Chapter 1
The campfire crackled; coughing hopeful plumes of wistful ember upwards in the air, if only for the flurry of timid snow to extinguish the sparse orange it gave.
And yet, it remained steadfast in its purpose, what it was made to do, what it was supposed to do; without a question otherwise.
Despite the diminishing heat, the pitiful warmth it gave was salvation for the band of travellers around its pebbled circumference. Each rugged palm faced the fire and begged for that same meagre heat that the cold had desperately tried to suffocate.
No matter the man, or woman, it was present on each face, sitting heavy on their pale solemnity. It was hidden obviously behind each hand, and each could feel it there. It was exhaustion, as burdensome as it had ever seemed.
Even under that fatigue, those same dancing flames intoxicated each of those steady eyes, as they searched for something the fire could never give.
"What're we to do?" The question was offered by someone, somewhere, in the congregation. It did not matter whom the voice had come from. To them, at least.
Those dismal words fell on nothing but woeful ignorance, less than a polite hum for an answer. But that was enough of an answer as any.
None of the present could make that choice, answer that question.
Nothing they could say, even think of saying, could make the trepidations waver. It was easier for each man, each woman, to sit still in their silence, wordlessly begging another to take the reigns. Simply hoping someone could make the choice that they could not.
But even despite lacking the confidence to make the choice herself, regardless of the quiet scorn that surfaced with each word, the speaker persisted, in almost a mumble, "We need to do something."
It was left unsaid what the choices were, but no individual present needed the explanation. Their indecision, their neglect, had extinguished the contemplation of options, the right to choose an alternative now.
There was only one choice left, though it was comforting for each mind to think there was another. After all, they were only human.
Wholly unperturbed by the morose stalemate in the camp, the wind soon brought them back to reality. Biting into each daring patch of skin left exposed under the fetid moonlight, it tore through the forest around them; the groans of each fir around the clearing carried on the whistling sharpness that followed each gale.
It would smother the fire intermittently, the wind. It was only for a fleeting second with each gale, but those brief expanses were enough to shatter the morbid reverie that had occupied each blanched face.
It was then, truly then, under the dribbling snow and the whispering wind, that the realisation had dawned. And as each person realised the same, as they came to the same sobering conclusion, their eyes inadvertently wandered to the problem. Without a sound, without even a breath deep enough, they just stared.
Engulfed within a near implausible amount of folded linen and cloth was the problem; the baby, almost indistinguishable under the scant moonlight. It did not move, no manner of how hard they looked.
With nary a cry nor whine of protest about the cold that festered, it just lay there.
The guilt, and shame, soon forced each face to look elsewhere, anywhere away from where the stationary bundle was settled atop the snow. Even now, they were as ignorant as they could be about the matter, as much as a starving owl could ignore a scampering mouse.
But they thought that they could do all they could, all they were able, and so that was enough to justify their inaction. Everyone present wore far less than they should have, belts were buckled tighter, and some shivered as though their time was nigh; while the child was wrapped in their best, warmed carefully with old magic they really could not have spared. Not now, anyway.
To keep, it, warm enough for the earlier day, It had taken everything they had. And yet, its chest had never risen, even once. It did not breathe, but they swore it could, prayed that it would.
But, it was nearing the tallest peak of the night now, where their indecision now forced their hand. It could be seconds or minutes, but the change was now inevitable, and it was only their fault, could only be their fault. Knowing this gave body to the sole choice left, as heinous as it might have seemed.
Where the child lies, some abomination from the Bygone would soon take its place, slip into its supple white skin, and conglomerate into something none there could deal with. The pittance of magic the blessed ones had brought had already been used just to keep it from cold, solely because its heart continued to beat. Even while its chest lay dormant, unmoving, it would thump. Again and again.
It was faint and quiet, but it did never stop. As sure as the fire would flicker, the heart within its chest pulsed, as though nothing else was wrong, as though it lived.
But to the occupiers of the fire, that muffled beat sounded far louder than it could have, if only as a reminder of what could have been, of what they needed to do, of what they needed to stop. All the while, each person there silently begged that each beat would be the last. Even if it only served as permission for what needed to happen next.
And yet it would not stop.
"Burn 'er," An older man was the first to decide for them, but the confidence he sought weakened as the syllables danced haphazardly out of his mouth.
The monotone steel of his eyes betrayed him more, though. Each frantic glance around he made begged for validation, looked for someone else to take the reigns, looked for any other way. It did not inspire confidence, only worsened the lingering shame in each gut.
Blowing into closed fists, a chestnut-haired youth, the once youngest amongst them, challenged the older man directly, "You do it then, Bryan. You grab it, and chuck it in -"
The youngster then pulled his knees closer to his chest, wrapping his arms around his legs to find what little comfort he could, "- I'll have no part in it."
Most heads in the clearing quietly bobbed in agreement with the sentiment. At that moment, the youngest of the group spoke for all, for each person reluctant to voice the thought. But Bryan continued to plead to their common sense, with enough bitterness to cause his words to grate.
"But we 'av to! You all know this!"
But he was again met with silence. They knew he was right, of course. The reasoning was taught and ingrained into them from when they were first carried into the world. Each was taught of the monsters that harboured corpses, but it was new-born. It was likely not even a few moons old.
It seemed so heinous, so despicable to even entertain the thought.
This circumstance was not taught, not for a situation such as this. And yet despite the ethical dilemma, they knew what had to be done, regardless of how they felt, of how inhuman it was, despite how much that heart would beat.
It needed to be burned so that it could not contain anything else.
Positioning himself beside the bundle, Bryan crouched down to look one last time. And then he looked again, excessively, just for any sign that he could stop. But there was never a whisper in retaliation, nor a cough to distract him. There was only the faintest beat, like a drum in the furthest distance his ears could catch.
'It's dead. It has to be dead. Please, just be dead,' he thought, over and over, as he cradled the pale bundle against his stained chest, ignoring the rhymical pulse that travelled through his hands. As he walked towards the searing flames, he tried to compartmentalize and rationalise, but he was sickened.
Calloused hands rubbed against the fabric as he begged for anything that would listen for a sign. But as his faith dwindled, and as the fire ebbed closer, the answer came covered in boiled sepia.
"Hold on." A voice came, his shout a raspy instrument that reached every ear in the clearing, however far he seemed. Each face found him, faster than a snake could strike.
The various metal objects that he wore clinked and rattled with each confident step he trudged into the crackling snow, closer towards the congregation.
With him being a mere few feet away now, the group should have been more wary, further cautious of the stranger, certainly a stranger this far out in this barren forest. But he was a sign of another way out, and so the paranoia dispersed as fast as the wind had left.
Before they realised it, the newcomer had reached Bryan, and now stared into the white bundle he held, searching for something none but him could see. Whatever cynicism the man held on his face dispersed as he peered further into the swarm of cloth, finding his answer.
He looked around at each member for a moment, and he whispered only after he had made a full circle of their group, quiet enough almost as a means as to not scare the child he stood before, "Sorcerer?"
The question felt like an order, almost an accusation to the gathering, and the robed man in question flinched on his feet before he stumbled out from the small crowd standing around, stammering with each step, "Here. Reader Thomes, how can I help?"
Instead of answering, the tall newcomer reached forward to the sorcerer, tapped two fingers against the man's offered palm, and watched how the creased skin illuminated into the typical heptagram that gave proof of the man's oath. With a nod in affirmation, he continued, "You have powdered Chamera, I trust?"
Thomes bobbed his cloaked head as he also reached forward for the unfamiliar man's hand. As his own stretched outwards, the man gave no resistance, instead offering his palm forward to be shown.
The sorcerer readied his forefinger, and traced the unknown palm, revealing a shape different from his lustrous white, something vivid enough for any learned man to fear.
Running jagged along his palm was an eight-sided octogram, pulsing steadily with a frail purple that made the man's stomach cartwheel in his chest. It felt wrong to look at, to see in life. And yet it was there, as disgusting as every book had ever made it seem, but worse than the stories had made it sound.
"Necromancer." It was more of a confession than a question, but the addressed wanderer nodded regardless, and took back his hand with practised speed, "Macem," He drew out each word, "A pleasure."
Under the suspicious stares of the group, he explained further, "He who rests, not he who binds -" But before he could reassure the frightened, he was silenced by the sorcerer forcing a small stitched pouch into his chest, wholly deciding that they had heard enough. Macem paid them no heed and fiddled with the bag he held.
The familiar twang of bitterness accompanied the pouch opening, and Macem dug his index finger into the mouth of the worn leather bag, scooping enough of the viscous red to coat the tip of his finger, staining his pale skin as moss would catch the most neglected of riverside stone.
With four calm strokes, he smeared a careful crimson square on the widest surface of the child's forehead, whispering under his breath with each stroke.
Watching the ritual before themselves, it was almost as if a spell had been broken around the encampment. Whispers now carried themselves on the wind, each wagging tongue tinged with the suspicion that Macem had long grown accustomed to. It was obvious that their answer now seemed like it might have been wrong.
But as soon as the last line was drawn, completing the square, the necromancer clamped his hands together whilst chanting in a far lower voice, in a language with far more syllables than the common tongue.
Each word sounded like gibberish to anyone but himself, but each listener felt the incantations heavy in the bitter air, terribly burdensome for them just to hear. Unbeknownst to the others, Macem had already stepped foot elsewhere, in a land far overlooked, all while his fleshy body remained intonating in perfect repetition.
Gone was the whispering of the wind, the faintest hum of the living. He had entered the authority of death, the land of the lifeless, the first of eleven.
Life had no place here, light held no tether, no dominion over the churning darkness that death had claimed.
Nothing but shimmering darkness covered the horizon, a black so dense it could congeal if he looked long enough into the lounging shroud. He could hear no sound other than the current that nipped at his ankles, the water just hoping to drag him further into nothingness, nor feel anything but the consuming cold it brought.
This was the First Abeyance, the Gloom. It was the absence of light, the sinking feeling with each step in the converging waves, and the wandering attachments. Each plane held its dangers, some more so than others, but the unreliability, and unpredictability of the first merited more vigilance than perhaps any other.
While being the first stop for the living, it was the final passage an undead would need to traverse before they could reach life. If someone died, without external circumstances, without a grudge, their wayward spirit would never linger for long.
A natural death would see you drift listlessly through each plane as the soul traverses downwards into the abyss that awaits you after death.
But a necromancer defiled these laws, conditions, and order. With various mediums and measures, they could control the beings that lingered between planes, pull them closer and into life, banish them further beyond, and even bargain with the more intelligent of the undead.
But there were stipulations. Especially powerful undead could wade through the Abeyances of their own accord, feasting on spirits weaker than themselves to fuel their travel, but that was rare.
Oftentimes, while the necromancers were the guardians of these concealed realms, they were simultaneously the cause of most evil that would leave them. They were both the problem and the solution.
But that is exactly why this child was so peculiar, so interesting to Macem. It should not still be here, not in this darkness, not this late. But in the same stretch, its heart should not still beat.
And so he wandered into death, hoping to find an answer to this enigma.
The necromancer in question could barely see a few feet away from himself with his unaided eyes, but he was practised in his field. By this point, he was virtually a denizen of this particular mantle of darkness.
With a practised crook of his right hand, he forced his index and thumb to meet in a loose circle and stuffed material from his drawstring satchel between the touching digits. With a few words of encouragement, and after the familiar tingle coursed through his hand, could he look through the crook his hand had made and see far further into the bleak nothingness.
Where he had once seen churning shades of monochrome, a pallid blue took the place of the black in his right eye, for as far as his flesh could see, or as far as his spell could allow.
Within the lighter hue, he could differentiate humanoid shapes from within the sombre expanse, each wandering, staggering, undead that meandered without cause. He considered himself lucky now that this area had not seen an abundance of death, for there would be far more burdened dead here, and in turn, more danger. Even for a man such as he.
The sparse wanderers might have been brought here, attached to here, but Macem paid these figures little attention, for he shortly caught sight of a vague shape far different from the usual humanoid silhouettes.
A smaller hive of writhing mass floated on the current, endlessly squirming into itself with imprecise appendages reaching out into the darkness, reaching for something it could not grasp. The necromancer waded himself towards it, fighting each whirling current that caught his shins.
His right hand still occupied his right eye, steering him onwards, while his left hand crooked into a firm stance that would allow him to draw on the complacent slither of essence that coursed through his system. It was a simple sign gesture, one that most undead would fear; it was fire, their death once more.
The closer he got to the soundless infant, however, the more something felt amiss.
It began at the base of his neck, as the smaller hairs stood to attention, and then his heart began to palpitate. After a minute, it felt as if he were atop a lit stage, with hundreds of faces looking down on him. It was imprecise, but he knew he was being watched, by something.
Something far more dangerous than it should have been.
It was something that should not have been there—an undead powerful enough for his nerves to shake through his spine. He could not hear it, no less see it, but he could feel each time the being would blink, each time it felt the desire to pounce, and each time it decided against it.
He could only remain still, as he turned on aching heels to peer in each direction, if only for the chance to see what could be his end. Least of all, he needed to see it once, just once.
As confident as had felt coming in, he was enough of a man to admit he was now terrified. There was not some courteous blonde lady aside from him, nor some charming farmer's daughter that he may have given a chance.
No, Macem was alone, hyperventilating, just waiting for something to happen. In truth, he doubted that even with either of those two imaginary women at his side, he would not have been able to reassure them that everything would be fine, this time.
Regardless of how prepared he was to meet his end, as fast as it had surrounded him, the feeling waned. The shaking soon stopped, and his heart rate slowed. With a splutter, he knew he could breathe again.
As soon as he could, Macem doubled over himself and took the deepest breath he could, taking in as much of the dubious air as he could. He coughed, and spluttered, but he was grateful to even be able to do so.
Only after another substantially deep breath, did he realise what he had done. The mistake he had made.
His left hand had burrowed into his rear pouch, instinctively, clutching something it never should have found. He could feel the ominous cold, more present than the water at his heels, coat each wandering finger.
Pushing through the turbulent nausea coursing through himself, he released the grip he had on the indistinctive black bell he had palmed in his hand.
As soon as his hand left the metal, however, his hand began to shake as if it was not his own; the fingers he had used to grip the metal were lost to him as if they were never his, to begin with.
The bell had borrowed the limb, leaving him with the pittance of feeling from the elbow down. He could almost chuckle, almost. It had taken the threat of his life for him to come crawling back to the power the bell held and promised. Granted, he was sure he was about to die, but he was ashamed of how quick he was.
Without wasting more time, or more limbs, Macem was soon crouched beside the small black mass in the water. In one movement, with his sole working arm, he spooned the tangible dark up to his chest.
He was not able to maintain the vision gesture, being one arm down, and so the dismal darkness returned, banishing the faint blue that had lingered on the horizon only moments before. The same dense darkness returned, with him being wholly unaware of what lurks within it, and of what had almost claimed his life.
Trudging in the opposite direction of the current, he fought to claim each step backwards into the dark. But he did take notice of how the child still made no sound, however, and the more he looked into the vacuum that the darkness had delivered, the more unsettled he felt.
It was almost a premonition, a feeling of knowing something was bound to happen. And yet he could only continue, unperturbed by how close he was to death himself, and what it had cost.
He persisted against the current. All the while, the child writhed against his chest, clambered in his hands, wailing without as much as a sound. But he continued towards life.
And then it came again—the nauseating feeling of power, of hunger. It suffocated what little air the necromancer could inhale, and it continued watching him as he stumbled against each wave.
But the terror did not come, this time.
His heart did not falter, and his sweat did not drop. It was not fear that clung to his frame, nor was it horror, but the weight on his shoulders similar to them both. Emotions were hard for the undead to convey, but the sheer purity of the transmission resonated, even now. It felt crushing, melancholic, shameful, everything that a dead should not be allowed to feel.
Even despite how impossible it was, the feeling lingered and instead grew more apparent with each step.
It would not look away; it could not seem to look elsewhere, this time.
But before Macem could even begin to make sense of it, the faintest smell of burning flavoured the air around him—the acrid taste of flesh tainting each breath.
With a look downwards, at the writhing mass, and as he smelled the air around himself again, in an instant, he understood. Macem understood what the undead was trying to tell him, what the unsettling feeling was that permeated all else. It seemed so obvious now.
It felt pity.
As soon as the realisation came, he ran.
He battled against the once modest waves, which now smashed against his knees, thrusting him back with each attempted step. He panted as each collision pummelled up against his chest, and kept going even as life seemed to slip further away from himself.
It may have been hours or days, but time did not pass as it did in life.
For all eternity, he might have fought against the tides, but he would not ever know; but he made it to the deepest darkness of the plane, eventually. Even if it seemed like it had taken a lifetime, he made it.
His tired heart hammered against his ribcage, the rancid taste of bile caught perpetually in his throat, every part of his body ached and stung, but he done it.
Standing before the swirling epicentre of the congealed darkness, mass bundled against his damp chest, Macem stood there, but he hesitated.
In that instant, he wondered if he was making a mistake, but he was too far gone now.
With a swing of his limp arm, he touched the deepest of darkness, and as he did, he shut his weary eyes and waited for something to change. It might have been a new feeling or sound, but he waited for that something.
Only after the wind reached his ears, did he allow himself to look.
His first sight was soaked in distinctive orange, flickering and scalding his tired green. The frigidity that had accompanied the traversal mere moments ago withered away as the heat battered itself against his exhausted body, all while his nose caught the smell of charred flesh, of linen being burnt beyond reprieve.
Looking at his hands, there was nothing. No bundle that had once been there, nor the blackened mass he had rescued from the depths of the dark. There was only the tremble of his hands and the smallest flakes of snow that gathered in each palm. Nothing more, nothing less.
He staggered to his feet and stumbled towards the smoking pyre, towards the encirclement of people that stood beside the flame. They did not turn to face him, even as he groaned with each step he fought to make.
"What -" He slipped over his words as his hands reached for any person that could bear them, as he looked for anyone aware enough to answer, "- What have you done?"
Not one person made a sound as the necromancer all but screamed towards each of them, neither did their faces break enough to show him anything. They just stood there, basking in those disgusting flames, each wearing the quilted linen that had once situated someone smaller.
To any other person, anyone outside of the loop, it looked as if they were merely enjoying the warmth, unbeknownst to the corpse that crackled inside.
Macem's hands found the sorcerer. "Why have you?" He shook the robed man violently as the words struggled to formulate, "Why … didn't -"
"WAaaaA!"
A shrill cry cut through the silence, screeching as fire ripped into flesh.
The words Macem had brewed, the outrage that coursed were both lost amidst the despair, buried beneath the horror that seized the quiet wind.
"We had to. You were gone too long," Thomes admitted, without a turn of his head.
Only after the cries had come to an end, did Macem glance into the browns of Thomes' dried eyes, and watched how the flames danced mercilessly in his sockets. The sorcerer took a deep breath, likely pushing down every iota of shame that swirled inside him because it seemed as if it were over.
But to his fear, to everyone's terror, the cries returned.
With a few seconds to spare between each scream, they continued, as painful as they ever were. Each pallid face soon squirmed in regret, as the rampant shame festered beyond what they could stifle.
After a short whimper, and after Macem had released his shoulders, the sorcerer began to pray, plead with his god, with his hands pressed tight against his face.
He pleaded, "Forgive me, Father."
And whined, "Forgive me."
He begged, "Please."
And sobbed, "Make it stop."
After the fourth round of screeching torment had commenced, Thomes looked to the necromancer, with tears streaming down his quivering cheeks.
"Why?" the sorcerer swallowed what lingered in his mouth, and forced a disturbingly disingenuous smile onto his face, "Why isn't it stopping?"
A lingering spirit had been brought back to a body, one that was not alive at the time. It should have been brought back as a baby should, as pure as it had left, but the container had been flawed. It was broken beyond repair, and now something rotten had taken hold of what it could have had, of what little remained.
"Guilt."
The sun did rise again, long after the final scream had been sung.
It felt like an eternity, but it did.
As soon as the light broke the silver clouds overhead, the troupe left the encampment without so much as another word, with each mind burdened by a feeling no human should have to endure.
Only Macem remained until the night had come again. He carefully removed each piece of equipment he wore, stowed each item from his pockets atop his leather jerkin, and dove his arms into ash.
His hands scooped handfuls of coarse grey powder, over and over.
It covered him; the faint morsels of death that lazed in those sparse ashes soon covered each inch of him.
With every few fistfuls, he would find new fragments of charred bone and keep them to his side. At the end of his endeavour, he had the complete skeleton of the child to his left, watching how each piece of the skeleton vibrated enough to dance the remaining ashes from their surface.
"You can't hear me, child." Macem arranged the bones in the shape the skeleton should be, should have been.
"But I have sinned against you," After his admission, he picked up one bone after another and used the jagged dagger that had hung on his waist to carve intricate characters into each bare section of ivory that the fire had left.
It took enough time for the moon to delve back down into the horizon, and yet his hands never wavered.
"They did what they thought best," The dagger was then plunged into his unmarked palm; each drop that followed, smeared onto each fragment of bone, onto each piece of what should have lived, "As I did."
The familiar burning seared in his hands with each smear, the pervasive pain that scorned each action he took.
It was the warning that he was working against the natural order, the not-so-nuanced feeling of blasphemy that promised this pain. But the preventative failed to stop his pale digits from diligently wandering to each bone, nor did it prevent him from correcting the mistake, righting his wrong.
"We're left with two choices, now." He sat himself beside the crimson-streaked skeleton as he inspected each carving he had meticulously left on each bone, "You're in here, you see, these bones…"
He shook the sparingly small femur around to prove his point, "Your soul had attached to what you were, or should've been. It should have been your body, but…"
He all but whispered into the air, "We weren't so fortunate."
"And now you're left to my selfish devices. I won't let you fester in these bones for eternity, not for my mistake," He sighed, as honestly as he might have ever been, "But I can only provide a pale imitation of what you should've been. For that, I am sorry."
Macem held his hands over the skeleton, forming a loose triangle above the skull, and whispered in the language that controlled death, the tongue that should have only ever been used to banish.
He incarnated slowly, mindful of each sound his mouth made, aware that a mistake might bring back something entirely wrong. Something fouler than what lay there instead.
It was guttural, and painful on the tongue, but he recited each word with practised precision.
"Ex abyssis te revoco,
Carnem funestam iungo."
"Sanguis fervens iter agatur,
Umbra terram iterum tangat."
Wake, Luutheneris."
A purple-tinged mass exploded from the bones when the last syllable left his chapped lips.
In a matter of seconds, the plume had filled the opening of the trees and consumed every other faint trickle of colour until nothing besides the vibrant fog remained.
In the embrace of the formless mist, bones creaked and flesh threaded, and made sounds that nothing living could ever produce. It was loud enough that the harrowing cries of the birds had been subsumed with ease.
Macem did not flinch when tendrils of purple burrowed into his hands and arms, sapping each molecule of essence they could from his aged frame. The mass devoured, endlessly drawing out more than it could take if only to taste more.
Everything he bore in his circuit, it took, without a moment of hesitation.
Whispers carried themselves deep within the traversing plume of colour, each spurning foreign spite to the air, cursing anything brave enough to listen.
Macem tuned out each voice, each condemnation that passed his face; and watched the abomination gain form, gain the life that should have been.
The flickers of sunlight that the fog permitted bore witness to the monstrosity of flesh growing and expanding, shrinking and deflating, until nothing but a single figure remained where the bones had once rested in pieces.
It was far smaller than it should have ever been, but he smiled regardless;
"Welcome back, Luth."