Dirge for a Necromancer - By Ash Stinson Page 0,38

there was a spell in them that mortals were using to enchant weapons. Gods can only be killed by enchanted weapons, you know.”

“Was there something else you needed?” Raettonus asked evenly, cinching up his belt.

“Slade’s body. If you could tell me where he was buried, I can revive him a lot quicker. It’s hard for me to look into the world you came from, so I couldn’t look for his grave,” Kimohr Raulinn said, pulling out a book from the bookshelf. He began to thumb through it. “What is this? Is this from your world?”

“Yeah,” said Raettonus. “Even if it weren’t hard for you to look for it, you’d never find his grave. I never buried Master Slade. Give me a moment; I’ll get his body for you.”

Raettonus went to the bed and knelt on it. Taking a deep breath, he reached his hands out and focused on reaching into that holding space between worlds. His fingers brushed against a pitcher and a book with a soft leather cover. He kept probing the area until he felt cloth beneath his fingers. Beneath the cloth was flesh—stiff and cold and dead. He grabbed hold of the corpse and pulled it out of that space, onto the bed.

Sir Slade looked just the same as he had the day Raettonus had put him into that timeless world between worlds. His eyes and cheeks were sunken, but he hadn’t decayed. He was dressed in his best clothing, all in black and red with rampant gryphons embroidered across his chest. Raettonus remembered how he had washed and bandaged the wound that had killed him; between the fresh clothes and the red of his doublet, you couldn’t even tell there had been a wound. Slade’s empty blue eyes, clouded with death and illness, stared upwards.

Kimohr Raulinn closed the book he’d been looking at and walked to the bedside. “You kept his corpse?” asked the god. “Well. That’s not creepy. Not at all. Can I have this book?”

“No,” said Raettonus, taking it from him.

“All right,” said Kimohr Raulinn. “I was only asking. There’s no need to snap.” He took Slade’s limp wrist. “It’s going to take a while, but I’ll make him live again. In the meanwhile, make sure you take care of yourself. I’m sure you don’t have anything to worry about, but you never know what might be sailing your way. Until we meet again, my sweet Raettonus.”

And then he was gone, along with the body of Sir Slade. Raettonus stared at the place where the corpse had been for a full minute before he went to place his old tome back in the bookcase. He was sore all over, and he felt unclean. Deciding a bath might do him good, he snuffed out the fire in the brazier and left his room.

As he thought of what had just transpired, he couldn’t help but feel like a fool to let Kimohr Raulinn have his way with him so easily and then go off with Slade’s body, just like that. The god claimed he could resurrect him, but Raettonus didn’t have any proof he really could. He’d been far too trusting, he realized as he made his way toward the Kaebha Citadel’s bathing facilities. He’d allowed himself to believe Kimohr Raulinn could fix everything, and he’d been used.

As he opened the door to the bathing room, a cloud of steam rushed to meet Raettonus. The chamber within was large and cavernous, with several large pools carved into the stone floors. Centaurs were milling about, both in the water and beside it, as Raettonus stripped and made his way down into one of the pools. The side of the bath gently sloped to a flat bottom to make it easy for centaurs to get in and out, and the water was hot, but not hot enough to bother Raettonus in any way. He closed his eyes and sank beneath the water for a minute before resurfacing. His long, blond hair—now untied—spread out around his head and shoulders like blood in the water.

The pool he had chosen was empty but for him. In the bath beside him, however, two soldiers were splashing at each other and shouting in Kaerikyna. It was an awful language, Kaerikyna—it was full of hard sounds and the words were all too long. Centaurs had the most hideous language he’d ever heard. He much preferred what they called Common Zylekkhan—a hodgepodge language mostly based in Taurkyna, with some Kaerikyna, Zykyna, and Dokk’kyna words. It