In which a necromancer speaks

“Speak now.” 

The voice rang out loud through the near-silent throne room, a profound heaviness to it that one would think would have been enough to urge even the more obstinate of listeners to obey. Typically, it would too, so it was an altogether reasonable assumption that this would not have been an exception to this rule. In fact, of those who had gathered thereabouts, more than one had to fight the urge to raise their own voice when they were not spoken to.

So, really, by all rights this shouldn’t have been an exception, but the heretic that was dragged before him, it had been said, was bound by no rules other than his own. 

Indeed, the man, even as he was forced to his knees to kneel before the king remained perfectly silence. Too silent, if anything, but if the guards posted to either side of him found this unnerving enough to still their own breath long enough to find out whether the prisoner was breathing at all, neither let their findings show upon their face. The man, even surrounded by those very souls that had called for his head to be unceremoniously relocated away from his body, seemed perfectly calm. In fact, he seemed almost bored of it all. Had they not bound his eyes so that nobody would have had to be caught under his unnatural gaze, one could have even wondered if he had made the point of rolling his eyes at the demand. 

“You refuse me?” the king exclaimed, the idea of someone acting on their own will while presented before him, “Do you not see your position? You have no right to behave as you do. Not after all you have done, you foul monster.” 

To gaze upon the man who had been dragged in there under the performative nuances of ceremony, there was very little about him that one would go away with the impression of seeing something monstrous. As he raised his head, following the sound of the king’s voice to face him as best he could, his pale blond hair spilled over his dainty, sharp features. He was not even so much as afforded the dignity of brushing the straying hairs away, his hands bound tighter behind his back than seemed entirely necessary. Really, he seemed far too delicate to be a monster, even if there were children further down the numerous corridors that carried porcelain dolls that were of a more healthy complexion. It left him looking a little closer to death than most were comfortable to see for extended periods of time, but it was hardly enough name him a monster, foul or otherwise. 

The silence hung just long enough that it seemed as if the prisoner had no intention of speaking, right up until the moment he did break his silence. 

“You, petulant boy-king,” spoke he, his voice little more than a whisper, and yet all the same reached each far corner of the excessively grandiose room, his gaze settling as best it could upon the king who was, if appearances were to be believed, his senior as best he could when all manner of his sight had been denied him, “Do you think that by sitting upon the throne of your bloodline, you are then held to the same regard as those who came before you?” He cocked his head to one side, as if listening to something that only he was privy to. A cool smile curled across his unnaturally steady features. “They each brought something to this world, something that would make it better. What is it that you have brought? Nothing but shame and disappointment. Nothing but a stain against what had once been such a fair and noble bloodline. It is embarrassing. Surely you are embarrassed for it? I know that if I were in your position I would not have dared show my face.”

There was a scattering of laughter that filled the room. Laughter that frightened each of those who found themselves giggling. Not just because it was an outright mockery of their king, but rather from something that felt far worse. They laughed, certainly, but they did not recognize their own laughter. It was not their laughter at all, but rather like someone else was laughing through them. Several of those who found themselves caught by the unnatural laughter brought their hands to their mouths to try and stop themselves, and one older man grabbed at his throat as panic twinkled in his widened eyes. 

“Enough!” the king, who did actually end up a little embarrassed, but not for the reason he had been advised to be, “Would you speak so freely if I were to call for your death here and now?”

“If you did,” the bound man began, an amused waver in his voice, “Then you clearly do not know what they say about those who play with dead things.” He paused, letting his words hang in the air to achieve their aim. “Necromancy is an art, yes, but one built around exchange. I offer those that had died life, a fragment of my own life, and in turn I take their death from them. But you see, you cannot take your life back once it is given, even once the bond is severed so where does that leave me?” He paused, once more allowing for a dead smile to cross his face. “Even once, to share in the delights of death leaves one to be quite dead. I have been dead long before you took your place on this throne, and I shall be dead long after your name has been forgotten by history. You cannot threaten me with death, my most fair and noble king, when dead is all that I am, all I can be now.”

“How dare you address me with such insolence!” came the bristling reply, “You, who-“

“Oh, enough of all that,” the necromancer interrupted, “You bore me terribly. You speak so loudly, so I do wonder if that is to hide away from the fact you have nothing at all of substance to speak? You’re frightened. I frighten you so terribly that you forget your words and fall to petty name calling. Which was it that you planned to call me this time? Monster again? Abomination? Some delightful exaggeration so that you might get to call me unholy? Dirty? I heard your men announcing my arrival as that of a, or perhaps of the heretic. Shall you have me continue? I have heard so many that they have rather lost all meaning, I’m afraid.”

Once more there was a flurry of laughs from the audience, more, indeed, than there had been previously. Just as it had the first time, it was met with horror from those who found themselves uttering foreign laughter from their own lips. 

“Stop! Enough of that, all of you!” the king commanded, trying in vain to regain some semblance of control over the group, “Stop laughing at me!” 

Rather than bringing an end to this laughter as he had hoped, all it managed to achieve was a gradual increase in the number of frightened laughers. One by one until each and every person in the room, the king and his prisoner being the only outlier, found themselves caught in some strange, unnatural fit of laughter. There was a sense of unity to the laughter, not quite in perfect synchronization, but close enough to it that it did not sound like the flow of genuine, natural laughter at all. No, far from it. The wrongness seemed to settle over the king like frost on a windowpane just before sunrise. 

A wrongness that was amplified infinitely when the necromancer let his own dry, humorless chuckle cut through the cacophony, his own silence bringing a deathly still to the room as quickly as it had come. 

“I stopped them laughing,” the necromancer spoke, the sneer upon his face audible in his tone, “So, tell me, your majesty,” he said the term of address with the same displeasure as one might the most bitter of insults, “Shall you have them stopped permanently?” 

“What did you do?”

“Oh, don’t sound so distrustful,” the prisoner sighed, “It was nothing of any more substance than some light possession. Possession is a beautiful thing, really, the way the longer a spirit is allowed to take root inside the living the more it tears the host’s mind to shreds. Even if the spirit left, the mind is still left irreparably altered, and isn’t that just?” He let out a shuddering breath. “Beautiful?”

One of the younger members of the regretfully gathered masses let out a little alarmed gasp. A gasp that was so very close to a sob.

“Don’t be dramatic. I said it was a light possession,” the necromancer remarked, turning with startling accuracy to face the person who had broken the silence. “Good. Now, could somebody please untie me? I dare say I have made my point that this is doing nothing of any more significance than trying to make this into more of a show than it is, so let’s drop the theatrics shall we?” 

“Certainly not, do not listen to that… that thing,” the king argued, “If you untie him, he will surely kill each and every one of us.” 

“If I wanted even a single person here to be dead they would be. My hands make it easier to guide the precision, but that does not mean I cannot work without them. Just let me go, this will get us nowhere. Everyone is wasting what little time you have on this mortal coil just standing around here like this. If you let me leave, I shall do nothing more than just that.”

The king rose to his feet, trying to appear as put together as he could as he did so. It would not serve his position any good if he were to show that he was utterly terrified of the man before him. He did not know if this claim was a bluff, and he certainly hoped it was, but he really did not want to find out in either way. Drawing his cloak tight around himself, a shield against the world as well as a show of his position, he strode pointedly down towards the man he was regretting dragging in as a prisoner more and more with each passing heartbeat. 

“I grew up with the stories of the necromancer that lurked deep within the forgotten woods,” the king began, addressing both the crowd and the necromancer in question, “A madman that had thrown aside even the most basic senses of decency and humanity as he delved into the dark, clandestine arts. I never believed the stories. I could not believe there could be such a disreputable, foul creature such as that, one that would give up life in favour of embracing death. But then the news came to me that my soldiers, each and every one of them - good men and women who were willing to lay their lives on the line for the good of the kingdom – were slaughtered mercilessly. It was then that I realized there was only a single beast that could be so cruel as to rob so many people of their lives. You. So, tell me why I should ever let you go and steal away the lives of other innocent people?”

“Oh!” the necromancer exclaimed, his face lighting up oddly, “So that’s why you brought me here then, is it? I am to be a scapegoat! Of course I am, it would be so easy to do so, after all, as you said, I have severed my ties to the world of the living and in your ignorance of my craft you can claim me to be whatever you might need me to be to further whichever agendas you might be hoping to push!”

The pale creature made it all to clear that he was merely humoring them all with his compliance, for the moment the king drew too close he rose to his feet with a smoothness that made it all too clear that he could have done so at any moment before. While he was a head shorter than the ruling party, and both his hands and eyes were bound, as he stood there, he radiated such an imposing presence that the any confidence the king had evaporated away. 

“You brought me here under false accusations to have me killed because you cannot bring yourself to admit to your own failure. I did not slaughter your soldiers, and I rather resent your claims that I did so. Oh, don’t scoff so. I am more than willing to admit to my sins and shortcomings if I did, in fact, commit them to begin with.” He paused for just a moment, squaring his jaw, “You failed them and now you are so ashamed of your public failure you are calling for my death so you can bury the truth with me. You don’t need to speak, I know that what I am saying is true. Let me go and the truth shall leave with me and you can be free to perpetuate whichever lies you wish to spread.”

The silence seemed to stretch on for an eternity, the two holding their ground, unwavering statues. The challenge was clear, but what was all the more obvious was that the necromancer was far, far better at playing the game than the other man was. 

“Let him go.” the king finally relented with a scoff, waving his hand as he tried to ignore the smug upcurl of the shorter man’s lips at this. 

The ropes that held his hands firm behind his back dropped away, the necromancer taking this as an opportunity to rub his wrists in a way that made him seem as much like he was hard done over as he could. There was, perhaps, a touch of showmanship in the way he raised his hands to the cloth that bound his eyes, letting it unravel between his deft fingers before he opened his eyes. 

The king had tried very hard to pretend he could hold his nerve, but the moment the man’s shimmering, fogged over yet uncannily sharp eyes. This only lasted for a fraction of a moment, but even that alone was enough to leave the taller of the two a shade or so paler than he was before. 

“I am so glad you came to your senses,” the necromancer remarked, “Perhaps there is some hope for you still? Do not let me find out, I wish to never have the misfortune of seeing you again.” 

It was this statement that led the peculiar man, a man that was no longer fully human anymore, to turn on his heel and stride out of the throne room. He left nothing of himself behind, apart from the lingering sense of a veiled threat.