Necromancer's Curse Read online

  “You sick bastard!” Thorgar screamed.

  The Necromancer floated down to their level, his eyes on fire. He hissed again, and this time Bipp was certain it was laughter. “That was nothing compared to what I have in store for the two of you.”

  Bipp gulped and backed away, the frying pan shaking in his trembling hands.

  “Oh yes,” the Necromancer rasped, lifting his staff while purple lights swirled around it, growing in intensity, “you’re going to regret that little stunt you pulled in my sanctum.”

  Logan saw the Necromancer grab the priestess and pull her up toward the ceiling. “Corbin,” he called, pointing toward the windows, “the Necromancer’s up there with Bipp!”

  Corbin was in the middle of a backward somersault. He landed on the balls of his feet then shifted to a crouching position that brought him inches from the floor just seconds before the golem’s hand waved by. “You better go help him,” he managed to say before throwing his body in the air to avoid the golem’s foot, which kicked across where he had been.

  Corbin landed and drove his twin blades into the monster’s ankle. The blades flicked in and then he was running away, keeping out of reach of the patchwork behemoth.

  Logan looked back up at the room. The Necromancer was saying something to Bipp and Thorgar, but he could not make it out. “Damn it,” he grumbled, running back into the fray with the golem. There was no way he could abandon his brother to the behemoth. “Isaac, what are you doing? Get over here and help!”

  The mage was still as a statue in the brush. His mouth was working as he mouthed some silent incantation, and he held his staff horizontally in front of his chest.

  “Let him cast his spells,” Corbin said, narrowly avoiding a fist that ripped a huge section away from one of the dead trees. The flesh golem was getting frustrated. The human refused to stay still.

  Nero ran straight past Logan, falling into a slide between the flesh golem’s legs. The abomination either did not notice or did not consider him a viable threat, because it just kept attacking Corbin, one fist at a time. Corbin ducked under one, and held his blade overhead so that it cut into the beast’s wrist. A spatter of rotting meat hit the floor, the smell of it burning Logan’s nose.

  Unfortunately in an attempt to avoid the golem’s attack, Corbin was running in that exact direction and slipped in the gore. A glancing blow caught him in the back, sending his body hard into the base of a nearby tree.

  Logan heard the crack of bone against wood and shrieked. “Stay away from my brother you tub of lard!”

  Gandiva flew steady and true for the golem’s thigh, which split open like a grape. The flesh golem howled and stumbled for a moment.

  Suddenly Nero appeared in the uppermost branches of a tree behind it and leapt onto the golem’s neck. He wrapped his arms around the golem and began assaulting it with blow after blow to the base of its skull.

  The golem shook and bucked, trying to get him off, but it could not break loose the android’s robotic grip. Deciding on a different course, the golem ran backward, crushing Nero against the stone wall beneath the apartments.

  Logan knew Nero was in trouble when he slumped to the floor. The raging behemoth bent over to pick up the android and slammed him into the floor like a doll. Nero surprisingly held up against the deadly attack, but the golem would not be deterred. It pressed one hand against his chest, pinning him to the floor, and began pummeling his face.

  “No!” Logan screamed, sending Gandiva straight for the creature’s face.

  The world stood still when the flesh golem snapped its hand in the air and caught Gandiva. Logan stood dumbfounded as it glared at him and tossed the mystical weapon into the brush.

  “How did he—?” Logan did not have time to finish his thought as Nero’s body hit him full in the chest. He rolled across the floor, and the side of his ribs crashed against the side of a raised garden bed.

  Logan groaned, and the room bent oddly. The stupid golem had gotten him again.

  “Logan, get back on your feet!” Corbin called.

  The flesh golem brushed Nero aside and stomped over to the puny human that had stung him. It was sick of fighting these pathetic creatures, wanting nothing more than to dispatch them and return to its master’s side, where it might be more useful. The one lying on the ground staring into space was especially annoying, having stung it several times now.

  “Over here, beast!” Isaac called.

  The golem snapped its head in his direction, and Isaac stepped out from the brush six times, each version of himself splitting away and moving closer to it. Even Corbin, who had pulled himself up and was leaning aginst the dead tree, had to blink twice to see if six Isaacs actually stood in front of him. Grasping his side, which stung each time he took a step, he staggered over to Logan.

  “I’ll distract it,” Isaac said. “Be ready to get your brother out of there!”

  The golem snarled and began batting the mages. For each one that fell away, another emerged. It howled with more frustration and tried harder.

  Isaac laughed at the simple-minded beast. “You can’t hurt me, fiend. I am beyond your feeble reach!”

  The golem stomped on one of the Isaacs then slammed his fist down on another. Relentlessly, each time he put one down, a new version of Isaac stepped out of the trees so that there were always six of them. Soon they circled the golem, who was beginning to whimper and pull at its dirty hair.

  Logan accepted his brother’s hand and achingly found his feet again. “Where’s Nero?” he grunted, holding the side of his head.

  “I am here,” Nero called, staggering from a tangled garden bed. His left leg was shattered, oozing white liquid, with exposed wires beneath. Even though they had always known he was an android, the sight of his mechanical inner workings came as no less of a shock.

  “Nero!” Corbin exclaimed. “You’re—”

  “It’s nothing I cannot repair,” Nero said.

  “The three of you best dispatch this beast,” Isaac said, still toying with the infuriated golem.

  “Yeah, but how?” Logan called over.

  The flesh golem turned its head and saw its prey, all three upright and walking. Its eyes narrowed, and the golem let out a low rumbling noise from deep inside.

  “That can’t be good,” Logan said.

  The golem turned and grabbed a fallen tree. It lifted the rotted log and spun around, slamming it down over Corbin and Logan as if it were swatting flies.

  Corbin threw his arms up instinctively. His mental denial rang out so loud, it pierced the minds of everything within a hundred yards.

  The trunk came down with deadly speed, but suddenly it struck the open air as if it had hit a steel beam, caught in Corbin’s telekinetic shield. The effort of it was staggering, forcing Corbin to his knees, and it felt like liquid fire pumped through his brain. For any ordinary novice, the sheer act would have shattered their mind, yet Corbin held on.

  The golem tried pushing down harder, puzzled why the log had stopped. When it would not budge, it tried to pull back, but its weapon was stuck in midair, and its hands with it. The golem began to flex and fight hard against the invisible force.

  Corbin grunted as he struggled to maintain his psychic grip, the veins in his forehead throbbing as he focused every fiber of his being into that mental hold.

  “Now, Logan!” Isaac called.

  The golem’s finger began to pull away from the log, breaking free of Corbin’s command.

  “Ah, what’s a couple extra years of life?” Logan said, throwing his mechanical hand up and sending out a pulse of electricity.

  The concussive force threw him to the ground, and the blast caught the giant golem square in the chest, sending it staggering backward.

  Isaac lifted his staff in the air, and a giant, decayed root twisted out from the soil behind the behemoth, tripping it before it could regain its balance. Shards of glass tore the flesh golem’s torso as it crashed backward through the greenhouse wall, tu
mbling out of the castle.

  Logan ran over to the window, joined by Isaac, to see the golem on its back in the dead grass, surrounded by shocked cobolds. The golem had landed right in the middle of their army, crushing several of them under its sheer mass. A circle of embers smoked in the center of its chest, where Logan had struck.

  One of the hairy little creatures prodded the golem with a spear, unsure what to make of it. The golem growled and slapped it with an open palm, breaking the cobold’s neck. With that, the army of monsters cried out and swarmed over the flesh golem, hundreds of them stabbing and kicking and gnawing on what they believed must be a demon sent against them by the gnomes.

  “Good riddance.” Logan spit out the window.

  Corbin was back on his feet but weak, wiping blood from his nose with the back of his hand. “Thank Óðinn that’s over.”

  “Hurry now, we have to go help Bipp and the King,” Logan said.

  “I fear it may be too late for our friend,” Nero said.

  Above them, through the window of the initiate common room, they could see Bipp lying face-down, unmoving, while the Necromancer battled the king.

  Every muscle in King Thorgar’s body clenched, flexing and unflexing, as waves of black energy wracked him. When the assault subsided, his teeth were still chattering.

  “Is that all you got?” he struggled to say through a jaw that did not want to obey his commands.

  The Necromancer cackled, throwing his hooded face toward the ceiling. “King Thorgar, you are such a simple-minded fool. I almost pity you your ignorance.”

  “Shut your mouth and fight, coward,” Thorgar snarled, launching into the air and swiping his axe down.

  The Necromancer may have been laughing, but he only brought his staff up to block the attack at the last moment, surprised the gnome had any fight left in him after the brutal lashing he had just taken. As soon as Thorgar’s axe was parried, the king brought his solid forehead into the Necromancer’s exposed chest, knocking him back toward the wall.

  The king was a master of hand-to-hand combat, and what he lacked in cunning, he made up for in sheer force of will. However, the Necromancer saw through Thorgar’s ruse and was not about to be backed into a corner. As quick as a shadow, he parried one after another of the king’s next volley of attacks.

  Bipp’s body felt hollow. When he tried to lift his head, waves of nausea swept over him. The Necromancer had unleashed one of his spectres and caught him with a brutal assault. Bipp had barely been able to fight it off when a bolt of nether energy stung him from behind. His legs were still numb, and thinking about anything was excruciating. He could hear the king and the Necromancer trading insults, but none of their words made sense.

  Somehow Bipp managed to get his head up, just enough to search the floor for his hammer. His eyes landed on Alma, and he winced. Her face was frozen in a scream of absolute terror and agony, dried like a mummy, and her body was broken into dusty pieces.

  “Poor priestess,” he mumbled.

  Beside her lay a frying pan. Bipp blinked dumbly at it, drawing a complete blank for long moments, while Thorgar jumped behind a toppled table to avoid a wave of crackling shadow energy. Then it all came flooding back, how he had lost his hammer, how the frying pan was all he had in this fight, and then how the Necromancer had sent a spectre after him.

  Bipp felt like he was outside his body, amazed to see he was crawling on hands and knees for the weapon. Outside the common room door, an orb of light began to flicker.

  Oh no, Bipp thought, the priestess’ light is fading. He knew this would be disastrous for him and the king. Alma’s guiding light was the only thing keeping the Necromancer’s legion from entering the room, and the gnome boy with glowing eyes stood in the doorway, staring hungrily at Bipp.

  Bipp’s fingers closed around something cold and solid. He flicked his gaze to the frying pan in his hand and recoiled. Alma’s face was right beside him.

  King Thorgar threw a chair at the Necromancer, who easily destroyed it with a howling spectre. However, it was only a ploy, a tactic to blind the dark sorcerer long enough for Thorgar to move around him and bring his axe down hard on the fiend’s arm. The Necromancer wailed and lashed out with his other arm. There was a loud sizzling noise, and Thorgar tumbled to the floor, screaming in agony.

  The Necromancer chanted in his obscene language and his arm began to mend, popping back into place as shadows swirled and pulsated around his floating form.

  “You are a fool. Did you really believe a mortal weapon could damage me?” he hissed. “You’re beat, Thorgar. Give up and join my ranks. It is, after all, inevitable.”

  Through clenched teeth that dripped blood, the king growled, “Never.”

  The Necromancer lifted his staff overhead and his crimson eyes flamed.

  “What about Ohm?” Bipp yelled across the room.

  The Necromancer found it mildly interesting that he was still alive. “Ohm?”

  “You devoted all your life to his teachings,” Bipp said, pulling himself shakily to his feet. “I don’t understand. Why have you forsaken our people? How could you stray so far?”

  “Forsaken our people?” the Necromancer said as if the words were foreign to him. “How can you ask that of me? It was I who tried to warn the fools of the dangers closing in around us.”

  “I know,” Bipp said, “and when you went to them, they turned you away. But Ohm teaches forgiveness above all else.”

  The Necromancer made a wet noise, as if he had just coughed up an organ. “Turned me away? What do you know of it? I wasn’t turned away. I brought them the truth, presented the strong King Thorgar with clarity and a path. And how did they reward me for that foresight? They ridiculed me!” A crack of shadow burst from his staff, rippling through the king.

  “They did not know any better!” Bipp pleaded to keep the Necromancer’s attention. “Is it not the job of Ohm’s disciples to spread enlightenment?”

  The Necromancer hissed again. He found Bipp quite amusing. “You can’t teach a brainless oaf to think. Ohm’s a fool!”

  Bipp gasped at the proclamation, dropping his frying pan to the floor. He staggered and had to fight hard to bend over and retrieve it. The Necromancer cackled and tortured the king with another peel of shadow energy.

  “Y-you’re nothing but a coward,” Thorgar growled on his hands and knees.

  “A coward? Bah! Says the pig ready for the roast!”

  Thorgar punched the air and slammed his palm onto the floor. Unbelievably, he forced himself back up to his knees and pointed his glass axe at the Necromancer. “You’re pathetic. Always have been, always will be. You think I don’t remember how you stood in my Hall and cried like a child when I turned down your request?”

  “You forsook everything,” the Necromancer roared, “all because you were too stupid to see the approaching threat! You’d rather sit on your throne and have servants wait on you hand and foot than go out to the villages and protect your flock!”

  “So your solution was to bring the pits of darkness down upon us?” Thorgar snorted. “What kind of logic is that? Now who’s the fool?”

  The Necromancer circled the king’s kneeling body, flickering blurs and smears of his being dancing in the mirrors while the Shadow Stone floated around him. Bipp’s shaking hands grasped the frying pan and he heard something shifting in the hall. The ghoul child was scratching the doorframe with his torn fingertips, growing more excited as the orb of light began to pulse again.

  “I’m glad you turned me away,” the Necromancer bellowed. “In my youth, I was a fool. So naïve to the true nature of things. In this world, it is the strong who survive and the powerful who rule.”

  “Oh, so now you want to be ruler?” Thorgar said, pushing himself to rise again.

  “You are unfit for the task. I saw that when you turned your back on your people,” the Necromancer said, still circling the king. “I am the master of the Shadow Stone! I am the Dark Lord’s prince in this world,
as has ever been my destiny. It is I who will open the way for his return, for the Third Rising! And he will reward those who ushered in the darkness, and we will become rulers of his Nine Worlds.”

  “You speak of madness!” Thorgar said, truly stupefied.

  The Necromancer snarled and sent two bolts of dark light at the king, slamming him back to the ground. Bipp whimpered as Thorgar convulsed uncontrollably, his face pressed against the stone floor.

  “Grovel like the pig you are, Thorgar. You dare mock the Shadow Lord’s coming? Feel the power of the Shadow Stone tear through your soul! You were too weak to rule then, and you’re too pathetic to fight me now!”

  The Shadow Stone? Bipp wondered as the dim reflection of an idea formed in his mind. He stared at the floating relic of immense power, following its circular patterns around the Necromancer’s form. There was something there, something he was missing, but what was it?

  Remember, Bipp, you fool, he cursed himself, slapping his temple. There was something about the stone echoing in his mind. Something about the way it was used? No, that wasn’t it. As hard as Bipp tried, he could only come up with a pale reflection of the concept stuck in the foggy recesses of his battered mind. He lost sight of the stone’s reflection, replaced by a blurry smear as the Necromancer floated sideways.

  Bipp’s eyes snapped back to the Shadow Stone when it came into view, studying each angle of it, each sparkling black facet of the stone’s brilliance. Why did they even call it a stone? Wasn’t the sparkling relic more of a crystal? He suddenly felt it was ironic that they needed a crystal to destroy the Crystal.

  It’s distracting you, Bipp thought, shaking his head. In his gut he knew he was right, but why? The answer hit him like a thunderclap, its clarity parting the clouds in his mind. The Shadow Stone had been keeping him from remembering all he had read in Hublin’s journal. It was protecting itself. A vision of Hublin sealing away the dragon At’lef, Keeper of the library, came to him. That was it, that was the missing piece he had been grasping for.