemed possible and everyday was magical.
He moves closer, and reaches out. The soul spins in the air, gossamer threads of gold entwining and expanding. His hands cup around it. It shrinks down into his palms and he clasps it to his chest, where he can feel it like a second heartbeat against his skin.
Getting out of here may be trickier than he thought. He hopes no one comes up to the tower as he’s leaving. He hopes the necromancers don’t come back with reinforcements too quickly. Replicating a normal soul is easy; replicating Melissa’s is impossible.
Footsteps pound on the stairs.
He sighs. The soul is bright under his fingers; he reaches down and pops it into his pocket, where it burns through his trousers against his skin. But he needs his hands. His trembling hands, he notices, raising them slightly. That’s new. Trembling is the thief’s undoing, but now his fingers won’t stay still and he knows why.
“They took her soul,” he whispers.
Righteous anger. That’s what the first tribe used to say about their gods. They are benevolent, until wronged.
The necromancers are dead before he’s fully turned to face them.
He strides down the stairs and into the castle proper. He doesn’t bother to hide in the shadows. The soul is too bright, and hiding relies on being unnoticeable. Instead he walks through the corridors of the castle, his feet barely touching the ground. No one bothers him. No one seems to want to. He sees one guard, but the guard turns away and pretends not to have seen him, this stranger who drags shadows behind him like a cloak.
The king is in his throne room. There are guards there too, but their spears stay by their side and they stare open-mouthed at the stranger. The cloak is clear now; it shimmers with darkness, twists and turns as the shadows move inside it. It’s how he hides in plain sight, but today he is not hiding. He allows it to be seen, allows himself to be seen.
The king stands up. “Seize him!”
Vincent is in front of him, one step carrying him from the edge of the hall to the throne itself. The king gulps. He is a small man, smaller than any king has a right to be, and he trips back into his throne as Vincent looms over him.
“I don’t like violence,” Vincent says softly. “I’ve made it a habit in my life to do no harm. But your necromancers are dead. There will be no more soul-snatching.”
The king whimpers. His guards are useless. No one seems to want to move.
“And you will lose this war.” Vincent’s voice deepens. The world seems to tremor with it. “When the army’s come, you won’t see them. They will be hidden in my shadows. And they’ll thank their gods, whoever the hell they may be, and your people will cry that their gods have abandoned them. And that’s fine. Because you’ll know it was me. You’ll know that this is judgement, and I have found you wanting.” He straightens up. His voice, when he speaks again, is back to normal. He even manages a small smile. “Sorry to ruin your fun.”
***
They watch the battle together on a cliff some miles away. They can only hear the occasional distant clash, the rumble of war. Melissa holds her soul in her hands, staring at it with her head tilted to one side and a small smile.
“It’s so much warmer than I thought.”
“Why didn’t you tell me it was your soul?”
“I knew you’d worry.” She glances at him. “I didn’t want to put you under too much pressure.”
“How long could you have survived without it?”
“Another day. Two, at the most.” She sighs, and the soul sinks into her breast. Her skin brightens. Her eyes sparkle. “There. Good as new.”
He snorts in disgust, shaking his head. “Can’t you go one century without getting yourself in trouble?”
Melissa laughs, and curls up to lean against his shoulder. Together, they watch the battle raging. The army came under cover of darkness, a darkness deeper than the night itself. The king and his castle stood no chance. The battle now is an afterthought, a final push from the defenders that will end with the invaders triumphant, declaring the victory for their gods.
“Do you ever think we should intervene?” Vincent says.
Melissa shakes her head. “There will always be war. We’d make peace once, and it’d happen again within years. Months, even. Let them fight. Ultimately, it’s up to them to make peace.”
“And what about us?”
“What about us?” Melissa gazes up into his eyes. “You will go back to thieving our once prized possessions, I will go back to my chalet and my veil. Or…”
“Or?”
“The east is lovely this time of year.” She smiles. “Perhaps we could go home.”
Vincent holds her stare. In the background, the fight rages on, but there is always a fight raging on somewhere. He puts his arm around her and looks into her beautiful blue eyes instead of at the fighting below. “Home.” He smiles. “That sounds good.”