Flash Fiction Waking the Necromancer
Yelling pulled Jo from his trance.
“Come out! Necromancer! You killed my sister. I’m going to kill you!” screamed a woman’s voice.
By the additional dust and sand in the room, his trance couldn’t have lasted a month.
Something interesting was happening. A mortal hadn’t disturbed him in a very long time.
He projected his voice beyond the walls. “I doubt either is true. Come if you must, but few survive meeting me.”
The witch entered.
She had power; he had to grant that. Looked twenty, felt three hundred. Less than one in a thousand witches mastered aging. She was certainly a witch, if a vain one. That type of power was unmistakable.
“By the Gods of Val, I knew you were hideous, but this?” she said, turning to face where he had sat these many thousands of years.
He ignored the insult. Not allowing a muscle to move in his mummified face, he spoke. “Congratulations, you reached me alive. No one has done that in more than one thousand years.”
“No, your magic could not stop me from getting here. I am far too powerful for that.”
He let a smile come to his face despite the pain any movement caused. “You didn’t face my magic, just the impression I make on the world just by existing. But don’t worry, I have no plans to use magic against you. I have had no one to talk to in a thousand years, and almost any spell I cast would kill you. If your sister is among the dead out there. It is on her. My presence is death to any but the most powerful. Tell me which one it is and I will make sure to bury you together.”
“I am the most powerful witch our coven has ever produced and have spent the last two hundred years preparing for this. It is you that will be buried. We have the spells needed to unmake you. We have worked for generations on them,” She began raising her hand.
“Hold your attack. If your power becomes entangled in mine, it will suck you in faster than you can blink.”
“I am too powerful for that.”
“You might be the most powerful witch alive, but you’re not in the class of the immortals. The necromancers killed every one of them.”
“Then you killed the necromancers for their power.”
“Sixteen of them died fighting me. I wasn’t able to defeat a single one of them.”
“What?” the witch said for the first time, confusion and doubt on her face.
“When necromancers fight, the winner dies, not the loser. None of us wants to be like this.” He held out his mummified hand and agony shot through him. “The winner forces the loser to take his life. Because only another necromancer can kill and necromancer. All our enemies gone, all of us entered the arena longing for death. I was the weakest. In every fight, I walked away. Now I have so much power that all near die.”
He felt her start to relax.
“Don’t! If you relax those shields, you die.”
“This agony? It isn’t a weapon you are using? This is what you are feeling?”
“Yes. Such is the price for killing the immortals, the being mortals often called gods.”
“I have never heard of such a thing.”
“None made it out of here alive after hearing it. This shield of yours looks different. It might get you out of here alive. If you leave now.”
“You lie, you fear me and what I can do. The necromancers are evil. Your kind killed more people than any can imagine.”
Conversations with mortals were tiresome, but he had been alone for so long. “I don’t have to imagine. I feel every single death I or any of my kind caused, every minute of every day. That is what is means to be a necromancer, to be death. I will feel yours too, even if I don’t kill you. That is the price of coming to this island. I feel anyone who dies here. Dozens come every year seeking treasure.”
“You felt my sister’s death?”
Jo hated doing so but felt for the death that had knowledge of this person. The witch earned it just by being able to stand there.
“Kingee Nisom of the family Song. Came for treasure. Thought to rest before returning, never woke.”
She became pale. “You have her soul?”
“No, fortunately not. Just the memories she left behind.”
“Then you don’t take souls?”
“I didn’t say that. If your power had been sucked in, chances are so would your soul. With work, I can free them and do, but they are damaged by the experience. That is one impressive shield. No one has lasted this long. I hope you taught it to someone.”
“No. Done wrong, it kills the witch.”
“The pile of dust by the door, it was at one time my table and bag. There is a memory crystal to a witch I once knew. It is a treasure you will never find again. Take it and leave. But come back when you have recovered and if you took no damage. I would give much just to have someone I can talk to without them dying.”
He saw her eyes light with greed, and she dropped to the ground. As he thought, the memory of a witch powerful enough to create a memory crystal was not something she could pass up.
“I’ll be back,” she said, standing cradling the crystal to her breast.
Do so, it is one of many treasures you would find of use. But make sure you are rested and have no crack in your shield.
As soon as she stepped beyond the door, a vision sphere appeared before him, and he set it to track her. It had been so very long since he had had anything to look forward to or any interest beyond this room.
I hope you enjoyed it.
James R Steinhaus