The Enterprise of Death - Jesse Bullington [29]
“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