It is but a week that passed since ThreeToe put his story on the forum for all to enjoy, yet it feels like an eternity of my brooding and then typing these words, inspired by the unsurpassed treachery and corruption in the creation of the master...
Hm. So, here I humbly present to your judgement my story (under the spoiler). It has treason, it has cats (well, one cat) and evidently it has zombies. Also, to a sensitive person - like me - it can be quite disturbing. I hope you enjoy.
That was it. "Life imprisonment", the judge had spoken the day before. The judge was fat and ugly. Othor didn't like him at all.
Strong arms of guards pushed him inside the cell and slammed the door shut. One of them glared at him through the tiny window.
"Enjoy your stay."
Life imprisonment. Othor pondered that sentence once more and felt as if a knife slashed across his heart. Why, the hell, did it concern them? Why, the hell, did dead concern them? He hadn't desecrated any tombs for his experiments! All his material came from useless stuff, those for whom no one cared: beggars, criminals and adventurers whose luck had run out... And still, the stupid king had proclaimed necromancy illegal, and it was only a matter of time before they grabbed Othor.
He let out a long breath.
"Losers."
He looked around his cell. The place was small, dark and cold, with a tiny window high above leaking semi-darkness and a steady draft from the outside. On the floor there was a mattress for sleeping, to one day serve him as his deathbed by the design of his captors. "We'll see", thought Othor, but he didn't seem so bold even to himself.
-----
A guard opened the shutter on the door and shuffled in a bowl of some brew for Othor.
"Your lunch, prisoner", said the guard.
Othor took the bowl.
"Just how you like it", added the guard with derision.
Othor looked into the bowl and saw a couple of dead cockroaches floating in it. The guard laughed and closed the shutter.
-----
It was night but hardly all was quiet and hardly everyone was asleep at the prison. A guard tramped down the the corridor in unsteady torchlight. His voice boomed in a conversation with someone, maybe, another guard.
Othor lay without sleep on his matress. A flow of cold air from the window was troubling him on one side. Beside that, his mind was occupied with scheming against his gaolers and wouldn't let him rest for hours into the night until he succumbed to a viscous substance that was his dreams. Awake or in a slumber, images of death and suffering were constantly going through his head and he would wish sometimes they'd go away. But that didn't happen unless his mind grew sore and numb from plans and mad visions of revenge, and then the prisoner would be able to do nothing but stare into the wall opposite him or the darkness under his closed eyelids. Although during the night he sometimes had dreams that gave him a blissful longing in the chest when he woke up. But he almost never remembered what they were about. He thought there was a woman who was kind; she could be his mother. He was in a fruit garden with rows of strawberry along a side, and it smelt sweet all around him. Yet in a second he was at a cave entrance, and foul smells crept out of it. Then he was inside, and there were dozens of dusty books on a shelf and a sooty cauldron in the center. The last image was vivid in Othor's mind. That's where he would boil deadly potions in his imagination during his waking hours. The books were in his memory, too, and he would recite the old incantations under his breath and feel calm for half an hour.
He turned on one side and noticed a double twinkle in a dark corner. When he looked again, the twinkle had disappeared. The guard passed his door again. Othor quietly got up and peered into the corner closer. So, the draft wasn't from the window. It was from a little hole between a wall and the floor. Othor sat down. The twinkle was there again. If he strained hard, he was almost sure he could make out a small snout. He cautiously glanced at the door. The guard could be heard yawning loudly at his desk, some distance down the corridor. Othor picked up his bowl and put it several inches from the hole. There was some bread and leftovers from his dinner in the bowl.
"Hi, little buddy", he said softly, "hungry, eh?"
The snout and then the head of the creature appeared out of the hole.
"Those guards don't make it easy on either of us", continued Othor.
It was a rat. It was quite brave. Probably, most of the prisoners were quite kind to its kin. After all, it was rare to have any companion here. Rats were a gift, not a curse to local residents.
After some hesitation the creature came out and trotted, a few steps at a time, towards the bowl. Just by it, it stopped and looked at Othor.
"Come on, little buddy", he said encouragingly, "it's here. You're going to like it."
The rat sniffed at the contents of the bowl. Then bent its head and started eating.
Othor was quick. Surprisingly quick even for himself. The rat managed to make it only a couple of steps from the bowl. He grabbed it and snapped its neck.
"I hadn't practiced the lesser creature spells for quite a while", thought Othor, stifling the convulsions of the body in his hands.
-----
Rorec the guard was quite satisfied with his job. He didn't have to do much and could provide for his family. Also, people kneeled for him. The prisoners. He liked it. And he probably liked them being justly punished for their evil deeds. Yes, he liked it.
Except that there was that necromancer in cell 5. Subconsciously he was afraid of that guy. He didn't like that undead stuff and couldn't understand it very well. Some people, from other squads, from other towns, even fought undead. Told stories to those eager for a thrill from the cript. Rorec wasn't. He didn't like them. Even was afraid. But he had never shown it. It was his duty. He had to bear it.
Rorec was performing a regular round, feeding the prisoners. A guy in cell 4 just greedily grabbed his bowl after Rorec poured his dinner into it from a cauldron he was carrying with him. The guard picked up the cauldron and shuffled to the next door. He put down his burden and opened the shutter. Torches were throwing strange shadows on the wall. For some reason Rorec wanted to keep them in his sight, lest they turn into something more palpable. He composed himself.
"Hey, there, dinner time. Bring your bowl here", he said in a low, detached voice.
He heard footsteps and prepared a hand with the scoop in the cauldron. A thin hand placed a bowl into the opening. As Rorec reached for it, a sinister voice spoke from behind the door:
"Just how you like it."
A small furry ball jumped from the bowl onto Rorec's arm. He gasped and started shaking his arm wildly. The thing climbed up to his neck.
"Ah! What is it! Get it off me!" exclaimed Rorec.
The creature finally jumped off him and ran into a shadow. Another guard, Pum, appeared at the end of the corridor, alarmed.
"What happened?" he asked.
"He just set a rat or a mouse on me!" said Rorec.
"The necromancer?"
"Yes!"
"Is it somewhere here?"
"I don't know, it ran off."
"We should call Sudem", suggested Pum.
Rorec agreed. Sudem was the physician and the sorcerer for the prison. He was relied upon in the matters concerning necromancy, although he wasn't supposed to delve into it too deeply.
Sudem examined Rorec's arm and neck with a worried look.
"Well, you seem to be fine except for several scratches. You say it was a rat?"
"A rat or a mouse, I think", said Rorec.
"And it ran away".
"Yes, into that corner".
There was a tiny hole in the wall where Rorec was pointing. They looked at it with concern.
"This place wants repairs", said Rorec.
"What did you do that for?" asked the physician the window of cell 5.
"Gotta have some entertainment", was the answer.
"You're a freak", growled Pum. "Don't think about running away. You belong here. You're gonna rot in this place until you die!"
The prisoner didn't say anything.
Sudem rubbed some smelly medicine into the places where the rat touched Rorec, just in case. Then said:
"Let's hope that was just a joke and just a rat. But if you have a headache or feel sick in any way, visit me immediately, Rorec."
"Of course, Sudem", answered Rorec after a moment's hesitation.
He remembered stories of adventurers who battled undead. It might have been just for storytelling purposes but they always said that if a man had contracted necromancy there was only one cure for him - a hammer to the head. Still, Rorec remembered about his duty.
-----
The rat scurried through the tunnels in the rock of the prison walls. In the cold darkness it ran away from the cell of its doom, always in one direction, with its head hung to one side, catching onto obstacles when the rat turned corners. The rat was just a simple rodent, nothing if taken out of the mass of its kin. It would have run into a dead end or fallen into an underground chasm and rotten away. If not for a cat.
A cat was casually inspecting a storeroom near the kitchen when it heard a scratching of tiny claws through the wall. The scratching was even and steady and moved fast. The cat froze and traced the movement with widened pupils towards a hole in the wall. The predator carefully prowled to the hole and stopped just a pouncing distance away. It expected a bit of caution but the rat darted out of the hole as if something more deadly was pursuing it on the other end. The cat was confused just for a moment and then jumped. After several racing steps the rat was in the cat's jaws, kicking. The predator triumphantly started out of the storeroom. A couple of minutes passed before it felt that something was wrong. The strange tilt of its prey's head. The morbid scent of its fluid on the hunter's claws. The deadly stiffness of the body.
The cat dropped the rat down and ran, mewling loudly, to its master. It was just a cat. Not as small as a rat, it could have been tracked down and caught, then dealt with easily. If not for its mistress.
The cat ran into the kitchen and to the legs of Togi, the cook.
"Stop it, Thretel", the cook answered to its pet's sad mewls, "I'm busy."
But Thretel wouldn't stop. It mewled and mewled, with more and more sorrow. Until Togi finally turned around and picked the animal up. It lay in her hands, grabbing helplessly on its mistress with its claws, trying to hide from the impending doom.
Suddenly the cat's body became limp, the claws released their grip and the lifeless body fell out of Togi's hands.
"Thretel!" she screamed.
Togi kneeled by its pet's body and felt for lifesigns in it. Then picked it up and ran out of the kitchen.
-----
Sudem the physician was grave. Upon hearing Togi's story he pulled on leather gloves and called in the hammerer. It was a sturdy bearded man, whom the cook rarely met. He gave her the chills.
"She wasn't old", commented Sudem, placing the cat's body on a table.
"It is her fifth spring", said Togi, restraining sobs. "Is she dead, Sudem?"
The physician examined the body.
"I'm afraid so", he said after a pause.
Tears appeared in Togi's eyes.
"I'll... I'll take her then."
She moved towards the table. Sudem stopped her with a gentle touch of hand.
"Just one more thing", he said. "I'll have to do one more test. We've got a bit of... a situation at the prison, so..."
"What is it?" asked Togi, alarmed.
Sudem went towards his cabinet.
"Just a precautionary charm."
He took a small glittering metal box out of the cabinet and turned back to the table. He opened the box and picked a pinch of grey powder with his fingers. Togi watched him with wide-opened eyes. Sudem scattered the powder above the cat's body in one fluid movement.
And just as soon as particles of the powder touched the body, they turned into bright sparkles of sinister green. The air smelt strange.
"What does it mean?" exclaimed Togi.
The physician was silent for a moment. The hammerer, however, became a bit more lively.
"The test says positive. Now I need to examine you."
He looked closely at her face, then at her arms.
"You held her in your arms before she died?" he asked.
"Yes. She clung to me in her last moments", sobbed Togi.
Sudem suddenly cast down his eyes and turned away.
"Do it", he said.
"Do what?!" exclaimed Togi.
The hammerer came into motion. He grabbed his hammer and lifted it up. Togi froze in place in disbelief.
-----
It could have ended then but for the cat who rose on the table, its head hung low, just as the hammerer was swinging his tool. It jumped and landed on his back. Togi screamed.
-----
Rorec shrugged off strange uneasiness that had been lying at the bottom of his heart for some time now. He didn't know its source and he didn't like it. But his rounds went on. Nothing was more important here than security of those cells.
"Hey, guard", called him the voice of the necromancer from the window of his cell, "hear that? What's going on?"
"Whatever that is, it's none of your business", answered Rorec.
Indeed, for some time there had been some disturbing noises coming from the prison door. Sometimes thuds, sometimes loud voices. Of course, muffled by the door, so that Rorec felt quite safe. Whatever had been happening outside, it didn't concern him.
"You don't want to check it out", it was half question, half comment from the necromancer.
"I've got my post", said Rorec.
"Well, it's always good to be near honest people".
Rorec came to his table and sat on his stool. He thought about yawning but didn't do it. His clock ticked on. Tic-toc. Tic-toc. He looked at the wall and the hole by the floor caught his eye. He thought, "That's where time doesn't matter". Somehow he knew time didn't matter for the rat that had run in there.
He looked at the door of cell 5. And for that guy. Life sentence. Same as eternity. Suddenly he felt sorry for the prisoner. A huge, colourful world of dreams and aspirations, by a word of the judge, crammed into a space of ten by six between grey rock walls. What was he even doomed to it for? Rorec couldn't remember anymore.
"Hey, prisoner... Othor", he remembered the prisoner's name, "what is your crime?"
"I brought new meaning and new life to those who had lost them", spoke the prisoner calmly.
"That doesn't sound so bad", said Rorec musingly.
"Some people think differently."
"Why?" wondered Rorec.
"They are scared of the power that can do that. And angry that some can get a second chance this way."
"Well, they aren't right", decided Rorec. "I think. But I'm not so good at thinking. That's why I work here. Guards don't do much thinking. Clever people don't work here."
"No", disagreed the prisoner, "you are quite clever. I can see that."
"Me?" exclaimed Rorec, quite flattered.
"Yes. I think you are severely under-appreciated. With your abilities, wouldn't you rather be a famous warrior?"
"Well... That would be nice. But I am too old to become one."
"If only you could get your time back."
"Yes", murmured Rorec.
He quietly slipped into dreams.
The noises behind the door were slowly dying out. It was nice and calm. The torches on the wall grew darker. Or was it Rorec's sight? Even better. Easier to nap for a while.
"Tiresome, isn't it?" said Othor.
Rorec silently agreed.
-----
Even though the borders of his window didn't allow Othor to observe it physically, through some sixth sense he knew exactly when the guard's head dropped lifelessly on his chest.
"Come, my child", said Othor, "release me."
The undead creature got up from it's stool and shuffled towards the cell's door.
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Topic: Othor the necromancer. Edited... (Read 1038 times)