Sojourners of Death

  In Belzor, the city of the dead, Krom sleeps fitfully. Have a care, though, for his realm carries on without his guidance. Who knows whether he tracks our comings and goings.

  — Grand Auger Fern Scherwin, Shadowhome Branch of the Diviner’s Guild, 377 I.C.

  Shaking his finger at the scrawny apprentice and casting his most baleful glare, Biaun Greyblood repeated his objections. The small, fiery-eyed woman remained unmoved. She insisted—fervently—that he surrender both armor and weapons before entering the divination chamber.

  He’d told her—repeatedly—that his armor was non-negotiable and his dagger would help, not hinder, whatever they might face. But the apprentice vehemently disagreed.

  The dagger, Amitar, was no ordinary blade.

  Biaun had come upon it during his fateful battle with the dragon Nihilistor. Disarmed and bleeding, he had spotted the gleam of a hilt among the wyrm’s mountainous treasure hoard. With no time to think, he dove, rolled beneath the lash of the dragon’s spiked tail, and wrenched the blade from its ancient sheath.

  The moment Amitar left its scabbard—untouched for centuries—Biaun felt it. A tangible hunger. A pulse of dark excitement. The short weapon practically hummed in his grasp, shadowy energy coiling like smoke around its ebony, crimson-rimmed edge.

  When he slashed, it cleaved clean through one of the wyrm’s hardened scales with terrifying ease. The edge sank into the exposed flesh like a hot knife melting fat.

  He hadn't known it then, but that strike—made by the cursed blackrock dagger—would later save his life. The very scale he had bisected later become the opening through which he plunged his claymore hilt-deep into Nihilistor’s chest, killing the beast.

  Since that battle, Amitar had rarely left his side—though Biaun held complex feelings about the blade.

  He’d searched for any record of its origin, but even among the dwarven clans, none existed. The weapon was clearly ancient—perhaps older than the rise of Akatar, the last of the great Serpent-Kings.

  Whatever its origin, the dagger was a relic, and one that gave him a rare edge. But drawing it was dangerous. It wasn’t just the power—it was the presence. Each time he unsheathed it, thoughts—savage and sanguine—swarmed his mind, as if the blade were whispering. Tempting. Alive.

  And if he wielded it for too long, it drained him—deeply, soulfully. As if it took not just blood, but something vital from him in return.

  He grimaced bitterly. Price-be-damned... if only I’d brought it to the ball yesterday. He cursed himself for the hundredth time.

  Now, the dagger lived among his most sacred battle gear, its hellfire edge having saved his life more than once. He had yet to find a substance it could not cut.

  But there was always a cost.

  Still, Biaun had no intention of giving it up—not for some overzealous apprentice, and certainly not when the ceremony ahead might unveil forces darker than even Amitar itself.

  “The blade stays with me, lass,” Biaun said, his voice sharp as a razor.

  He pulled Amitar from its sheath for only a moment—just long enough to flash the wicked, red-tinged ebony edge—then re-sheathed it hurriedly.

  The sinister hiss of metal echoed for only a heartbeat. But it was enough.

  The woman turned deathly pale, her eyes helplessly drawn to the blade’s malicious form. She recoiled and turned to Kessel.

  The old diviner watched the exchange sourly, his thick brows knitted in disapproval. But after a long moment, he gave a nearly imperceptible nod.

  Her argument lost, the thin mage yanked one of the ceremonial robes from a nearby chest and shoved the coarse fabric into the obstinate knight’s hands.

  Without another word, she turned and began leading the waiting party toward the arena.

  As she moved away, Biaun caught a glance from Captain Ogrebane—brief, but meaningful. The old warrior understood the price of unsheathing such a weapon. No words were needed.

  With a heavy sigh, Biaun set about donning the robe.

  Amitar wailed in his mind.

  A hollow, pitiful cry that echoed like wind through a graveyard. Disappointment and sorrow washed through him—not his own, but the blade’s. It felt wounded, denied its purpose. The hellfire dagger mourned being hidden again.

  He gritted his teeth and finished tying the robe.

  The group assembled for the ceremony was small but formidable: Biaun, Ean, Grimus, Aehyl, the magi-king, and Prince Talose Ozewrath.

  Though both Portean and the emperor had argued for their inclusion, it was ultimately decided otherwise. Should the ceremony end in disaster, the Wild One would need to return to Crystal-Mist to warn the Circle, and Melchan would be required at the throne. Even with only the crown prince and the Captain-of-Arms present, the empire was already risking more than it could afford.

  Initially, the emperor had balked at the decision, unwilling to yield to the council’s will. But the memory of Kennochia’s fallen queen, Ingrid Storr, lingered like ash in everyone’s mouth. One ruler lost was already a tragedy. The death of an emperor would be catastrophic.

  As for the druids and the magi-king, they needed no convincing. Though they bore no formal ties to the empire, they understood the ritual’s inherent danger—and the risk of ignoring a threat shared by a powerful ally. United in purpose, they stood firm.

  That left the three humans.

  Ean and Talose would attend as matters of state demanded. But Biaun? Biaun had an altogether different reason.

  He simply did not trust anyone else to protect them.

  If it came to it, he would lay down his life for either the captain or the prince. They were essential, pillars of the empire’s present and future. His duty, then, was clear. A grim determination settled over him as he stepped into his old training grounds.

  The expectations surrounding the ritual were nebulous at best.

  Divination rites followed certain patterns, but there were never guarantees. One ceremony might unfold like a song, another like a nightmare. More often than not, the lands of the dead were hostile to the living, where even the air itself could kill.

  Most of the dead cared little for the world they’d left behind and required coercion to speak.

  But some did not.

  Some remembered too well. Some hungered. These spirits—restless, malignant, and dangerously curious—were the ones they must be wary of. True possessions were rare, but not unheard of. The risk, however small, remained.

  And then there was one more unknown.

  Because of the assassin’s alien physiology, no one could say for certain where the ritual might lead. It was entirely possible they wouldn’t arrive on any known plane of existence at all.

  The training arena looked nothing like the space Biaun remembered.

  The weapons once lining the walls had vanished. Thick black cloth smothered every window, and the walls themselves were smeared in streaks of ash or charcoal. Every third sconce bore an unfamiliar oil lantern, each one burning with a flickering green flame that offered no warmth.

  The floor had seemingly disappeared.

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  It still felt solid beneath his boots, but a cold gray mist now clung to the ground, swirling up to his knees and obscuring everything below. Only the center of the chamber remained clear: seven pentagrams etched into the stone. A large one dominated the center, surrounded by six smaller rings. Though the mist clawed hungrily toward them, unseen forces kept it at bay.

  At the heart of the central pentagram lay one of the slain assassins, its body splayed like a crucifixion, arms and legs bound to the circle by invisible power or worse.

  Beside the corpse loomed a grotesque podium fashioned from ivory and bone. Yellowed tusks and cracked skulls had been fused together to form its spine, every surface etched with disturbing and ancient glyphs. Atop it sat a massive tome, its cover bound in some leathery, unwholesome material.

  Behind all this, an arcane crystal orb crackled with spiraling energy. Two cloaked apprentices stood hunched beside it, whispering to the glass as they worked the delicate instruments that bound it in place.

  The dark cloaks they wore were uncomfortably warm, but they understood their purpose.

  Woven from the silk of rare worms found only in the damp caverns of the Iron Stone Mountains, the garments held peculiar properties. These strange insects fed exclusively on blackrock—a fact that unsettled more than a few in the group.

  Blackrock, after all, was known to be both highly toxic and dangerously unstable.

  Layered with protective enchantments, the cloaks offered some measure of defense against magical backlash. But even so, the mages had been clear: there were limits to what enchantments could shield them from.

  Biaun was accustomed to the oppressive aura of the material. It blended naturally with the armor he wore.

  But not everyone appeared so at ease.

  Aehyl eyed the cloak with open distrust, her revulsion barely hidden, yet she wore it nonetheless. That came as little surprise—among the elves of Crystal-Mist, blackrock was often called Osred’s Stone, a cursed relic of the Betrayer.

  Captain Ogrebane fared even worse. Having come from common stock, where tales of Osred devouring naughty children were still whispered around hearthfires, he continually made the sign of Aric on his brow, as if the cloak might swallow his very soul.

  Kia-Aret, by contrast, donned the garments without hesitation. The Magi-King of Cystennin moved with silent grace, offering no sign of discomfort whatsoever.

  “I assure you, they are quite harmless.”

  The man tilted his head slightly—a raptor’s gesture from a kingly predator.

  “The Nethroworms feed upon the impurities of Netheron. It is those very impurities, which they consume, that cause its instability.”

  Before the six individuals could take their places within the smaller, individual pentagrams, the near-naked figure of Aaron Kessel appeared from the far end of the arena.

  He was coated in a foul-smelling grease and wore only a small loincloth, one that looked as though it had been stripped from a corpse and crudely tailored to fit him. The only other item on his person was a strange, coiled amulet, shaped like a spiraling tornado.

  As he neared, Kessel bowed to the group and began his instruction.

  “Fellow subjects of the crown. Distinguished guests. My prince.”

  He nodded to each of the six attendants in turn.

  “You have already been briefed on the ritual and understand the danger that lies ahead, so I will keep this short.”

  The pudgy little man paused to gather his thoughts, absently fingering the spiral medallion at his chest.

  “The reality you know will soon be left behind. This arena has been prepared with protective wards, but once the ritual begins, we will pierce the veil between worlds. The transition will be near-instantaneous. When that happens, do not for a moment believe you are still within the walls of safety or familiarity. This room will exist in two dimensions at once, and I cannot guarantee your return if you stray from your assigned place.”

  He paused again, letting the weight of his words sink in.

  “I cannot stress enough the importance of your cloaks and the pentagrams beneath your feet. They are your anchors to this world. No matter what you see—no matter what you hear—you must not step outside them. If the worst should happen and I die, do not panic. The spell will fade. You will return safely to our own realm… so long as you remain inside your anchors.”

  His final warning carried a shadow of unease.

  The guild master may have been eccentric, even disturbing, but he would not risk the life of a prince—or the Magi-King beneath whom he had once trained in Shadowhome.

  “Now,” Kessel offered with a chuckle, “I am sure we can avoid such hazards, but exercise caution nonetheless. When the spell is complete, Neggas will come for you.”

  He gestured toward the thin diviner Biaun had recently argued with. She responded with a grim nod, then moved to the great chamber doors.

  Once she had shut, sealed, and warded the entrance from the outside, Kessel took a large bowl of melted wax and began sealing the door from within. He worked meticulously, missing not a single crack. When the final stroke was complete, the wax glowed faintly, then dulled to a flat sheen.

  With the ritual chamber secured, Kessel motioned for the six guests to step into the shelter of their sigils. Each took their place within the protective bounds of their glowing pentagrams.

  At the center, the two apprentices began massaging the surface of the now-blazing crystal ball. Kessel took his position at the corpse’s head, planting one foot at each armpit of the slain assassin.

  Everything was in place.

  The heavy tome on the ivory podium creaked open as Kessel turned its weathered pages, his fingers seeking the spell’s precise sequence.

  A thick, unnatural silence smothered the room.

  The six cloaked figures stood motionless as Kessel’s hands began to move—graceful, fluid gestures that flowed like water, then sharpened into jarring angular motions. The silence became oppressive.

  Then, a violent howl shattered the stillness.

  A tremor of energy pulsed outward from the center of the circle, and the air itself seemed to recoil.

  A shuddering, high-pitched scream tore through the space, followed by a chorus of inhuman voices that washed over the guests in waves of nausea and dread.

  And slowly, terrifyingly, the room began to peel away from reality.

  Biaun’s mind swam in a torrent of overwhelming sensations.

  His senses stretched outward, eager to drink in this strange new reality—but he was lost, spinning, caught in the current as the planes hurtled past him.

  Beings both savage and serene flashed by, vanishing as quickly as they appeared. He saw angels bearing the faces and forms of demons, and villains clad in cloaks of beauty and grace. Everywhere he looked, paradox reigned.

  It challenged his beliefs, upended his instincts. Right and wrong, light and darkness—none of it aligned. Here, nothing wore its true face.

  Good and evil blurred, became indistinguishable. Deeds both vile and virtuous collapsed into the same inscrutable murk. Meaning unraveled.

  As his vision dimmed and his mind sank beneath this ocean of uncertainty, Biaun realized the motion had ceased. The spinning stopped.

  And with sudden clarity, disgust twisted across his face.

  They had arrived in the prime material plane of the dead.

  Though it felt as if their journey had spanned lifetimes and stretched across unfathomable distances, the truth was far simpler, they had never moved. The entire crossing had taken but a moment. Reality had merely shifted, slipping from one planar location to another.

  From the crystal ball came a low, resonant hum that pulsed through the chamber. The chanting had ceased, but in its place arose a new, more sinister melody—wordless, but laden with menace.

  Before Biaun’s eyes, the ivory-and-bone podium began to animate.

  Its carved skulls twisted open their mouths, exhaling foul green vapors, while unnatural flames flickered to life in their hollow sockets. The noxious gas filled only the center pentagram, yet the enraptured Kessel seemed oblivious.

  He remained fixed on some distant point beyond their sight, lips moving silently as he completed the arcane compulsion.

  He knew better than to expect results. The creature’s grotesque, twisted physiology suggested it may not have possessed a proper soul at all. Kessel had little hope that anything would answer from this plane.

  And yet, a spirit came.

  Insubstantial, hazy, and slow-moving, it drifted toward the bone podium.

  A spirit’s appearance was always a mere echo of the form it had worn in life, and over time, even that echo degraded. Details faded. Features softened or were lost entirely as the soul evolved—or devolved, as the case may be.

  Despite centuries of study, even the most accomplished necromancers and diviners still wrestled with the nature of this place, the true role the Plane of the Dead played in the soul’s final journey.

  This spirit was ancient.

  Its facial features had nearly vanished, and even the faint human outline of its form blurred sporadically, making it difficult to discern whether it had been male or female in life.

  Greedily, the spirit thrust its face into the poisonous gas spewing from the animated skulls, almost as if it were kissing them.

  “Such technology,” it whispered sincerely.

  “What is your name, spirit?” Kessel commanded from within his pentagram, standing directly over the corpse of the slain assassin, struggling to understand why this entity had been compelled to appear.

  Clearly, this soul had been dead far longer than the freshly slain creature could account for.

  “Once—long ago—I was called… Jorden,” it hissed back, the voice barely more than a breath.

  “Why have you come?” Kessel pressed, suspicion sharp in his tone. “You are far too old to have inhabited this vessel.”

  “Aye,” the spirit replied, its insubstantial form shifting to face the necromancer. “I have been dead a very, very long time. Yet, as surely as I remember my name, I also remember my flesh. What was lost to me… is now much changed.”

  “How and where did you die?” Aaron snapped, concern edging his voice. He disliked the direction of this conversation. Though wary of some trick, he sensed that Jorden was speaking truth.

  “Foul sacrifice!” the spirit boomed. Its blurred features suddenly sharpened as long-buried memories and millennia of rage surged forth.

  The emotion faded as quickly as it came, and the spirit’s once-handsome visage blurred anew. “I was sacrificed to an evil I dare not name, commander-of-the-dead. As to where—I doubt your kind would even remember the name of my homeland after so much time.”

  “Answer me!” Kessel snapped, his voice taut with authority. Older spirits were notoriously difficult to control, far more elusive than the freshly dead. He also knew they hated to recall the traumas of their passing, often dodging questions about the moment of their demise.

  “Very well,” the spirit returned, its tone tinged with irritation. “I did not mean to upset you. I was a great warrior in my day… and was slain upon the Altar of Ganamon.”

  Kessel blinked, then glanced again at the corpse before him—the assassin’s body, scaled and reptilian, certainly not human. “How is it possible that your body has endured for so long?” he asked, musing aloud.

  “I said I was a warrior, not a scholar,” Jorden answered with growing annoyance. “If my flesh has lingered through the ages, all I can say is this—I was not in it. And I do not recall it appearing as it does now.”

  Kessel nodded slowly. The truth of it was beginning to form in his mind, though the understanding brought him no peace.

  “Jorden… I offer you a taste of justice, after all these long years. Can you locate the soul that stole your body?”

  The spirit’s form quivered and blurred again, agitated. “Mayhaps I can,” it said gravely. “But nothing is free, commander-of-the-dead.”

  “What is your price?” Kessel asked, raising an eyebrow.

  “Release.”

  “Too long have I lingered here, while those I once knew have long since moved on. Too long have I revisited my life and death—only to forget them, and relive them again and again. I would be free of this torment.”

  “I am not a god, Jorden,” Kessel replied evenly. “I would be acting blindly. I cannot predict the outcome of such a release. How is that better than what you endure now?”

  “It is merely a chance,” Jorden said, his voice low. “Relief is not to be found on this plane. Do all men not deserve at least a chance?”

  Kessel hesitated, his mind racing. Then, he turned his gaze to Kia-Aret, the Magi-King, whose knowledge of the arcane arts was unmatched.

  Though Kia-Aret did not specialize in necromancy or divination, Kessel knew he would understand enough to weigh the risks.

  The avian-featured monarch stood silent within his protective ward, calculating.

  This spirit, this “Jorden,” was a mystery—erased from history, long dead, yet strangely bound. And he had admitted his flesh had changed. Even if body and soul were reunited, would they still accept one another? Would it end in a proper release, or worse, a possession?

  There was no certainty—only risk.

  Kia-Aret nodded slowly and shrugged.

  There was no other way to proceed. Not if they wanted Jorden’s help.