The Necromancer

Chapter 2, Part 4

After a long day's journey sliding around Mog's backpack, they'd finally dumped me out into a clearing and began making camp again. Skip disappeared into the woods to gather provisions, and Mog sat down on the edge of the forest to munch on a few tons worth of leaves. He kept one eye on Lirk and I as he ate, not that I could do anything with my hands and feet bound. Lirk's hands and feet were still all jumbled up in the bag, since they hadn't even allowed me to put him back together.

There was a dead bird near my foot among the sticks and twigs and stone. A small thing; she had probably fallen out of the nest in a nearby tree while trying to learn to fly. Poor creature never really got to live up to her real potential. A bit like me.

My fingers tingled with the last bit of leftover magical energy from when I'd brought Lirk back, and it was fading fast. The power from the concoction was generally short lived, which was why I had to make a new batch each day. I reached out toward the bird's limp, lifeless body and resummoned it with the very last of my power. She hopped back to her feet and chirped cheerfully, looking at me with its dark round eyes. Awaiting orders from its new master.

"Go on," I whispered at it, "Go on home to your nest."

It looked up to the nearby tree branches, then back to me. I nodded at it, and it fluttered away on unsteady wings. My spell wouldnt last long, but at least the poor thing could say goodbye to its family. It seemed pretty recently dead, meaning its spirit was almost completely intact. The longer something remained dead, the less of its original spirit that would be left when a Necromancer revived it. Poor Lirk had been dead for weeks before I'd managed to revive him. I smiled, watching as the bird made it to a high-up branch and disappeared.

"You are just full of surprises," a voice said from behind me. Skip's voice. She came striding out of the trees carrying an armful of logs for a fire with an amused smile on her face. How long ad she been there watching?

"Why?" I asked in the sourest tone I could muster and with my meanest glare. She didn't really notice.

"I don't know," she said as she set the logs down nearby and began splintering the branches into kindling and stacking the logs into a house. "Just when you think you've got a person all figured out, they go and surprise you. Like you with that bird. The Paladins have been doing their damndest to convince everyone of how evil the Necromancers are so that we'll all be willing to pitch in on this silly war of theirs. I'd even believed it, too. I didn't feel so bad turning you in for a reward when you were just the heartless monster they said you were. And yet, you brought that poor little thing back to life just because." She smiled at me. "Maybe you Necromancers aren't such a bad lot after all."

I gave a snort and laughed, despite still being angry with her. "Maybe you need to meet some more Necromancers, then. That Amcerlizar is a real peach, trust me."

The flint and steel dropped from Skip's hands and into the dirt. She gaped at me in disbelief. "You know Amcerlizar?" 

From across the clearing, Mog dropped the branch he was chewing on and stood up. "AMCERLIZAR?" he thundered. In just a few quick steps, he was standing right over us with his massive paws rolled into fists.

"He is a rival of the Master!" Lirk's skull volunteered proudly from the top of his bag. "They were students together at the Necromancer Academy!" I don't know how accurate 'rival' is given that he was the Lord of the Blighted Lands currently waging war on the Paladins with his undead army, and I was the prisoner of a young girl and her dimwitted ogre with only Lirk serving me. But I wasn't about to correct him in front of Skip.

"Is this true?" She sounded like she was out of breath. "You went to school together?"

"Why should I tell you?" I replied. I held up my hands, still bound by the thick ropes. "I'm 'just a prisoner,' remember?"

Without even hesitating, a knife flashed in her hand and the severed ropes fell to the dirt. "Please," she said. "It's really important." I'd never heard that desperate tone in her voice. It was like she was a whole different person. "Tell me everything you know about him."

I glared suspiciously. "I'll tell you all about Amcerlizar... if you'll let me and Lirk go. I mean it this time. No more being your prisoners."

"Fine, fine." she waved a hand like she didn't even care. "Fine. Tell me everything."

"Give me your word!" I said. After seeing her lie to the Paladins, I wasn't willing to just accept that she'd let me go.

"I swear," she said, gravely serious.

I paused for a moment. She really wanted to know about him, didn't she? "Give me the Ruby back, too!" I told her emphatically. 

She immediately pulled the chain from around her neck and lifted the brilliant red jewel from between her breasts. It was still glowing a bright scarlet with Lirk nearby. She pulled it over her head and tossed it to me like it was a worthless trinket instead of an invaluable and immensely powerful artifact. "Is that all?"

I tried to think of more demands. "And a new cloak!" I told her. My current one was so dirty that even Mog was starting to be bothered by the stench. And his smell was bad enough to kill insects with one breath. 

Skip dug through a nearby box and pulled out a dark purple mass of fabric. "It's one of mine," she said, "But it should fit you well enough; it's pretty large on me." She folded it up nicely and held it out to me. "Now will you tell me about Amcerlizar?"

I took the robe and looked back at her. She would have given me everything she owned. "What is it about him?" I asked. "Why do you care so much?"

Her hands fidgeted and she intently studied the dirt. There was an awkward silence in the clearing. Finally Mog crossed his arms and shook his head. "PRIVATE," he declared.

"Please," Skip said. "Just tell us." 

She was so pitiful that I finally relented. As she built a roaring fire for us, I told her everything. How he was always the best in every class. How the Elders doted on him and gave him whatever he wanted. How he'd already built himself an army by the end of the third year while I was still having trouble resummoning a dog companion. How he went off collecting artifacts in ancient temples every summer with his parents and always came back to school with the coolest relics. Each sentence made me more and more bitter about it.

"But you know each other? Are you guys still friends?" She was hanging on every word that I said.

"Well..." I stammered slowly. "I mean..." I'd never exactly said we were friends. Though I guess I hadn't exactly mentioned that I hated the guy's guts and that he'd pretty much ignored me the whole time we were in school because I wasn't 'talented' enough to mingle with his crowd. 

"What I mean," Skip butted in, "is: are you still in touch? Could you contact him?" 

"PLEASE?" Mog asked. He looked just as desperate and curious as Skip.

It had been... gosh, at least fiften years since I last even saw Amcerlizar at our graduation, which was also his coronation to the Undead Throne. And I think the last words that he'd said to me, probably two years before that, was something along the lines of 'Who are you again?' And the last words that he'd said about me but not to me had been something like 'Get this schmuck out of my sight,' at which point a horde of his minions had dragged me kicking and screaming from his personal dungeon. And they weren't the weak skeletons like Lirk; they were full flesh-and-blood zombies that needed the expensive ingredients to summon. I'd skipped out on all of the Academy reunions since graduation so that I wouldn't have to deal with him rubbing his success in my face. 

"Sure," I answered. "Of course I know how to get in touch with him."

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