The Enterprise of Death Page 7

  “I’ll do anything you want, and not run, nor disobey,” said Awa, unable to keep her eyes off the corpse of Omorose standing behind the necromancer as they sat at the table, the bone broth steaming between them. “But you let her go.”

  “Where to?” His bemused smile sickened her.

  “To wherever the dead go when sorcerers don’t enslave them,” said Awa, her voice unwavering. “You let me bury her, and you never touch her again, or let your servants touch her, or eat her, or anything else. You let her sleep, and if you do then I will be as good an apprentice as you could hope for.”

  “Alright,” said the necromancer, and with a wave of his hand Omorose’s corpse collapsed in a pile on the floor. “Now eat your supper, it’s getting cold.”

  Refusing the help of the bonemen, Awa found the mountainside less than accommodating to an amateur gravedigger. She eventually settled on the far side of the glacier where the rock shelf reemerged from under the ice just before the cliff fell away. On the narrow outcrop of stone she built a cairn over her mistress, and the spirits of the glacier promised to keep Omorose cool lest the summer sun ripen her into something delectable to scavengers. Awa stacked the rocks high, her fresh wounds nothing more than fresher scars and minor aches after only a few days of taking the necromancer’s cure.

  That first winter alone with the necromancer was the worst, with him jumping the bones of his beloved restless dead on an almost nightly basis. Between his romps she discovered where he actually slept, and how. In the mornings when he sent her out to spar with the bandit chief he animated the bear corpse, which would rear up on its hind legs while the necromancer unlatched a catch in its fur, making its whole chest swing open on a hinge. Then he would step inside, careful not to snag himself on its ribs, and pull the furry door shut behind him. The undead bear watched Awa intently whenever she came in to bind a wound or start cooking their dinner but only growled if she approached it. Knowing she would have to learn all his secrets to avenge her mistress, Awa became the model pupil and asked him about his sleeping habits one midwinter day when they were snowed in.

  “If you mean to ask why I sleep inside a giant, monstrous beast instructed to rend apart anyone who might disturb my rest I would ask what happened to your previously acceptable wits.” The necromancer’s concubine tittered from atop the bear’s back —it was still on all fours after the previous night’s activities.

  “I think there’s more to it,” said Awa. “You don’t always sleep, and when you do it’s always during the day, when I’m out.”

  “Any old sod can see when the sun is up, but by keeping a nocturnal regimen I train my eyes to see better than an owl in the dark.” With his long nose and fat, round eyes he did look something like an emaciated owl, although Awa, never having seen such a bird, did not realize it.

  “There’s more,” said Awa.

  “More?”

  “More.” Awa nodded. “You don’t want me to see you sleep, and not just because we’re all vulnerable when we sleep. You’ve your bear, after all, and I couldn’t hurt you if I tried. So why do you hide?”

  “She’s calling you afraid!” said the concubine.

  “Not afraid,” said the necromancer, but his left eye twitched as he spoke, and he snapped his fingers to dismiss his paramour. Her desiccated corpse went limp atop the bear and he steepled his fingers, watching Awa closely. “And no, you couldn’t hurt me if you tried. Iron, as I’ve told you, is one of the only symbols that represents what it truly is, here and on the so-called Platonic level of reality, and thus it can hurt even one such as myself. Because it is a true material and not just a symbol of something else, iron restricts our ability to alter the world, be it talking with spirits or commanding symbols or however you put it. But the usual methods will heal an iron-caused wound, and if I feared it in general I wouldn’t give you a sword of the stuff, would I?”

  “No,” said Awa, suddenly quite nervous. She had suspected that iron might be the key to undoing him, for she dimly recalled that in her homeland the metal was supposedly important to sorcerers. Accordingly, she had stashed one of the swords under the ice of the glacier near the hut to always have cold iron close at hand were he to give her the opportunity to use it. If he were sleeping unguarded, for example. She swallowed, his large eyes ever on his sole pupil. “So why do you sleep inside the bear?”

  The necromancer forced a sigh and pushed his chair back. “Come on then, let’s teach you how to die.”

  “What? I don’t—”

  “Just a little death, dear Awa, although that means something quite different to the Normans. Beware Norman lovers, their hearts are made of iron even if they’re softer elsewhere.” Awa knew better than to run. His bluish fingers brushed the nape of her neck and she felt her whole body fall away. She remained seated on the bone stool but her heart had stopped and she could not even make herself blink. She began to panic. She was dead, but she was still trapped in her body, and the terror that death was an eternity trapped in one place and nothing more settled onto her cooling heart.

  “You’re dead,” the necromancer breathed in her ear. “But you’re not. It’s how we can prolong our lives—instead of sleeping I let myself die for a little while, so that the days granted my mortal flesh are extended. Yes, days. Picture your life as a day, Awa, with dawn your birth and sunset your death, and everything in between a single, impossibly long day. The sun keeps its pace regardless of whether we are waking or sleeping, and eventually twilight comes for even the most long-lived creature. You already know several means for healing yourself, for slowing the sun, as it were, but now I’ll teach you something better —how to freeze the sun in the sky of your life, to bring it to a standstill. The only way to cheat death is to die first, to give yourself willingly, and with the methods for revival.”

  Then his fingers scalded her neck with their warmth and her heart lurched forward and she gagged on the air as her lungs pushed and her body jolted. Her temples pounded and she felt sick, icy sweat coating her instantly. He resumed his seat.

  “We are living, of course, and if we were to truly die then no necromancy could revive us to this marvelous mortal coil that all undead envy. Any seeming advantages to be gained from lacking a heartbeat are suspect at best, and pathetic. The undead are wretched, jealous animals, Awa, all of them!” His sudden fury would have frightened her far more had he not recently killed her, or close to it.

  “How then?” Awa managed, sure the secret to his vulnerability lay at hand. “How did you, how do you …”

  “It’s not true death, of course.” The necromancer shook his head to dispel whatever spirits darkened his mood. “Your organs would putrefy in no time at all. They do freeze up, however, and returning can take some getting used to. The truth of Awa, of course, is everything—you were aware even though your heart had stopped and your brain, supposed home of all your ability and knowledge, was dead. You were dead, were you not?”

  “I was.” Awa shuddered at the memory.

  “The body, the symbol, had died, but unlike real death the spirit, the spark, the truth, remained, and with that you could bring your body back, you could unlock your flesh and live again. But only assuming no damage was done in the meantime, yes? Pity the witch cast on the pyre while in the torpor of a little death!”

  “So when we die normally, the spirit does not linger?” Awa was intensely relieved.

  “Of course not,” the necromancer snorted. “Not all of it anyway, and where the bulk of the spirit goes is anyone’s guess. The dead cannot tell lies, not a one of them, but when they are brought back to this world they cannot remember where they were, only what they knew in life and what has befallen their bones. What happens after a true death is beyond our ken, but a piece of the spirit lingers ever after, enough to weld bones together even in the absence of tissue, enough to power the dead to do our will. Can you guess where that little piece lingers, the sliver of spirit that does not get to toddle off to ever after?”

  �
�The skull,” said Awa.

  “Correct. So long as the skull is intact the remains can be raised, and even if the skull is ruined you can salvage the other pieces and attach them to working servants. My own tutor was obsessed with building new creatures instead of being content with the shapes men and beasts take. He was a peculiar man, and quite dreadful. He had me flogged by a six-armed rotten ape whenever I displeased him, which was often enough, and two of the ape’s hands were seal flippers so you can imagine how it stung.”

  Awa could not.

  “So this is the day you become a necromancer.” The old man looked a little moist around the eyes, but it could have been from the steam of the wormwood tea he had just topped off. “First you learn to die, and then you learn to cheat death. Understanding how to revive our own bodies is easier once we’ve mastered the simpler method of raising the mindless ones, your so-called bonemen. Show me what you can do.” He waved his hand and Awa’s skeleton stool collapsed, the bones cutting her legs as she bruised herself on the floor.

  Dusting herself off and ignoring the necromancer’s guffaws, Awa peered down at the bones. She remembered well what he had taught her but hated the notion of ordering any spirit to do her will, even, were the necromancer to be believed, a piece of a spirit. She would do as she always did and ask instead of order, much as it might displease him, and with a bit of concentration she saw the shard of the skeleton’s spirit crouching like a little gray mouse in the skull’s eye socket. Yet when she asked it to pull itself together in exchange for a proper burial once she disposed of the necromancer she received no answer, nor any sign it understood.

  “What have I told you?” the necromancer sneered, cottoning on to the delay. “This parleying with spirits you do is pure sheep-shit, it’s just what you tell yourself you’re doing to justify to little Awa what she’s about. Now stop talking to walls and raise the fucking thing already!”

  The bones came off the floor in a cloud, passing over the table like a swarm of bees and re-forming atop the necromancer. He yelped and spilled his tea, falling back as the skeleton dug its fingers into his throat. Then the necromancer jabbed his finger and it passed through the skeleton’s skull as though it were soft clay, the heap of bones rolling off of him onto the floor. He clapped a shaking hand to his bloody neck, Awa staring open-mouthed at her injured tutor. She had only thought it for an instant but—

  The door burst open behind her and the bonemen snatched her up and threw her on the table. The necromancer reared and struck like a riled serpent, something sharp and metal in his hand, but Awa did not scream even as the knife bit into her stomach, the blade breaking its point on the granite table as it passed through flesh and skin, shards of metal splintering off inside her, and then the night took her.

  The necromancer was feeding her when she awoke, and to her intense dismay Awa realized she was lying on the bear, bundled in his stinking, crusty blankets. She was still too weak to move other than to lap up the stew, which was rich and salty and free of the chestnuts the bonemen gathered from the foothills for a change, precious chunks of meat bobbing in the bowl as plentiful as the various aches Awa felt. She sucked on a piece of fat, trying not to focus on her frowning nursemaid. His neck bore new scars but they were frustratingly shallow.

  “That was good,” said the necromancer. “Very, very good. I’m sorry I lost my temper with you, but I think we both understand each other better now, don’t we?”

  Awa nodded, slurping up the stew. Already the icicles of hurt embedded in her stomach and chest were melting, and her numb left foot began to itch. She had been rash, but he had been frightened, or else he would not have—

  “To make sure we understand each other, I have taken certain measures,” the necromancer said, ladling another spoonful up to Awa’s mouth. She did not take it, looking anxiously at him. “With all the import you put on spirits this and spirits that, I thought it might behoove me to take a little of yours, just so you know that I can.”

  Awa felt queasy but knew only the stew could take it away, and reluctantly took the offered spoon. After swallowing, she steeled herself and said, “You can’t. Not unless I give it to you, or I’m dead.”

  “No?” The necromancer leaned in. “For one of my skill gobbling up spirits isn’t just easy, it’s profitable. I take their knowledge, I take their strength, I take everything. I could gnaw the spirit off your bones like a fox on a chicken leg, were I so inclined, and then you’d be nothing but a lot of meat on a little skeleton. Believe you me, Awa, that’s far worse than any sort of death you’ve heard of, having your spirit consumed. There’s no coming back from that.”

  Awa flinched and whispered, “Do it, then.”

  “So brave!” The necromancer stuck out his lower lip. “Or are you just sour, my little Awa? If I ate your soul who would I have to cook my supper, to darn my leggings? Who would I have to learn my many lessons? No no, you stay with me. A little bite to tide me over, though, to convince you I’m serious. Your name would be one thing, not that little evening moniker you’ve given me, Awa—”

  She froze. He couldn’t know—

  “You don’t know it yourself anymore, do you? Were you so young when you were taken that you never learned it, or did you make yourself forget, maybe to keep your captors from having more power over you? You always were the bright one, Awa, weren’t you? Nothing’s more powerful than a name, a birth-name, and with that you can do all manner of mischief—very clever to blot it out!”

  One of her first owners had called her Awa, but she had not forgotten her true name for the reasons he said—she had forgotten because it was easier to pretend she was dead, the same as she had forgotten the faces of her parents, the name of her mother. She made herself forget as much as she could, to make the fragments that would never dissipate somewhat less heartrending. The slavers with axes, the last time she had screamed before encountering the mindless dead—

  “Over here, Awa.” The necromancer was snapping his fingers in front of her face. “Don’t look so scared—it’s not your name I’m taking today, it’s something much smaller—I know what you refuse to give me, and so, on principle, I will take it. I will take everything from you if the mood strikes me, Awa.”

  Awa could no longer focus on him, instead looking down at the cooling stew. He meant it, she knew he did, and the thought made her long for oblivion, for an end to everything. Was that what he was doing, making her so miserable that the only succor she might find would be through losing herself entirely? She would not fall for it, she decided, she would be strong.

  “But to prove I’m a sport why don’t we play by your rules?” The necromancer offered her another spoonful, and she took it. The stew no longer tasted delicious, it tasted like mud and tears. “I know what you’re afraid of, little Awa, I knew the night you arrived what you wouldn’t give me. I let you keep it because you pleased me but I see now I’ve been too lenient, too soft, too much the friend and not enough the parent. So now you give me a little scream, and with it a little piece of your soul. Or so you believe, yes?”

  He offered another spoonful, his exaggerated pout offset by the firelight that made his wide eyes all the more mischievous. She knew he was capable of anything but she would not give him that, would not give anyone that, not for anything. She had failed herself that first night in the cave, but he was not there then, he was waiting atop the mountain, and all those who had heard Awa then were now dead. The necromancer was right—if she were to let herself that would mean giving him a part of her soul, and she had given him all that she could bear. She—

  She saw the small bones rising out of the spoon like a windfall branch in a puddle after the rains, a pair of little white pieces still connected by pale tissue. A toe. Nothing special in that; cannibalism had been the least of Awa’s troubles for quite some time. What made her pause was that her own left foot still itched terribly, and as she flexed to wake it up the bones in the spoon bent of their own accord, sending a ripple across their tiny poo
l. She dropped the spoon back in the bowl.

  Later, after it was done, Awa wondered how such a simple trick could have broken her after all she had seen and experienced on the mountaintop, but break her it did. Following her gaze down toward her swathed legs, the necromancer stood up, his lips making a surprised O, and, handing her the bowl of soup, he yanked the blankets off. She clung to the bowl as if it were the myrrh crate all those years before when she had almost drowned with Omorose and Halim, and again she was almost drowning, only now the sea was inside her.

  Her left foot was missing, her ankle bound in bloody linens. She felt it, it was still there only invisible, and she flexed it as hard as she could. She saw the toe bones bend again in her bowl, and something larger sloshed in the cauldron over the fire, stew splashing down to hiss on the coals, and for the first time since she had seen the dead walk Awa screamed.

  The bowl clattered on the floor. Then the door burst open and the bonemen pranced inside, led by the necromancer’s concubine. Some of them carried swords and rocks to bang against each other and the rest scooped up the unused cooking implements by the fire, beating pots and pans together as they jumped and spun around the room. Awa scarcely noticed, staring at her stump and screaming and screaming, the necromancer jabbing his face in front of hers and screaming right back at the top of his lungs, matching her shriek for shriek, tears of happiness splashing down his cheeks as Awa wailed and the dead danced.

  VIII

  Awkward Adolescence

  Awa grew a goat foot. The necromancer told her it was prideful and stupid and that ensured her decision; after she strained herself out of the stewpot and picked the pieces out of the pools of vomit surrounding the bear she buried what remained of her left foot with Omorose. She ground the hoof into a powder after promising the creature’s spirit that she would eat soft summer grass a few times a year, and as she suspected the new foot grew in quickly, although it did take some getting used to.