A Perfect Night For Necromancy

The first snow of the year. A great storm lashed against the fort shutters. The northerly winds met the squall with an unseasonal chill, freezing the downpour to hail. After the first few waves, the eye coiled overhead, and the raining ice calmed to delicate stars, settling upon the frigid stone.

A perfect night for necromancy.

Little Solikha hid beneath her covers, straining to withhold her giddiness. She'd waited to make sure everyone else was fast asleep, listening out for the distinctive patter of footsteps and squeaking door hinges that indicated the fort's noteworthy residents retiring for the evening.  

The six year-old shuffled off her bed, and carefully dragged out the stolen book from underneath. 

Struggling to lift it, she wrapped her sheets at her back like a cape, picked up the lantern at her bedside, and tiptoed to the door. She checked down in the hall, looking for the glimmer of candlelight. Her parents slept soundly in the room next door, so she crept out in the opposite direction, heading up the stairs to the top of the spire. 

The room creaked and groaned in the brunt of the wind. With the cold biting at her bare feet, Solikha set the book down on the rug in the middle of the room, skipping to the bookshelf ahead of her. She cautiously settled the lamp on the floor and knelt with her raven curls brushing the boards, pressing the back of the bottom shelf to unlock the secret compartment. 

Her dad kept all his equipment in there. He'd asked her not to touch it yet, not without him to supervise, but she'd been waiting forever already. Her dad was always busy - she would be a grown up by the time he got around to teaching her their family gift. 

So she pulled the heavy crate out into the open, grabbed her book, and flipped the carpet over to the wall. Underneath, a rune circle sketched out in white paint offered her a stage on which to perform. 

She lay the book before her, unbinding the human leather strap and turning to the first page. A sorrowful moan left the tome, circling up to the eaves within a wispy manifestation. 

"Shh! You need to be quiet, everyone's sleeping." Solikha muttered, and the spectre vanished. "Okay, step one..." She read aloud, tracing her finger over the vellum. "Light four red candles, and equally space them around the circle in the four cardinal directions." 

Digging through the box, she found the melted candles, igniting them with the flame in her lantern before setting them up on their designated positions.

"Step two. Take four sprigs of white sage bound together into a smudge stick and light it in the candle flame. Cleanse the space." Her dad already had some preprepared smudge sticks in the crate, so she did as was instructed, wafting the smoke around the circle before scattering the scorched leaves.

"Next, arrange your runestones around the inner circle. The number and combination you'll need will vary depending on the average lifespan of your target's species."

She wasn't entirely sure what that last part meant, but her father had inked in a cheat sheet on the opposite page. The runestones were kept in a drawstring bag in the crate. Only two were needed, so it took her a few minutes to find them among the set. She placed them on the corresponding glyphs.

"Step four, deposit the remains in the middle of the circle." Solikha rooted to the bottom of the crate for a small wooden box shaped like a coffin. She removed the lid with a pop and looked inside. It was the stinky, bloated body of a rat. Her dad always kept a fresh one among his things, although he hadn't had the time to replace it. He wouldn't mind her using it up, since they always had more rats about the fort. 

"Step five, read the incantation below, and revive the remains. Happy Necromancing!" 

The child got into a more comfortable position, scanned her eye over the words a few times, and prepared to read.

"Ka sal, ka rou, akhas. Ka sahr, ka louv, shalak. Ha kihn, hilack, ta lihk. K'vinh, k'vinh, k'vinh!" 

Her eyes burned a moment, followed by a sharp headache. A sound like rolling thunder rippled across the room, and the firelight waned. 

Nothing happened for a time, though she heard a faint whistling coming out of the rat, like it was deflating. The bones inside cracked and snapped.

It took a breath. 

The creature had a strange energy about it. As it rolled onto all fours, it didn't behave like a normal rat. Its eyes gazed into hers with a deep, ethereal light simmering within them. Then it sat up, facing her, as if awaiting commands. 

She went to pet it. It leaned into her touch, happily accepting its new purpose.

Footsteps came thudding up the stairs, with the shimmer of candlelight breaking through the gap at the base at the door. Solikha jumped as a man came in, shrouded in an ageless, foreboding aura. His skin was a sickly grey, his eyes a violent, burning crimson, and twisted horns sprouted from the crown of his head.

"Solikha? What are you doing up here?"

In her thoughts she asked the rat to run behind her. "Nothing..."

He soaked in the sight of it all with a sigh, sweeping his obsidian mane around his ear. "Kitten, please don't lie when I can see exactly what you've been up to."

She relaxed her rigid posture, and picked up the rat to show him. "I just wanted to try it..."

"I asked you not to try Necromancy, even basic Necromancy without supervision. It's very dangerous - you could hurt yourself."

She shrank down again, avoiding his stare. "Sorry, daddy."

He softened his approach. Brushing down his robe, he knelt to meet her face. He chuckled, noting the creature in her hand. "But you did a good job for your first try." He patted her head. "And look at that, you've already got your nubs coming in. I didn't get mine until my first human corpse."

"Really?" She lit up, tapping her fingers across her forehead to find the sprouting horns.

Her father waved his hands over the candles and her lantern, extinguishing them. "Come on then, it's past your bedtime." He scooped her up in his arms, and the rat settled around her shoulders. 

"When will I get big horns like yours?"

He clicked his tongue, thinking on that a moment. "You'll need to raise an army or two first, Kitten."

"Aww..."

"You'll get there sooner than you think. But first, back to bed, and no more going through other people's things without permission, okay?" 

"Okay, daddy."