Her nightdress was so bright. Standing before me she looked more like a beacon of white than a twenty-something in a long gown. I had to shield my eyes. If it wasn’t with a hand that didn’t contain a dead chicken, we might have had a chance of resolving the situation without violence.
‘My Gods!’ she cursed, her grip on the crossbow wavering slightly as her eyes widened in fear.
She took a step backwards, enough to put her a few feet out of my reach, and enough for me to look somewhere else other than at the blinding white of her dress until my night eyes wore down.
‘A ghoul, oh my Gods, a bloody ghoul!’ she stammered.
I looked up in time to see her raise the crossbow to shoulder height, like she knew how to use it.
‘No!’ I choked.
The words came out hoarse, dry like sandpaper. If it wasn’t for that bird’s egg I might not have had enough moisture in my throat to talk at all, but the word was still unfamiliar to me, as if I’d almost forgotten what word I should use. Still, it stopped her from shooting me with that rather large looking bolt in that rather serious looking crossbow.
‘Ghouls can’t talk’ she said to herself, ‘what are you?’
‘Human’ I replied, my voice shaking with the uncertainty of language, ‘I am human’.
‘What? No’ she said, shaking her head, ‘you look so horrible’ she muttered, her voice full of fear. ‘Oh Gods…’ she repeated again, lowering the crossbow slightly.
‘I swear’ I rasped, ‘my name is –’
‘No’ she interrupted me, ‘I don’t know, you look so…’
‘Fire’ I said, even the word was hard enough. It brought back memories.
When the Slayers cut through our army of conscripts and retainers, they burned our castle. The fire reached the library when I was inside, and arcane textbooks make for unsurprisingly effective fuel. The smoke had rendered me unconscious, and the fire of a fallen bookcase had burned a full half of my body; my deformed left side, from head to toe.
The magic in the books had kept me from dying, feeding into some part of me that kept me alive through the smoke and the fire until one of the masters, my teacher, found me. Master Haze lifted me up to the fresh air of the floor above, still untouched by fire and smoke because of defensive spellwork. A kind of arcane bomb shelter.
He commanded me to leap from the windows, an unfathomable drop to the sea below. The searing heat of my newly burned flesh made it so tempting that I didn’t care about the rocks. I had missed them, I assume. Or I wouldn’t be ‘alive’ today. I awoke the day after, some way along the shore. Again, I find myself swimming in memories, and have to concentrate to snap back into the present again. Even still, I feel that power inside me yawning, as if waking from a long sleep, stretching its arms.
‘Fire burned me, magic saved me’ I said, finding my voice again, still as raw as before, but now I could remember more words.
‘I’m so sorry’ she said, a look of concern passing over her face.
‘For what?’ I asked, confused at her compassion. It wasn’t something I had often seen during my education with the order.
Another twinge of power jerked at my heart at the thought of the name. Master Haze, the castle, our grand plan to free the world from death.
‘For what happened to you’ she said, clearly confused at my confusion. ‘Are you alright?’
‘I am hungry’ I said.
Her face drained of what little colour I could make out.
‘The chickens’ I nodded, gesturing at them.
‘Oh, right’ she smiled weakly, ‘I thought you meant…’
‘You?’ I said, smiling myself. It felt good to smile. It felt good to be near another human, holding an actual conversation. ‘No, do not worry. I came for these’ I rasped, a nightmare voice, holding polite discourse.
‘I don’t know what my father would say…’ she said, looking tentative.
And just then, perfectly timed, a shirtless man covered in labourer’s muscle appeared from around the front of the house, a plain iron sword in his hand. It didn’t shine with holy fire, but it was still a sword. Possibly a very sharp one.
‘Emily dear, get back now’ he warned, his voice stern.
‘Father, he is -’ she tried to speak, but he cut her off. Maybe it’s a family thing.
‘It’s a wight, I’ve heard about them’ he said, moving between me and his daughter. ‘They look human, they talk human, but they ain’t much more than ghouls’
‘Actually’ I said, ‘wights are much more than ghouls, capable of leading them with unique language. They are much more intelligent, capable of using weapons and armour, but are not so pleasant as to hold conversations with living beings’
The memory of the words took me over for a moment, and it was only after I had finished saying the words that I realised I’d spoken, and even made a snide remark.
‘Emily, get the guards, wake the neighbours’ the father said, not even listening to what I had said. ‘This thing ain’t feeling right’
‘Father, he said he was hungry’ Emily protested, ‘he looks starved!’
‘He’ll eat you!’ the farmer shouted, ‘Look at it, its evil’
Emily ran away from the garden, and began shouting to rouse the street. I couldn’t tell how big the town was from here. It could have been huge. What was I thinking, coming here?
‘I will just leave these, and go’ I said, dropping the dead chickens to the floor. I turned to leave, moving slowly, trying not to scare the farmer into bringing that sword down on my rather frail form. I almost put my back to him and began to walk.
‘You’ll stay right where you are!’ he barked, raising the sword back over one shoulder for a club-like swing. He was a thug with a big weapon, not a swordsman.
Something like anger burned in my once again. But it was colder than anger, and more calculating than any form of rage should be. It was some kind of knowledge. I could beat this man, if I picked my time. I could rise over the body of a fallen enemy and then sink my power…
I had to strike before that thought completed itself. Thinking about the magic might trigger a burst of it, especially with my adrenaline pumping and my situation looking grim as it is. So I jumped forwards.
The sword missed me by inches, coming in over my dropped head and shoulders as I came in for a belly-height tackle. I bore the more muscular man to the ground, and with my scarred and melted left hand, pressed his throat closed.
He was strong, I could see the muscles on his chest and arms, but as he gripped my arm he could not even budge it with the strength of both of his. His face flushed red, and nearly purple, before the strength in his arms was gone. I let go at that point. Killing him would be too tempting for the power. No, I just needed him unconscious, so I could escape.
That’s when Emily appeared with the crossbow in her hands, and fired a bolt right into my shoulder.
‘No!’ she screamed, ‘You killed him!’
I never really understood why they said that. Stating the obvious. I hadn’t actually killed him, but even so, there was no reason to yell at the top of her voice that I had, even if I in fact had killed him. Which I hadn’t.
My thoughts kind of blurred. It took me a minute to realise I was hurting, bleeding even, from my shoulder. A foot of sharp steel was sticking into it, just above my armpit, on my right side. The brown rags of what had once been my shirt were now stained with blood. It was so dark that it looked black.
‘He’s only unconscious’ I said, telling the truth before the lie, ‘he tried to kill me. I just wanted to leave’ I whispered, still looking at the bolt in my arm.
‘You killed him’ she repeated, looking at his unmoving form.
‘Just look!’ I begged, trying to get her to let me leave before anyone else arrived. I didn’t think I had the strength, or maybe the heart, to take the woman on too. ‘He’s breathing!’
‘You – you would have, if I hadn’t have shot you’
‘Emily! Is that it?’ someone behind her said.
I saw the shape of a pitchfork, and several more people. Some of them had candles, the light of which cut through the night like a knife into my eyes. I threw up my hands and moaned. That was probably a mistake.
‘Ghoul! Horror! Monster!’ were some of the cries I could make out.
‘No! I’m human! I’m human!’ I protested.
I still couldn’t see anything, but I definitely felt it when the handle of the pitchfork came down on my injured shoulder. Tears welled up in my eyes, it hurt more than anything I have felt since the fire I was awoken to. The fire that those arcane books dragged me through, and with that memory again came the fluttering of power.
Before I could even think about using it, another blunt object came down on my head, and the world pretty much exploded. Everything was red and blurry, and there were hands holding me down. I blinked the mist away from my eyes, and looked up at half a dozen people, all holding me down with naked fear on their faces, the revulsion at having their hands on my skin was clear.
‘Let me go, please’ I asked.
Feeling useless, pathetic, defeated, I let the tears that had welled up from the pain and the throbbing in my head roll away from my eyes as I begged like a dog. I was ashamed of myself for doing it. That part of me that felt like it was trying to break free yelled at me, told me to lay waste to them with whatever power I could muster.
But again, before I could even think of how to use it, some pain racked by body. Emily pulled her bolt from my shoulder, letting the wound bleed. I guess that someone had told her that it would make me weaker, blood loss stopping me from thinking as clear as I would, from being as strong as I could. I knew that from first hand experience; prisoners are easily kept when they’re wounded, as long as you don’t let them bleed out.
‘They’re here’ I heard someone shout from the front of the house. I didn’t even try to struggle as I felt the ground gently shake with the weight of heavy boots approaching.
Three more figures towered over me. Two of them wore simple steel helmets and chainmail hauberks from their elbows to their knees – one size almost fits all. But the third didn’t have to wear the helmet, and had a well-tailored breastplate. He was clearly some kind of captain or sergeant in whatever passed for a town watch or local militia. He didn’t look happy.
‘Undead’ he sniffed, hand on his sword.
His eyes burned with the kind of hatred, spiced through with pain, that told me he had a good reason for hating the undead. Maybe people still remembered what we had done. It seemed like a long time ago, but given my isolation it probably felt longer than it actually was. Maybe I’d only been out there a few months, and not a couple of years?
‘I am human’ I told him, looking into his eyes, ‘my name is -’ I tried again.
‘Nothing living can survive such burns… it’s testament to your unholy nature that you did, and proof that fire can harm you to begin with. Prepare a stake in the fort courtyard’ he added, head turned to one of the other guards.
‘Aye, captain’ the guard said, nodding and moving out of my scope of vision.
‘Fire?’ I asked, my voice shaking.
Memories of waking up under the bookcase shook me. It kind of doesn’t even feel hot after a while, more like…the opposite of cold. Somewhere off the scale of heat and out of the other side. Juice escaping from the fat under your skin and searing cracking lines of pain across your body, melting and deforming skin. I am not a fan of fire, needless to say.
‘To burn away your stain on the world, creature’ the captain said, pointing a gauntleted finger at me. I was suddenly grateful that the night was cold. Why are these holier-than-thou types always such fans of fire?
‘I’m human’ I said, unable to keep the panic out of my voice, ‘I just got burned!’
I’d be damned if I was going to let this upstart town guardsman be the end of me. After I survived the fire, the lessons of my craft and my time in the forest…I wasn’t going to let my own stupid mistake kill me. I shouldn’t have come here, but I’d not let it be the last place I went to.
‘Nobody can survive that, not without being something else’ the captain snarled, tightening his grip on the sword in his belt. ‘You almost killed that farmer and he was armed, I don’t know how you did that but it wasn’t natural’
I had to agree with him, but not on the same level. I don’t know where that strength came from. My burned hand has never been as strong as my undamaged one, certainly not capable of single handedly strangling a man. It had to be the magic, and not the stuff from my own power, it had to be the stuff from the books. But why hadn’t I noticed earlier? Was it the twinges of my own power? Had they awoken the magic that had burned into my skin?
Hmm…this was more like me, the me I remembered. I wasn’t some pathetic wretch who would skulk around the countryside scavenging for scraps. I was healthy once, happy, powerful in my talents and ready to change the world. This man would have been dealt with, if only I could remember the right spell, or any spell, for that matter.
I’d never had much cause to cast any magic in the forest, and the few times I’d tried it made me want more and more to return to civilisation, to pop my head out of safety for the Slayers to chop it off. It was almost as I’d forgotten all I had learned, but more like it was at the tip of my tongue. I couldn’t remember the words of any incantation, or feel the pathways of power I used to employ. There was that flicker of power again, but I couldn’t tap into it.
Before I knew what was happening, and there’s the concussion for you, I was hauled to my feet, and coarse ropes were tied around my wrists, which were held by someone behind my back. Two more men, one on either side of me held my arms in tight grips. If I could remember exactly how I used that strength before, I might have been tempted to attempt another escape.
‘Please’ I said, finding new strength now I was back on my feet, ‘I am human, a wizard’ I added, hoping the title might gain some respect from them, even if it wasn’t strictly true. ‘The burns are from a fire in a library’
‘Magic books, eh?’ one of the guards, the one behind me I think, sneered. ‘Hear that everyone?’
‘Surprised it can even talk. Doesn’t look like much, to be honest captain. It’s sad’
‘It’s an act’ the captain said, his voice stern, ‘it pretends to be human, like vampires. Then it’ll have us all dead if we drop our guard. I don’t know what this freak is, but it’s evil’
‘You say yourself, you have no idea what I am’ I snarl.
Rebellion is only in my voice at this point. I can’t struggle away from three armed men, and even if I managed it, more than a dozen villagers were around us, ready to pitch in.
‘I know your kind’ the captain said, ‘I can feel the evil on you. I’ll bet you’re left over from when the Slayers cleaned those Necromancers out of that castle’
Ah, now that was interesting. People remembered. I wasn’t too far away from the old castle, surely.
Hmm, and If he really could feel the magic on me, the evil as he put it, then he had a touch of power about him too. I’d be able to feel it, if only I could access my own magic! Frustration itself nearly forced me to act again. But nearly is so far from actually.