The Enterprise of Death - Jesse Bullington [28]
“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