The Glyph

Master dreadtrician Nadia Chu followed her team down the stone steps to the catacombs. The steps were not dusty, neither was the stairway dark, it was well-lit and clean. The dead were citizens in Rothgan and were given appropriate respect. The stewards kept the catacombs as livable as the rest of the estate. It was clean, well-lit with oil lamps, and free of rodents. It still smelled damp, that couldn't be helped.

As the retinue reached the final resting place of Queen Agnol the Belligerent (as she was known to all but herself), the apprentices halted outside the room and let Nadia enter first. There was no door or stone blocking the burial room. Such was not necessary in the well-maintained Rothgan crypt of such a powerful ruler. The staff kept the place clean, and there was nothing of value to steal. Now that the queen was dead, she had no need of gold or gems. The dead only valued one thing from the material world—the souls of the living.

Though not necessarily the whole soul. Soul sacrifices hadn't been made since the dark times of the arch-lich. Modern, civilized technique afforded the ability to siphon off a bit as an offering, and it was enough to awaken an amiable ghost. While amiable never precisely described Queen Agnol, she was usually pretty quick to rise.

"Ateer, the glyphwork," Nadia said. Her voice was the only sound in the silent tomb, and it seemed to echo for several seconds after she spoke.

Ateer squeaked in surprise and a little fear at being given the honor of drawing the glyphs. After a hesitation that was too long not to be rude, Ateer nodded dumbly and set to work. She pointed to a corner, and the other apprentice set down a bowl of chalk there. Ateer grabbed a handful of the chalk, foul smelling even when dry, and gently set it on the ground about two feet away from the right-foot corner of the casket. With her fingers she pinched and pushed, smeared and shook, dusted and directed the chalk, creating little lines and patterns spreading out from her starting point.

Once Ateer meticulously formed her first pile of chalk into a small design, she went back for a second handful. This pile went to the right to continue the design. One must move anti-clockwise with glyphwork, to avoid creating reactive patterns before the work is complete. She understood the mechanics to the letter of their lessons and had no peers among the apprentices when it came to glyph drawing.

This was her first chance to show what she could do. Her glyphwork was precise. It was always precise, but this was the first time her glyphwork would be used for a real summoning. So she took care to make sure it was perfect. She had drawn these sets of glyphs dozens of times under Master Chu's intense scrutiny, and now she realized why. Master Chu was grooming her for this summoning.

It was perhaps Ateer's precision that led to Master Chu clearing her throat pointedly when the glyphwork was only half-finished. Having lost herself in the details of the drawing and making it perfect, she hadn't realized how slow she was doing it. She moved more swiftly, as much as she could without sacrificing quality. A thicker blob of chalk here or there wouldn't make a noticeable difference. But if a blob of chalk was too thick and the wind from careless movement caused a criticality of chalk from one line to connect to another, it would alter the parameters of the summoning. Usually this would invalidate the glyph into nonsense that the spirit could not follow to the material world.

So she hastened her drawing. Her lines were thin and artistically drawn, but she spent less time perfecting size and distance. By the time Ateer was rounding the last corner of the casket, her glyph was off from where she intended it to be. She needed an isolation ward drawn in this octant of the glyphwork, but there was a pillar in the way of the very corner of where that ward needed to be.

An apprentice speaking in the crypt was just not done. Speaking was reserved for the master necromancer, and even she would only speak as much as necessary. Ateer dismissed the idea of asking for help. She'd be an apprentice for another two years if she couldn't draw a glyph on her own. The correct action would be to sweep the chalk away and start again, but she could sense the Master's impatience already.

Thankfully, Ateer was particularly talented with glyphwork. Though it wasn't befitting her station, she was perfectly capable of designing her own glyphwork. At least in this case she could calculate out a small change. If Master Chu noticed, it could only improve her esteem of Ateer. So she pulled in the isolation ward further than would normally be appropriate, but she compensated with a drag line to improve its potency. An unbalanced glyph isn't reactive, and moving the ward had changed the energy balance of the work, so she calculated out the direction to draw the drag line to balance the glyph perfectly.

The masters didn't want apprentices designing their own glyphs on-the-fly because they were normally terrible with energy balance. After adding a ward, most apprentices would have to add other wards, draws, or lines to balance it out. Often then they'd have to add yet more work to balance that out. This process would continue until the glyphwork was a hellscape of convoluted patterns beyond all usefulness. But Ateer found the calculations to be trivial and could elegantly balance the work.

Upon finishing the glyph, she made eye contact with Master Chu for two seconds then dropped her eyes to signal that the glyph was complete. Her heart was pounding so much she feared the vibrations would disturb the glyph.

Cayan would be the vessel, which was unfortunate, because Eidvi and Ateer were slight and Cayan was 250 pounds of soon-to-be dead weight. The apprentices sidled to either side of him and he put his arms over their shoulders.

Nadia Chu whispered the invocation, it didn't need to be loud, the dead would hear. Amidst the incantation, she took out the bronze knife and made a deep and thin cut in Cayan's thigh. In a practiced move, she flicked the blood from the knife, creating an unbroken line of blood from Cayan's foot to the ingress point of the glyph. The small wound was bleeding quickly as blood vied to get out of the small incision. The blood dripped heavily down his leg and puddled near his foot. Once the puddle contacted the line of blood to the glyph, Cayan cried out and Ateer knew her glyph was reactive. He stiffened for a moment, then he collapsed, only remaining standing by the efforts of the two apprentices.

Cayan tensed up and started mumbling incoherently, then a moment later sagged back in silence. Ateer began to worry. A failed connection like that usually indicated poor glyphwork. But Master Chu merely began repeating her incantation. No one here would give up until Cayan's blood stopped flowing. But if the summoning failed, Ateer would be subject to flogging at least.

"Who's there?" A voice called. Ateer breathed a sigh of relief until she realized it hadn't come from Cayan. She looked for the source. It was the voice of an older man and it sounded very close, but she couldn't find anyone else in the room. She looked to Eidvi and Master Chu, but they were carrying on as though they hadn't heard it.

"Well, this is unexpected. Hello, little shrew," the voice continued. Eidvi's only reaction was to give Ateer a quizzical look—a silent query asking what was wrong.

"I don't think this glyph is doing what you intended it to do," the voice said.

Ateer's stomach dropped. No one else could hear the voice. She didn't know how this was possible. She'd screwed up so badly that... what? That they'd summoned a disembodied voice? This wasn't how summonings worked. A ghost couldn't talk without a vessel.

"You need a half line, just there."

Ateer's eyes unwillingly jerked to a line of the glyph near her foot, and her mind's eye pictured drawing a short branch from it.

"No," she whispered. Somehow, the ghost was in her head.

"I know the soul your master is trying to summon. I can ensure she makes contact, but not without your help, little shrew." The voice was slow and calm, as though it didn't care what she decided to do. It was eerie how close and loud the voice was, and yet no one else heard it.

Ateer was thinking. What would a branch at that path in the glyph do? It's a path for the senses. If the branch were a little lower, it would allow the ghost to see and be seen. Lower on the line was the branch Ateer had drawn to allow the ghost to hear and be heard. But a half line there would only allow the ghost to be detected and not allow the ghost to detect the real world. But it was in a nonsense position. That position in the line didn't relate to any senses.

"It seems your master's anger is rising. I believe this summoning is frustrating her."

Ateer knew she was being manipulated, but a quick glance at Master Chu confirmed it was true. The dreadtrician spared Ateer a hateful glance that promised punishments creative and cruel.

Cayan seized up, achieving a partial connection with something, and Ateer used that moment to stop supporting him. She dashed down and pushed the chalk of the line to make a crossed line like instructed. She was back up supporting Cayan before the connection was lost and he sagged down again.

"Wonderful work, little shrew. I think that will do fine. Let me fetch your spirit for you."

Cayan stiffened and started babbling, "Ma- Mah- Mah- What's happening? What do you want?" Cayan's head was bowed and his eyes were closed. He spoke with no facial affect. Master Chu sighed and turned to him.

"This is dreadtrician Nadia Chu seeking counsel. I'm summoning Queen Agnol the First."

"Under whose authority?" Cayan said, sounding indignant. "I'm a queen you know, you can't just summon me whenever you want."

Their conversation continued, but Ateer was staring at the glyph. What had that modification done? More pressing to Ateer's mind was what would she tell Master Chu when the communion was over?

It affected the senses or at least our ability to detect or sense things. And the side it was on would just allow the living to detect the dead, which should be harmless. Maybe it really was to help Queen Agnol connect. Ateer wanted to believe that, but her glyph knowledge told her otherwise. This allowed the living to detect something of the ghost, but it wasn't sight, sound, smell (yuck), taste (extra yuck), pressure, heat, pain, or any of the others she knew of.

"Farewell, Queen Agnol, may you rest in peace," Master Chu said.

"Yes, yes. Well, if I don't, who's fault is—" Cayan said, but was cut short as Master Chu scraped a gap into the path of blood with her shoe. Cayan sagged heavily in the apprentice's arms and moaned.

"Eidvi, Cayan, you may go."

Oh no. Ateer felt sick to her stomach. Eidvi looked a little alarmed, but said nothing. She shook Cayan awake until he could stumble out of the crypt and they were gone. All too soon, Ateer was alone with Master Chu.

The Dreadtrician pointed at the line she had hastily modified mid-summoning.

"Do you know what that does?"

Ateer's heart was in her throat. She was beyond worrying about beatings and was now fearing imprisonment for reckless glyphwork. She didn't know what her mark did, but she did know what that section did, so she deliberately misinterpreted the question.

"It controls which senses are passed between worlds," Ateer said quietly. It still echoed uncomfortably loud, and she felt guilty for making such noise in the tomb.

"Senses?" Master Chu's brow furrowed. "Is that what they teach you now?"

Yes, that's what you taught me, Ateer wanted to say.

"That's energy transfer between realms—light, sound, heat, force, and so on," Master Chu said. She seemed much less concerned than Ateer expected, and this made her even more nervous.

The Dreadtrician made her way silently around the casket to the pillar that interfered with Ateer's wards.

Ateer wanted deeply to apologize and explain and curse the architect in charge of pillars, but was more afraid of breaking decorum by speaking in the crypt without being asked a direct question. Master Chu pointed at the ward that Ateer had moved. "Do you know why that ward is included in your glyph?"

Ateer felt uncomfortably hot in the cold crypt as she nodded once.

"Well? Tell me why," Master Chu said.

"Um," Ateer squeaked. She cleared her throat, and the sound echoed in the quiet room. She spoke quietly after that, "It's one of the three standard isolation wards required in all summonings."

"Do you know what it wards against?" Master Chu said.

"It—" She stuttered for a moment. "Yes, It strengthens the boundary between the material world and the ethereal. If the boundaries are too indistinct at the epicenter of the glyph, the other sigils of the glyph are less likely to take effect. This ward actually makes it easier to connect by sharpening the divide." Though Ateer was nervous, reciting her lessons actually calmed her down. This was something she was good at. Something she wouldn't screw up.

"No. It's not." Master Chu said.

Ateer froze in a panic.

"Those two wards do as you say. This third one is different. It's a temporal ward. Prevents you from reaching out to the long dead. It also has three energy components." Master Chu pointed and Ateer paled, she realized her mistake. "You added a drag line which balanced the work as a whole, but it unbalanced the energy components of this ward. With something like this, it might have been possible to reach back to the time of the arch-lich."

"I'm so sorry. I should have restarted when I realized. I just wanted— I didn't want to take too long. I promise I will never—"

"Hush," Master Chu said cupping Ateer's cheeks in her palms, "You did well."

Master Chu smiled in a manner Ateer had never seen her smile.

"Did you know," Master Chu said, "that souls themselves are a form of energy? Funny, the things they never teach you. Yes, you did very well today, little shrew."