The Necromancer

Chapter 2, Part 2

It had taken all of my guile to pretend to stretch out in the meadow so that I could pick the mandrake without being noticed. The leathery skin of the mandrake root felt cold and clammy in my hand. Bits of moist earth still clung to the crevices and wrinkles of the peel, and the dirt had worked its way underneath my fingernails as I picked at it bit by bit. The root was hidden in my pocket, and I scratched at it as we walked.  Normally I'd just slice the root open with a knife, but that would be too visible; I had to hide what I was doing from my captors. And there was also the fact that Skip had taken my knife from me. 

"You doing OK back there, slowpoke?" her voice rang out. It took me a moment to spot her, high up in the branches of a big maple almost at eye level with Mog. I was so focused on my work with the root that I hadn't even noticed her climb up to scout ahead. The girl could climb like a squirrel.

"Yeah, fine!" I answered in a quivering voice. I pulled my hand hastily from my pocket and grabbed onto a nearby root to show that I wasn't doing anything suspicious. "Just... you know, walking." Smooth.

She glared down at me from the stout branch, and I could see the gold chain of the Ruby hanging around her neck. Did she know? My mind was racing. She can sense lies. It wasn't exactly a lie, though. I'm walking just fine. If I hadn't already been sweating profusely from the hike, I would have broken out into a nervous sweat.

"Well, walk faster," she said. "There are some pretty thick spiderwebs up here, which must come from some pretty big spiders." I shuddered involuntarily at the thought; I hated spiders. You'd think that, as a Necromancer who spends a lot of time around dead bodies, little creepy crawlies wouldn't have much of an effect. Well, true for most of my classmates but certainly not me.

She leaped down from the branch with a graceful flourish and went darting off into the trees again. To my right, Mog was walking down a dried creek bed, stripping limbs of their green leaves and shoveling them into his mouth. He seemed to eat constantly, which was good for me because he wasn't paying the least bit of attention to what I was doing. I stuck my hand back into my pocket and began peeling away at the mandrake root's skin again. After only a few more minutes of scratching, I was finally rewarded with a trickle of sticky juice running down my palm. Success! The hole in the peel was big enough that I could pry it open. Now I just needed to squeeze the juice into the rest of the ingredients and I'd be all set.

I glanced around, checking the shadows for any sign of Skip. She had a very nasty habit of sneaking up on me when I least expected. She even seemed to take pleasure in scaring me. But she'd gone off in the complete opposite direction, so I should be fine. Mog had thundered ahead up the creek and wasn't paying attention to me either. Perfect. I swung my satchel around and unbuckled my ingredient pocket, where my vials of alchemical plants and minerals were contained in a neat little harness. I'll admit that I have a number of vices and shortcomings, but poor organization isn't one of them. Let's see... I need powdered bone... I reached for the tiny glass bottle full of off-white powder. And some dried Arctura petals... these flowers grew like weeds, so this bottle was completely full.

"HEY!" Skip's voice shouted through the underbrush. I just had time to stuff the bottles back in my bag before she appeared on top of a moss-covered boulder to my left. "I said let's go! Quit dawdling!"

Mog's massive head appeared through the branches above her. "DAWDLING," he repeated, pointing one massive finger down the river bed in the direction I was supposed to be going.

"Sure," I said, doing an awkward half-skip and an unenthusiastic run. I wasn't in great shape after all those relaxation potions and sitting around in my crypt for months. "I'm coming."

She kept a suspicious eye on me for a bit longer, and I gave a nervous smile and struggled to climb up the crumbling riverbank. As soon as I made it to the top, the sand underneath decided to collapse and send me toppling back down into the dirt. Skip and Mog had a good giggle at my floundering around, and then continued on their way; Skip disappeared into a shadow and Mog went to forage again. Well, at least my clumsiness was usefully disarming.

I reached back into my satchel and found all of the right ingredients that I needed for the summoning spell. One by one, I shook the right amounts out of the jars and into my cursed goblet. It wasn't the ornate, jewel-encrusted chalice that stupid Grand Master Amcerlizar probably used; it was just a simple wooden cup that I'd carved from an old stump and cursed with a crude blood ritual. But it didn't need to be fancy to work. I took the mandrake root from my pocket and squeezed it as hard as I could till the juice dripped out into the cup. My heart skipped a beat as I heard Mog's giggle echo through the trees, but he was still far away. With one finger, I stirred all of the ingredients into a sludgy greenish-brown paste. Every time I performed the ritual, I did my best not to think about how much it looked like diarrhea. It wasn't very effective, and I still gagged a bit.

"Winston!" Skip's voice came filtering through the trees. "If I have to tell you to move it one more time, I'm going to make Mog carry you!" My heart thundered in my chest as I picked up the goblet and tried to pour it down my throat. A spoon would have been nice, but I hadn't really thought to bring one when I left the crypt. And I couldn't exactly ask Skip for one now. I scooped up a handful of the paste and licked it from my fingers.

"What is that?" Skip asked. She had appeared in the river bed just a few feet from where I was kneeling. She glanced down at the goblet, then at my potion-covered hands, and I watched the realization dawn on her face. And it felt amazing to finally get the upper hand.

"It's too late," I told her. The magical energy was pulsing through my veins like a second heartbeat, giving me astounding energy. I dumped Lirk's disassembled skeleton onto the ground, held my hand over the pieces, and was rewarded with that familiar tingle as the magic swarmed from my fingertips and into the bones. The bones vibrated on the stones, stronger and stronger with each second. They rattled together violently and then began to rise up in the air. Some of the small pebbles and rocks from the dry riverbed got caught up in the whirlwind and clacked against Lirk's body as it quickly took shape. The legs formed first, then the spine, then the arms. The skull settled onto its perch last, and the jawbone clicked into place with one final satisfying sound.

"Thank you, Master," Lirk said. And the shadowy forest was suddenly bathed in a bright scarlet as the Ruby around Skip's neck glowed eagerly, seemingly happy to see its true owner back again. 

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