a formidable foe appears

Lungs burning and sweat at his brow, each hard strike against the ground reverberates through his body. But there is one thing he can’t outrun, and it is housed between his ribs: Lariel’s sword, the light of heaven, bright as the sun and searing as a drought.

He runs faster.

Relying on memory and dumb luck to guide him, making decisions on a desperate whim, but somehow he trusts the way he is going, though he has no particular reason to do so. It’s as if someone is guiding him.

He remembers they took a left here, and he recognizes that pattern of mushrooms there. He knows there should be a sharp incline around this bend—and there it is!

Flanked by rhapsodic light and color he runs until he can’t run any longer. Until his vision swims, and he drops to his knees in a panting, shuddering heap. The weight of his present circumstance hits him then, all at once, as he collapses.

Was it enough? Was he followed?

The cave is silent, save for his labored breathing.

He lays there for a while, preternaturally aware of his own heartbeat, of the tiny rock digging into his elbow, the little twitches in his spent muscles, like strings being plucked in his legs. A stalactite hangs directly above him, suspended overhead.

It all serves to remind him that he is a creature of flesh and bone. He is fully in his body, a body that he’d so long taken for granted. And as he considers this, his senses seem to expand, and he becomes aware of the mountains of earth above him and beneath him, and the blessing of air in these tunnels, the different minerals that abound here, the dark. And then, in that perfect dark, he finally begins to think about what needs to be done.

“Eight,” he whispers to himself, lips barely parting against the words. “There are eight schools of magic. Abjuration, to protect and counter. Conjuration, to create and destroy. Divination, to reveal and occlude. Enchantment, to convince and to dissuade. Evocation, as pertains to matter and energy. Illusion, as pertains to light and shadow. Transmutation, as pertains to static and dynamic.”

He pauses, and then finishes.

“Necromancy. As pertains to life and death.”

Think, Nereo.

Surely some clue is in the vision he received from the angel. It had been so laden with emotion, but more telling was the way the angel’s thoughts and feelings had mingled freely with his own. It was no illusion, then, rather a part of Lariel’s very essence as he had died. And the blade had persisted beyond the angel’s span, but so had a fragment of his memories and thoughts… but had it been his goal? How much intent was truly behind it?

Abjuration, perhaps, rooted in divine magic.

Do they even think of magic the way we do?

His wound lights up again, as if the sword can sense that it is the subject of Nereo’s pondering. It is far too bright. He screws his eye shut against the light, and holds his hands over his face. Squinting through his fingers, he sees the shadows cast by his arms projected upon the cave ceiling above him. His limbs, long and graceful, take on an uncanny appearance in their shadows.

“Enough,” he says, brow furrowed. “Stop this!”

After a moment the light recedes, but the discomfort remains seated deep in his core. Nereo feels his stomach clench, but he can’t tell if it’s because he’s hungry, or because he’s full of that much dread. He curls into himself, holding onto his knees and scowling bitterly.

“I am not for you to just use however you want,” he whispers into the dark. “I’m my own. My own! I’ll die before I become anything else.”

~

He walks the rest of the way, drafting the spell in his mind as he goes.

Magic is no simple matter. There are entire tomes dedicated solely to the nature of a single charm. A spellcaster can spend months or even years mastering a tricky rune. His own education on the subject occurred in fits and starts, advancing whenever he managed to steal a book away from the temple.

In those days he was ravenous for them. He would read anything he could get his hands on. He would eavesdrop on the witch-hunters, watch the clerics work in the graveyard, pester his own guardians with endless questions. He’d always found himself drawn to knowledge—especially that of corpse magic, the precise subject that was most forbidden to him. And all the more tempting, of course.

All the books in the temple had dealt with various means of countering necromancy; laying ghouls and undead to rest, resisting rays of enfeeblement, and so on; yet with the framework he was slowly constructing, it had been a simple task to think in reverse, and, by learning how to dispel necromancy, learn how to wield it instead.

If his early years were otherwise a torment at least they gave him that much.

Caught up in reminiscing, Nereo abruptly comes to a stop. There, at the end of the cavern, is what he’s been searching for.

With a breath to steady himself, he moves to kneel beside Aravashnial’s corpse.

Nereo can still sense a trace of death lingering over the body. The first insects have already found their way to his ripening flesh. He sweeps these away with gentle hands, little graveyard harvesters, tiny beetles with shining wings. They’ll have their fill soon enough.

“Would that I could burn incense for you, and send you off with the proper rites,” Nereo murmurs, peering into Aravashnial’s cold and empty face. “Your last moments must have been so… agonizing. I don’t know what land you hailed from, or what faith you followed, if any… but I wish you peace on your journey. May your judgment be merciful. And I thank you,” he adds somberly. “For what you are about to do for me. Could you ever forgive me, I wonder?”

There is no answer. Of course not.

First he needs to clear the setting.

He searches Aravashnial’s pockets and finds them empty. Then he moves on, checking the lining of his waistcoat, and the insides of his boots. He is very thorough, taking his time, and he is glad for the extra precaution when he pulls a scrap of paper from a pouch sewn into Aravashnial’s shirt.

“An abjuration spell,” he says, reading the scrap with interest. “And a rather complex one, at that. You must have been a wizard. Probably a better one than I.” He smiles. “As a fellow spellcaster, you understand why I’ll be keeping this. I don’t need it interfering with my magic.”

He sets the scrap well out of the way.

Now he must construct the spell which already exists in his mind.

This is where he starts to get nervous. Fidgeting with his sleeve, he sits beside the corpse, wondering how to go about this. Things don’t always translate well from his thoughts to paper. Or, in this case, stone.

But there’s no other choice. Resolute, he calls again upon the sword, and it answers, burning, burning in him for what he hopes is the last time.

He grabs the handle. Is it his imagination, or is it fighting him this time? Is he tiring already? With a grimace, he draws it out of himself, little by little. With a cry, he finally pulls it free.

He cuts his finger deep on the blade. A bead of dark blood wells at his fingertip and the sight strikes him with a profound fury. He isn’t sure why. It lasts only a moment, but the feeling shakes him. It’s the sword, damned thing. It moves him so easily.

Loathsome thing, he thinks. I will soon be rid of you. And you of me.

He begins.

An abjuration spell with a matrix based in necromancy. He can’t be sure it’s ever be done before, but he is confident in his theory.

His blood is dark as wine under the sword’s radiance. He writes quickly, smearing his blood into the stone, pausing occasionally to bite at the cut and coax forth more blood. Ironic that the light of heaven should illuminate his efforts to extinguish it.

He is pleased to find that after all these years, it is still easy. His mind gradually acclimates itself to a receptive state where the runes come to him freely, like a hound answering its master. It goads him on, this feeling of shaping the magic with only his will. His hand burns around the hilt of the sword, and his eye burns under the brightness of the light, and the wound on his chest burns, and he is transcendent in pain and knowledge.

This rune will anchor the sword. This one will counter the divine magic. This one will bind the threads of death to the barrier.

Nereo furrows his brow, his vision slipping in and out of focus. It is tiring, this work. More and more runes, hundreds of them. Layers of spellwork all serving to stabilize, to support, to guide and to channel the forces of life and death into a single outcome. The last rune is the most important one. It will sever the connection the sword has to him, once and for all.

Death is a powerful energy, the great beginning and end.

It will work. It must work.

The air grows heavy, and the hour long. Nereo feels sluggish as he moves around the corpse, the spell lapping at his heels. For a moment his perception of the physical world lapses. He feels like he’s standing in a dark and shallow ocean. He sees a glimpse of the truth.

So this is what he is. Necromancer with shining blade in hand. He tastes salt. Is it sweat? Tears?

Pharasma forgive me, he thinks, but he’s not contrite enough to offer a genuine prayer. He’s done plenty wrong in his life, and he’s sick of asking forgiveness when he’s never had a say in the outcome.

The arcane ocean recedes from his imagination. All is quiet.

Nereo lets out a weary sigh. It’s done.

He pulls himself up, and he stands over the corpse, hooves planted firmly on either side of the body. The hair on the back of his neck rises, a shiver runs down his spine. He’s exhausted.

He looks at the sword, and at the dead man, and he feels like he should say something. Something final.

“Well.” He smiles, half-delirious. “Toodles.”

He draws the final rune on the back of his hand. It lights up with an ominous green glow, he can feel it pulling in his chest already, the magic cascading all around him.

With a flourish, he raises Lariel’s sword and plunges it into Aravashnial’s corpse.

The rebuke comes swiftly.

The runes take on a fierce shining darkness. Divine retribution. Righteous anger. Every rune lights up, gleaming, the pressure of so much magic energy sending a shudder through the stone. But Nereo holds fast. He pushes against the hilt, willing the blade into the waiting corpse.

The magic sputters and misfires, heavy and ancient.

It happens so fast that Nereo barely realizes things have gone terribly wrong, before the misplaced energy sends him flying back against the rock, knocking him out.

~

He comes to with the sword still inside him, and the heaviness of disappointment in his throat. But that’s not to say the spell didn’t do anything.

He feels different.

Worse.

Nereo brings his hands, clumsy and uncoordinated, to his chest. The wound has opened again, seeping darkly into the fabric of his tunic. He presses on it, mapping its shape through pain. It has grown larger, and his skin is warm and tender around the edges. And the sword…

He lets out a sharp hiss. The sword feelsangriersomehow.

He’d thought it unbearable before; it was nothing compared to this. The enmity he holds for his unwelcome visitor is now amplified. The feeling of revulsion is mutual.

He thinks again of that old prayer, ruthless to the malign.

Ruthless indeed. He challenged the light of heaven and he failed, and this will not soon be forgotten, nor forgiven.

Just knowing he is the subject of the sword’s enmity is terrible enough. But knowing his own foolishness… that’s salt in the wound. He takes a long moment just to sit with it.

He has cowered under such a feeling before. At the time he would crouch and hold his hands over his head, protecting his neck and face from a blow so imminent, it’d be kinder if it would just happen already, instead of leaving him on tenterhooks, waiting to be struck. But if the gods are going to smite him, they seem to be holding back, at least for the time being.

More urgently, Nereo turns his attention to the sound of a bowstring being drawn.

Grimacing, he lifts his gaze and finds himself facing the half-reptile man from before. He is aiming an arrow directly at him.

“Oh, hey, buddy,” Lann says momentarily. “You’re awake. I’m so glad. We were worried sick.”

Nereo frowns. It’s not just the sharp arrow that is currently trained on him; the man’s voice is sardonic and grating, full of expressive vocal tics, and barely restrained hostility.

Where are the others? It seems they are alone.

“We figured maybe you got lost,” Lann continues as Nereo struggles to piece things together. “These caverns can be pretty disorienting to newcomers. Your people are safe now, by the way—though we had a hard time convincing that paladin gal to stay in the village. Since Wenduag and I know these caverns better than anyone, we split up and went looking for you.”

He pauses. “To tell you the truth, I wasn’t sure what we’d find. But I never could’ve expected…”

Lann breaks off in a frustrated growl that bleeds into his next question.

“What did you do to that man?”

“I didn’t kill him, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“I’m not even sure what I’m asking!” Lann replies hotly. “Gods! All that blood! A-and the scary writing, everywhere?”

There’s a frantic confusion in Lann’s voice. Nereo attempts to sit up, but even that small action sends his world spinning. This would be a lot easier without feeling like the gods themselves are about to hunt him for sport.

“Didn’t do anything to him,” he says, every word a battle. “I swear.”

“So how do you explain this? He’s mutilated! He’s in some kind of magic ritual circle!”

“I know,” Nereo insists, thinking fast. “That’s why we need to leave. Whoever did this could still be down here.”

“Whoever did this? Are you hearing yourself? It’s just mongrels and cave bugs down here! What, you think a centipede performed blood magic on that guy?”

“I’m trying to tell you,” Nereo says slowly, “it is the work of demons.”

Finally, Lann lowers his bow, casting a nervous glance at their surroundings.

“Demons?” he repeats, blinking a transparent eyelid over his mismatched yellow eye. Nereo nods earnestly.

“When the others and I fell here…” Nereo explains in labored syllables. “Some of Deskari’s forces fells into the caverns, too. They’re hunting down the survivors.” With a flash of inspiration, he adds, “They’re after the sword.”

“You… sensed all this, somehow?”

“Yes! I sensed something… something evil in the caves. I came to investigate. But I was too late. And then I… woke up here, like this. I can’t…”

Nereo conjures up the lie, bit by clumsy bit. He finds it a great deal more difficult than conjuring magic, but as Lann listens to his words, his bow relaxes. The string goes slack.

Lann truly seems a gentle sort. An idealist. Ready to trust a simple fairy tale about an angelic sword against the forces of evil.

We are both fools, Nereo observes, hoping he is believed.

He is.

“Then …we need to hurry,” Lann says, stowing his bow on his back, convinced. Or at least, not quite ready to kill him.

“We gotta tell the others. If what you say it’s true, then it’s more important than ever that you show Sull the light. We’ll convince him to gather the tribes, and make for the Maze. Thank goodness I found you in time!”

“Thank goodness,” Nereo echoes, woozy at his own gall, at his brazen and wanton dishonesty. There is no hope for him, none at all.