The Enterprise of Death - Jesse Bullington [49]
“I am going to sleep now, Niklaus Manuel Deutsch of Bern, and we both know the only way I can ensure you do not try to kill or capture me is for you to die.”
“Wait, no—” Manuel put his hands up.
“Shut up,” she said, her face suddenly looking very young and sad. “You listen to me, and then you speak. You did not think I was a witch, and that is why you freed me. You thought I was a madwoman, you told your master, and you pitied me as such. Your god and his servants do not pity witches—I know this, and your master threatening your family certainly does not compel you to help one whom you consider wicked by nature. But I’m not wicked, even if your church thinks that I am. I have done things I regret, it is true, but who has not?”
“I wouldn’t …” Manuel began but she looked at him and he knew she had more to say, and so he let her.
“I had a master, and he would have me kill to save myself. I will not do this, because it is what he wants and because I do not believe innocents should suffer so that I may live. Instead I sought to free myself, but in the years I’ve searched for a way to thwart him I’ve found no escape, no alternative but to do as he bids, to slaughter children to lift the curse he put upon me.”
The flat tone of voice and the despondent expression on her young face magnified the horror of her words, and Manuel felt lightheaded. She was speaking of the devil, of course, and could he doubt her after all he had seen and experienced that day? He leaned closer as she continued.
“Yet I will not. When I was captured I had just put the last of the dead I had raised into the ground, and I intended to desert my quest. I decided to try and live as a simple woman instead of a necromancer, to find some place in this world where I could exist for a few quiet years. I was content to wait for my death, my oblivion, and so I will be hard-pressed to begrudge you if I wake up and find myself wrapped in chains, a sack over my head, a gag in my mouth. Think of your family, Niklaus Manuel Deutsch of Bern.”
And with that Awa went to the fire, lay down, and went to sleep, the wrapped-up portrait she had taken clutched to her chest. Manuel waited until her breathing evened out and then fled the cave, stumbling through the darkness back to the scene of the morning’s altercation. By the light of the moon he eventually found the discarded chain and the stinking sack they had bound her with, and he took them back to the cave, approaching the dark mouth much more slowly and cautiously than he had left it. She still slept beside the dying fire, and Manuel stood over her, the iron chain gripped in both hands.
Something Sweeter Than
Unspoiled Wine
“One more task,” said the necromancer one autumn afternoon, “one more ritual, little Awa, and then you will be free to go, a necromancer in your own right. It’s enough to make me get out a handkerchief.”
“What?” Awa felt her breath dash away and hoped it came home soon; she had much more to ask on the matter.
“You don’t think I meant to keep you here forever, did you?” said the necromancer, and Awa realized she had thought exactly that. Considering any alternative might have given her hope, something she tried to weed out of her emotional garden lest it choke her seasonal apathy and perennial pragmatism.
“You’re going to let me go?” Awa marveled at the words even as she knew they had to be another of his games. “You would not let me go without a reason. I am too useful to you.”
“True enough!” He laughed, in better spirits than she had ever seen him. “The fact is, you can’t go where I’m bound, so there’s nothing for it. Getting there will require your aid, but once I’m gone you can do what you wish—stay up here for all I care, or see the world and all its wonders. I only ask that you stay alive so that we may converse again some sunny day, and I will be most displeased if I have to call you back from where the