The Necromancer

Chapter 1, Part 4

"Everything is going to be fine," Skip assured me as I scrambled to get up from my log and sought desperately for a place to hide. Not that it mattered; in the Academy they told us that even invisibility can't fool a Paladin's seeking spells. "Stay calm. I'm not turning you into these guys; they don't have any gold. They'll just kill you and I'll never get my reward." She hadn't even risen up from her seat; she was just casually stirring the stew. "If you just stay perfectly silent and go along with it, then you'll be just fine." She turned to the massive ogre across the clearing who was still chomping on branches: "Mog, buddy, you'd better head deeper into the woods for a bit."

He gave a silent nod and stood up, causing nearly every tree around the clearing to sway. Then he stomped away into the darkness of the deep forest, still chewing on the remains of a pine tree. A pile of branches, stripped of any leaves, remained at the edge of the clearing where he'd been sitting.

"We should be running too!" I insisted. "You don't even know wha..."

"Sit down!" Skip commanded. Her normally soft voice became booming and authoritative. I sat. "Good. Running is the exact opposite of what we need to do. You need to relax, because acting all flustered and panicky is going to ruin the plan. I am just going to convince them that their tracking spell is wrong and that we've been together all day, so you have an alibi."

There was a deafening silence between us for just a second. "THAT is your plan??" I burst out. "You're just going to tell them that the spell is wrong? Spells don't make mistakes! You think when I try to summon a skeleton, that the spe..."

Skip silenced me with a glare as three Paladins, all wearing their characteristic golden armor, tromped into the clearing. Too late to run now, I thought. Instead of scrambling through the thorn bushes like I had, they just blasted the shrubs with some spell that made it shrivel in a blast of blue light. A blonde Cleric in white robes with gold trim followed behind them; a large ball of gold light that seemed to throb and pulse hovered between her hands. Her eyes settled on me as she glanced around the clearing, and she looked back down at the ball and studied it again. Then she looked back at me. "That's him," she told the Paladins, who all drew their heavy claymores and advanced through the stream.

"Evening, gentlemen!" Skip called out. "And Lady," she said with a nod to the cleric. "Can I help you all?"

"Stay out of this, girl," one of the Paladins growled as they surrounded me, armor clanking and sword tips nearly jabbing me in the chest. "You may not know it, but this is a dangerous Necromancer." I held my hands up in surrender, waiting for Skip to do something. Was Mog going to come running back and smash all of them? Maybe she poisoned the stew and she's going to feed it to the Paladins. She'd better do something!

"Necromancer? HA!" The roar of laughter sounded quite genuine. "Look at him! The only thing about him that could raise the dead is the smell. This is my sworn servant, Brefol." Her voice took on a sing-song quality that I hadn't really heard before. "He's been in my service for years now. I would certainly know if he was a Necromancer."

"Hmm... he does smell pretty awful," one of the Paladins grunted. All three of them glared at me, then looked back at Skip, then looked at their Cleric.

She, in turn, looked down at the glowing golden ball of light still hovering between her hands. "Well, the spell says that he's right here..." she answered half-heartedly.

"Nonsense," Skip answered, practically oozing confidence. "Brefol and I are the only ones here, and he hasn't left my sight all day. We've been gathering wood to build a shelter here." She waved a hand at the stripped limbs that Mog had sucked clean. "I'm afraid there's been some sort of mistake." I don't know how she did it, but even I was half-convinced that it was true. Somehow she created vivid images in my mind of the two of us carrying logs through the forest with her calling me Brefol the entire time. "I've even got his contract right here to prove it," Skip said. She reached into a pouch on her belt and withdrew a scrap of parchment.

"That... well..." The Cleric's confusion was apparent as she waved a hand over the ball, trying to figure out how it could be incorrect. "But it led us right here! We detected his essence on the Crown Road and it led us straight to you!" The Paladins all nodded in agreement.

Skip tsked gently and nodded her head. "Of course! That's how it happened! We were at the road earlier this morning, and we did encounter a man there who seemed quite desperate to sell off these old robes! Paid him only three coppers for them." She gestured to the clothes I was wearing. "You don't think... Was he a necromancer? Good gracious!" It all made perfect sense, even in my mind. Despite the fact that I knew that none of it had happened and that I'd been wearing these robes for weeks, I was convinced that they'd come from some stranger that we'd met on the road this morning.

The clearing was utterly silent; even insects didn't dare buzz. The Paladins still held their swords pointed at my throat, but they looked back to the puzzled Cleric for answers as she desperately scanned the golden ball of light for some clue as to how she'd made this mistake. "Twelve Hells, Bess, can't you do a simple tracking spell right?" one of the Paladins finally burst out. He sheathed his sword, and the other two followed suit. "We're sorry to have bothered you, folks."

"Yeah," Bess the Cleric said, looking quite glum. "I'm sorry. I don't know what happened... It should follow him, not his clothes..."

Skip casually waved a hand. "No problem at all! Anything to help the Paladin Order!"

The lead Paladin was still shaking his head. "A whole fucking day lost tramping through this damned forest." He shot an angry look at the young Cleric, who seemed on the verge of tears. Then he turned back to Skip. "Is there anything else you can tell us about the Necromancer? Did you see which way he went?"

Skip made a face like she was thinking really hard about the question. I was still doing my best to not break down crying and run screaming into the forest. "You know, now that I think about it, he did say something about how he wouldn't need a heavy cloak anymore, which is why he sold it to us. He said he was going to stay with another Necromancer down on the coast." Yet again, I could picture the whole scene vividly in my mind. Everything was so clear.

The Paladin, who seemed to be the leader, rolled his eyes. "The coast? We've been going the completely wrong direction!"

"Great job, Bess," one of the other Paladins muttered not-so-quietly. The poor Cleric pursed her lips as tight as possible trying to stem the oncoming flood of tears.

"Well, come on then," the lead Paladin said with a sigh. "Bess, send a message to the other Clerics telling them to head back to the road. We'll have to march through the night if we're going to have a chance of catching the bastard. And we're going to need some strong endurance buffs." He sneered at the Cleric. "Think you can handle that?"

Bess couldn't hold it in anymore. She burst out in tears and fled back into the forest alone.

"Just great," the lead Paladin growled. He turned back to Skip. "Thanks for all your help, Ma'am." She nodded with a cheerful smile. Then he turned and looked at me. "Sorry for, you know, almost killing you, Brefol."

I was still frozen in terror, and it must have been plastered across my face. "It's OK," I somehow managed to respond.  He gave me one last suspicious look, then turned and followed Bess back into the woods with his two companions. Skip and I watched them go in silence until the very last traces of their golden armor had vanished.

"Well, then," Skip said with a smile and a gesture at the bubbling pot of soup. "How about we have some supper?"

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