Time of the Necromancer: Chapter 5

“Are we going the right way?” Orion asked looking at the sky. They had their hat pulled back and their solid wooden head shined with the setting sun. Looking over their shoulder they looked at Ryza their necromantic companion. One of her eyes was glowing and her hands were on either side of her knees. Her hair was still being contained by her bandana but her rat was playing with the strands that it could touch.

She didn’t respond to them, instead staring into the sky and seeing something that she could barely see. Their final companion the masked, blonde jester, chuckled moving to a tune that only he could hear and feel danced closer. “Though I greatly enjoy our alliance, magic isn’t quite an exact science.”

Scoffing they continued looking forward. Out in the middle of the countryside like this they felt like they didn’t know where they were going. With the transition to the shorter grass on the steppe, they knew they were in Noria. The trio crossed over the previous night in search of her brother. But now they were just wandering aimlessly while their necromancer tried for a magical solution.

Reaching into the saddlebag of Ryza’s horse, Oiron pulled out another journal marked by the Ouroboros symbol that they had taken from a third outpost. Unlike the last two, which were a ledger and a diary, this one was a journal. Rather than personal thoughts it had recorded the day to day situations.

The study and hoarding of the undead.

Recharging the crystal in their chest so they don’t die.

Getting into arguments with the seven.

Feeling underappreciated.

Following a lead, one that might actually usurp one of the seven. Take one of their places.

Stopping they looked down at the journal and read through it again, ‘Pride is always talking about the four. The four Gods. The ones before time. Whatever the hell that means. I am hunting down a lead toward one of them. A mage who thinks he knew about the Gods. More than was common knowledge.’

They paused and flipped through the pages skimming thoroughly through it for now. They found another passage talking about the Gods, ‘The mage wasn’t a dead end entirely. He directed me to a place in the Noria steppes. A strangely built altar to a being. Something that looked only like a mask resting within a flower. None of the Gods that Pride talked about had anything to do with a mask’.

Going through the journal a few pages further they found the entry about the mask, ‘I found the altar hidden in a maze of caves but ran into trouble. Assassins from the night. Speaking in riddles and lyrics. I barely made it out with my life. But throughout the encounter the eyes of the mask were glowing. I can only imagine it was a ritual. What kind of ritual were they performing?’.

 “A mask. In Noria. And associated with a cult?” they rubbed their jaw slowly and looked toward Gest. The masked assassin reached into his pack oblivious to Orion’s gaze. He pulled out a piece of paper and was playing around with it, folding and teasing around the pieces. He watched long enough to watch until he had created a bird. Cradling it in his hand he blew and it floated into the sky.

“Thought they were just another cult. Maybe there’s something more to it,” they mused. “Ryza. I know where we should go next.”

She blinked rapidly and the glow faded from her eye as she looked dazed. Her rat sat up slightly and rubbed at her face quickly and she smiled at the creature picking him up and resting in her palm. “Look at this little one. Perhaps we have a better plan of action than your last big idea.” To Orion she responded. “What’ve you got?”

They waved the journal and watched Gest as they spoke. “There’s a spot that the one who wrote this visited. Some sort of altar.”

“An altar?”

“Yes. Like a cult,” Orion said. “It wouldn’t surprise me if another one is just lurking in the shadows out here.”

“A major religion and several cults,” Gest began. “Conflicting beliefs and this is often the result.”

“There’s a lot of things we don’t know about this land. From what I can gather there’s a series of caves nearby and it’s hiding within it.”

“How exactly does this help us find my brother or the rest of them?”

“Because you have no idea where your brother is right?”

She scowled and shook her head, “I have leads. Somewhere in Noria. But Noria is foggy. I can’t see through it. It wasn’t like this before.”

“Well until we get a handle on that lead, I suggest we follow mine,” they said turning away and looking into the distance. Their eye narrowed and glowed as they looked as far as they could carefully. “Anything that would make an Ouroboros member want to hide from the seven is worth investigating. What do you two know about the Gods?”

“The Gods, and I speak with surety, are this land’s deities,” Gest said as he finished folding another bird and ushered it onward into the sky. “The term is not unfamiliar. The number of them is a topic to consider.”

Ryza shrugged motioning toward Gest. “I haven’t studied much about them beyond the basics.”

“Pride had been expressing major interest them. This member of the Ouroboros was investigating them. And this member wants to usurp the seven. Or at least steal one of their spots.”

“Pride and the seven,” she shuddered and stared at Shriek. “If they’re involved then I guess this takes precedence over finding Ryze.” Both her companions felt a cool wind roll over them. Even Shriek shivered and dug his way back into her shirt. When she finally spoke her voice was clipped, “If it weren’t for them I’d have a father and a proper brother. Maybe even a family.”

Orion knew to let this drop for now and instead looked toward Gest. “You know anything about a masked altar within a flower? Seems to be your people.”

Gest reached back into his satchel and pulled out a small lyre, fixing it against his shoulder and began to play slowly.  “An altar dedicated to a mask. A relation to my Queen is not a tall task”

“More riddles,” Orion shook their head and looked at Ryza. “Those crags are likely where we start to find the cave.”

She nodded and conjured the translucent spirit of her bat to her shoulder. “Then let’s hurry up and figure out what’s hidden in there.”

The trio spurred their horses on traveling across the land. The grass got shorter and shorter before almost fading away entirely replaced by empty land. Ryza looked around and she remembered growing up with her father. Constantly traveling from village to village, cabin to cabin, always doing his best to hide her from the gaze of the Ouroboros.

It was something that she had been doing until she was nearly ten when her father was killed. Not by the Ouroboros but by the Norians. She bit her lip hard as she remembered the years on her own. Struggling for scraps, stealing and even killing just to survive. The Norian attempts to conscript and use her like one of their weapons.

She sighed blinking quickly coming back and realizing that their surroundings had changed. She stared at the short cliffs above them and the sloping area that they stood on. Gest was behind them humming along to a tune but she could see that his eyes were taking in every detail around them.

Orion was ahead, searching the crags and shaking their head. She could feel the soul inside them keeping them alive and wondered what powered them. It was like they were truly an autonomous being powered by a self sufficient store of magic. She wondered how long they had to live or if they were truly immortal in that body.

Orion slowed noticing there was another horse there already. Deep black and patiently waiting by the mouth of the cave. They stared at it wondering who else would potentially be trying to investigate.

“Hey you two get over here!” Orion shouted.

Ryza glanced at Gest who continued to hum and shrugged but the pair followed the automaton on horseback. They followed them to a dark cave in the wall. It was taller than them by a few feet but it barely justified being called a cave. It slopped so far sharply down that it might as well have been a hole.

“Is this the cave?” Gest asked. “If so we must be brave.”

Ryza slid off her horse and walked forward hesitantly. With the setting sun behind them the darkness of the cave felt far more ominous. A presence that she couldn’t explain, “I can sense magic within there, though I can’t get any more specific. I just know that it isn’t friendly at all. We need to be careful”

Even with their enhanced eye piercing the veil of darkness, it wasn’t strong enough to see all the way through. Orion looked over their shoulder at Gest. “If we run into your people here, I hope that you can vouch for us.”

Gest bowed his head, “You are my friends. If I can help it, I won’t allow you to meet your ends.”

“Gee Gest that fills me with a lot of hope,” Ryze mumbled. Taking her shovel off her back she tapped it against the ground lightly as the blade of it glowed to life. Gest stood beside her while Orion took the first step into the darkness.

The walls of the cave got narrower as they passed the first few dozen feet. It also stopped slopping down and evened out but the air got stale quickly. The walls were surprisingly smooth. With the wind at her back and the echo of it going forward she was sure that years of erosion were the cause.

She looked around them and there weren’t many signs of animals or even life. Too cold and dry for fauna to have made their home there but she was shocked to see no creatures hiding within. Shriek peeked his head out once or twice but for whatever reason the little rat was more than comfortable hiding within her shirt.

“You’re such a little coward,” she said to the rat and smiled. Raising her voice up to Orion she asked, “See anything up above yet?”

“No nothing. Just more cave,” they replied. The bareness of it was odd but they looked toward the ceiling and noticed a few symbols etched into the stone. They couldn’t read them but they were done a long time ago.

They went a few steps forward but found another one of those symbols this one in the wall. They stared at it closer this time, vision zooming in. The symbol was two crescents connected at their back. Raising their hand to it slowly, the symbol glowed and they jerked back.

“What the? Gest do you know about those?” they asked looking behind but feeling the ground shake beneath their feet.

“What’s going on?” Ryza asked leaning against one of the walls but the moment her hand touched the wall she slipped through it like it had never been there at all.

Orion started to run back when the ground disappeared from underneath and they sank into the sudden darkness. Gest stepped back he was suddenly plunged into darkness. “It seems that the dance has begun, very well let us begin the fun.”

Orion hit the ground landing on their feet. Narrowing their eyes, they looked through the darkness. They’d fallen at least a few dozen feet and were in a cove. There was a small waterfall coming from another hole in the ceiling and emptying to the body of water in front of them.

Looking above they saw the place they’d fallen through but there wasn’t any light shining. Walking toward the water they stood on the edge and raised their eyebrow. Kicking a loose rock into the water they watched it enter and then fly right back out to bounce against the ground, “What in the hell is this?”

“You came to this place. How you came here is meaningless,” the voice echoed around them but their gaze remained on the water as a small glow appeared in its depths.

Orion flinched backward as a shadow dashed past them. They raised their hand, readying their gun for a fight. Their assailant was wearing some sort of green leotard with stitched in blue and black circles across the body. But adorned on their face was a mask with a wide blue smile and empty black eyes.

“Great another one,” they mumbled and watched as the jester held both their hands out and slid them across their wrist producing a long dagger. They tilted their head sharply and then disappeared into the darkness. Stepping forward slowly, cautious by nature Orion turned around and spun the gun around catching the knife against the barrel.

Orion stumbled back catching themself and moved to fire but the masked one was gone.  They looked around trying to get a read on this stranger but all they heard was the water falling into the lake. “A cult of assassins,” they mumbled. “And now I am in the thick of it.”

Since slipping through the wall Ryza had been wandering through the darkness one step at a time. Whatever light she had conjured from her shovel wasn’t illuminating more than a few inches in front of her. So she walked like an old person using a walking stick. But she realized that she needed a pair of eyes more suited for this environment.

Ryza held her hand up and her bat familiar appeared in her palm. Its small claws dug into her hand as it shook itself off. She stared at it and said, “Hello my friend. I need your help.”

The small creature looked at her with its beady eyes and circled around ready to jump into the air. Before it could leave her palm the cave she was engulfed with fire. The sudden roar of the flame made her jump almost into its waiting tendrils. Her eyes went wide and stumbled backward grasping the shovel tightly.

Shriek screamed hiding against her as best as he could. She shut her eyes dropping to the ground under the heat of it no longer in the cave. She was a child and trapped in her room, huddled against the corner. Smoke billowed above her head and the heat was suffocating.

“Ryza!”

“Father!”

A crash echoed in her mind and she screamed shirking away from it. She could hear her father screaming. Hear his pain and she knew he was trapped. She could hear the shouting outside, the curses and the hate. She knew that he was being burned alive. She knew that it was her fault and that she was going to die too.

She felt air buffeting her face and she flinched away ducking her head down further. But the air didn’t stop and she opened her eyes. Within the flames she was being hit lightly by translucent wings. The bat continued flying at her trying to get her attention and she frowned hard. “You. You weren’t here. I couldn’t call you then.”

Taking a shaky breath, she held her hand out and heard a wooden beam crash into the ground. She flinched away ready to hide her face again but forced herself to not. Putting her hand out again she held it still and the bat landed on her finger climbing forward. “You’re not affected by this? This isn’t real.”

Letting out a deep breath and she stood slowly and as she stood she was no longer that scared little girl. She was an adult. A necromancer. Twisting her hand and sliding it down the shaft of the shovel she felt the symbols come to life as her magic poured through it.

Staring into the flames she slammed her shovel against the ground and her magic raced across forward dispelling the flames as if they had never been there to begin with. She leaned against the wall and felt a tiny tickle against her cheek. She watched Shriek paw at her cheek and the bat lay on her shoulder.

“I’m glad for you both,” she said and then observed the transformed cave. With the darkness dispelled her path forward was clear. She walked and raised her awareness sensing for any other mages or magic. And there was a powerful source nearby. She raised her shovel like a hammer and felt both her rodents bristle at her shoulders readying for another fight. Walking around the corner quickly she took a big step and swung the weapon.

Metal clanged sharply and she thought she had been paranoid and hit the wall but her eyes widened that another person was there. She took a step back and stared at the man holding a shovel almost identical to her own. He pulled back his hood revealing braids and dark skin, a recently shaved and scowling face.

But it was his eyes, one purple eye and the other glowing silver that made her gasp. “Ryze?”

He nodded slowly as his feature’s softened, “It took you a while to find this place little sister.”