Dirge for a Necromancer - By Ash Stinson Page 0,49

pressed on. When they reached the ring of pillars with the pentagram mosaic at its center, he set up for his spell and bid Brecan stand in the middle of the star with him. That was where the blind wish took over.

In his dreams, the spell went right.

In his dreams, the black cloud of death lifted from his homeland.

In his dreams, he was a hero.

* * *

Somehow, he found himself on the citadel’s deepest floor. He couldn’t remember deciding to go there or the way he had passed to get there. But there he was.

For a moment, Raettonus thought about turning back. His stomach no longer ached, and he thought that he’d probably be able to get back to sleep. The problem was, he wasn’t really sure he wanted to go back to sleep.

The door to Vormekk’s tomb was slightly ajar as Raettonus approached it. He slipped inside, where the air was thick and musty. The ghost was still pacing, begging tearfully for his sword, when Raettonus went to him. He noticed Raettonus watching him and turned sadly. “Gods—can’t you hear me?” cried Vormekk. “Bring me my sword! They’re almost upon me! Please, for the sake of whatever love we ever shared—my sword! I hear them coming!” His eyes grew wide, and he looked fretfully around. “We were brothers in arms! Throw me my sword, at the very least!”

“No one’s going to give you a sword,” Raettonus told him. “You’re already dead.”

“They’re so close,” said the ghost, not hearing Raettonus. “I can hear them. They’re chanting in that demon’s tongue of theirs! Gods protect me—why won’t someone give me a sword? Place it in my hand! Better yet, place it through my throat! A sword—gods protect me—a sword! They’ll tear me apart!”

“They already have, you stupid fool,” Raettonus said. There was pity in his voice, beneath the hard and cynical tones—genuine pity, without any barbs.

Vormekk reached out one colorless, translucent hand toward Raettonus’ shoulder. “Gods protect me—please, I beg you as a humble man,” he said, his face wet with tears. “I am a servant of the king and no more. Please, give me your sword. I could protect us both and the citadel too, if I only had a sword!”

Raettonus gave the apparition no answer, but only went and sat with his back to the wall, watching the ghost fret. The long-dead General Vormekk continued to cry for his sword and, eventually, Raettonus drifted off to sleep, his muddled dreams colored by the centaur’s pleas.

He was awoken quite a time a later by the sound of hooves as Dohrleht and Maeleht entered the room with Ebha walking quietly behind them. Raettonus rose to meet them in the center of the room. The young centaurs greeted Raettonus, and they walked together toward the sarcophagus and sat down before it. With little pomp, Raettonus got down to their lesson.

Raettonus knew well how things would go for them. The first time he had reached the point where he was able to see ghosts was still so vivid to him that it might as well have been no more than a day ago, much less centuries and centuries. It wasn’t the sort of thing which one easily forgot.

They would be able to hear the ghost before they could really see him. It started out as a dim murmuring, impossible to make out. As Raettonus instructed and corrected them, the words would become clearer and seem less to come from all around them. After several hours, Maeleht was the first of the brothers to be able to make out the ghost’s form, with Dohrleht following soon after. The ghost noticed them watching him and wheeled on them. “A sword! Please—my sword!” he cried.

Maeleht shuddered and inched himself back, gripping the tattered sleeve of Raettonus’ tunic with one frail hand. “He can’t hurt you,” Raettonus assured him.

“Please,” said Vormekk. “Please, give me my sword!”

“Isn’t there anything we can do to help him?” asked Dohrleht. “He’s so frightened.”

Raettonus let out a sigh and stood, putting his hand on the hilt of his rapier. “I suppose you ought to understand, boys, that the cure is usually worse than the disease,” he said as he walked toward the ghost. He drew his blade and offered it to Vormekk’s ghost, hilt-first. The ghost looked at him with wide, disbelieving eyes before reaching out toward it.

“May the gods protect you, sir!” he said, closing his incorporeal fingers around the hilt. He pulled his hand away, and with it came a