The Necromancer

Chapter 5, Part 4

"Skip!" I called as loud as I dared, rattling the doorknob to the room Lord Berman had generously put us up in. "SKIP!" 

No answer. Where could she have gone?

"Skip, I've got it," I hissed into the keyhole. Shouting would raise suspicion in a crowded castle, and who knows where Amcerlizar's spies were hiding? You'd be surprised what kind of influence you can wield with the power to free people of the curse of death. Well, only to some extent, but still: people grasp at whatever hope they can get. Rumor had it there were even Paladins in his employ. "Skip, open up!"

Still nothing. I twisted the doorknob and let myself in. The bed was untouched and the candles were dark without even a single tendril of smoke. No Skip in sight. Damn it, where had that girl gotten to? I turned to leave, but a gust of wind blew past me through the open window. The window hadn't been open when we left for dinner. Of course!

I poked my head out into the night air, which was refreshingly cool after sitting near those roaring fires in the dining hall for so long. The bay was lit up by the glow of the full moon, and the fishing boats bobbed peacefully, with the occasional tinkling bell breaking the silence. "Skip?" I called out.

Her curly brown hair popped up. She was perched on the slate roof of a tower that jutted out from the side of the castle over the bay. "What is it, Winston?"

I crawled out onto the window sill, clutching the railing like a baby clinging to its mother's breast. The stones that made up the narrow ledge wobbled, threatening to give way. "Skip!" I crawled another inch or so. "Skip, I know how to lure Amcerlizar to us AND I know how to get the incantation for his Summoning Pedestal!"

"Winston, go back!" Her voice seemed different somehow, but I couldn't place what it was. "You're going to fall off the roof and get yourself killed."

"Skip, I don't know why it didnt occur to me before!" I tried shouting to her as I shimmied across the very narrow crest of the roof spanning between the main castle and the tower where she sat. WIth one leg on each side, I scooted slowly closer. "Skip, the Academy is the key! They have an alumni directory, and of course they'll know where their star pupil Amcerlizar is!" The sentence was interrupted with my grunts as I struggled ever closer to her. I reached the edge of the round tower and tried to stand to greet her. But my foot slipped on the slick stone, and for a few terrifying second I began to topple off the edge of the tower and out into the night. Skip rolled her eyes and grabbed my collar with one hand and pulled me back. "Thank you!" I gasped.

"Winston, I'm serious, go back." 

I was too excited to listen. "As I was saying: all we have to do is just travel to the Academy and get his summoning information. And then the second part, we need Lamneras to..." My smile faltered and my voice trailed off as I looked at her closely in the moonlight and saw a shining trail down each of her cheeks. "Skip, are you crying? What's wrong?"

"I told you, just go back. Don't worry about me." Looking over her shoulder, I saw that she'd made a nice little camp for herself on the roof there, with a warm blanket, a few candles, and that small redwood box that she always carried around. I hadn't known that she'd even smuggled it into the city under those massive clothes of hers. 

"Well, of course I'm worried, Skip. You can tell me." I sat down on her blanket and gestured for her to join me. She continued to stand and glare; now that I was looking more closely, I could see that her eyes were puffy. 

Finally she relented and dropped down next to me. "I don't want to talk about it," she said. So we gazed out at the stars over the sea in silence for a while and listened to the waves crash. She kept the redwood box on her lap like a pet.

"What if we can't beat him?" she said at last. "What if Lamneras is right?" Her voice had a note of pure fear that I'd never even seen in her before. Even with the spiders attacking us, she was still confident that I could come up with something. She'd never sounded so completely hopeless before. 

"I have a plan though!" That's what I'd been trying to tell her! "I know how to call him to us!"

"That's not what I'm worried about," she cut me off before I could explain the whole plan. "Finding him isn't the hard part. I mean, isn't he the toughest Necromancer out there? Doesn't he have all of the powerful artifacts and minions and spells? How do we know that your Ruby will work?" Her voice quavered as she poured out her worries. "And that's assuming we can get him to attack Lirk. I mean, you tried the same thing on us and you couldn't even kill me, or Mog! The Paladins have been trying to get Amcerlizar for years!" 

"Well, you knew about the Ruby," I said. "You knew what it would do. He won't know. He'll be surprised."

She sighed heavily and looked back down at the box in her lap with a sad smile. "I just... things always seem to go wrong, you know?" Boy, did I ever.

"Not this time, Skip. I promise." I rubbed her arm, trying to reassure her. Her skin was covered in goosebumps from the cold, so I wrapped my cloak around her. "I've got the whole plan worked out, and the Ruby will work. Sir Athaelwas put his faith in his magical armor to protect him, and look how that turned out, and it will be the same with Amcerlizar." She didn't answer, but I could see just a hint of a smile tugging at her lips. "And besides," I continued. "If the Ruby doesn't work, then we'll just have Mog step on him before he can get away." That actually got her to laugh.

We fell silent and listened to the waves again. "Thank you," she finally said before scooting a bit closer and leaning her head on my shoulder. "I just... I don't know. I've been working at this for a whole year and I've never gotten anywhere and now... now we're days away from finally confronting him." She gave an insincere laugh. "I guess I've just got the jitters."

"It'll be OK." It felt good to be the confident, self-assured one for once. Normally Skip was the one with the plan and knew exactly what needed to be done. "In just a few days, Amcerlizar will be dead, and you'll..." Hmmm. She still hadn't told me exactly why she was after him.  "Well, you'll do whatever it is that you're trying to do, I guess."

A gust of wind came in off the bay, rustling the bells on the ships and causing the nearby candles to flicker. Skip gave a heavy sigh and looked down at her box. I cast a sidelong glance at her, and it seemed like she was about to cry again. "Hey, it's OK, Skip." I put an arm around her shoulder. "You don't need to tell me if you don't want to."

She gazed up at me with her watery brown eyes. Her lips kept quivering between a smile and a frown. Was she...? I leaned in a little closer, trying to confirm whether I was reading the situation right. She didn't turn away or move her head back; just continued gazing at me. 

I took a deep breath. I didn't exactly have a lot of experience with this particularly situation. Or with women in general. Was she giving me the sign? DId she want me to kiss her? Or was that just a natural place for her head to go with my arm on her shoulder? DId she know that I was thinking about kissing her? The longer I debated, the more awkward it would become, because she'd start to think I didn't want to kiss her. But I did want to kiss her. Did I? I mean, she was certainly beautiful, and sweet... but maybe I was just confusing friendship with romantic feelings. God, what should I do? She was still staring at me with that gentle smile.

My heart pounded in my chest, and I leaned forward. It was too late to back out now; I was committed! It would just be more awkward if I backed away after trying, wouldn't it? Our lips touched. Hers were so soft. Everything in the universe was perfectly right for just a moment... and then she pulled back.

"I'm sorry, Winston," she whispered. "I'm..."

Then everything in the universe was wrong. She didn't like me. She never gave me the signal. My breath smelled like garlic from the feast. I was a bad kisser. My mind came up with a billion reasons for why she didn't like me. "No, I... I get it," I stammered. 

"It's not that," she interrupted me. "I..." she held the redwood box up. "I'm married."

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