Do not awaken the Undead king

Pain! Oh, Father of the Dark, it hurts. I'm so much in pain! My whole body is aching.

Damn locusts! They're skinning me alive. Do I have any skin left? It seems it will never end.

How many years have passed since I've been buried here? One, two, ten? Or a hundred?

Time itself has blurred into total dusky looming. A bloody and merciless one.

All my thoughts have been mixed up since I've been immured in this stone coffin. Without any possibility of escape. Without any chance for freedom.

I feel endless agony under the teeny-weeny teeth of ghostly beasts that were ripping, shredding, and tearing my immortal flesh like small daggers. Over and over again... They're driving me crazy.

But I'll find a way out, or I'm not Reive Eridanus Castro-Firel. And then, I swear, I'll kill everyone who has taken part in torturing me. Ulfricus, you traitor ass. I hope your soul has never found sanctuary and is being tormented somewhere in the abyss of the Twilight, while I'm decaying here, in immortality. I hope you're paying for every minute I've spent here, in this tomb. Even for every second. And if not, I promise I'll kill all your relatives. Every person you love. Your wife, your children, your parents, your grandchildren. And your damn cat...

The man's interior monologue was interrupted by a restrained growl.

Oh, demons, it hurts! But wait. Someone will surely wander across this damn field again. Someone whom I'll kill without coming out of the ground. I'll exhaust the last drop of magic. And, one day, I'll be able to get out of this trap.

Oh, no, who am I kidding? Nobody has appeared here so far. Even animals avoid coming to my field. I don't sense any living being whose energy I could suck dry and use to appease the burning, even a little... They all sense me. They don't understand, but they sense that death is there under their feet.

Oh, Father of the Dark, I'll be decomposing here forever! Damn Ulfricus, Banshee take your soul into the Twilight and love it to death.

The inner voice fell silent, and the man listened attentively to the sounds of the outer world.

Oh, that just can't be... For the first time in ages! A woman. A very young one. I can hear her heart beating... I feel the energy concealed in her blood.

Come closer, dear. I don't have to get out of here to play with you.

So sweet... I can feel your nice smell. A strange, unusual smell of blood. What's wrong with you? I guess, you're a necromancer. My soul mate. Well, this won't save you.

Come closer, dear... Yes, this way.

Oh, Dark! You are illuminating magic! It isn't dark magic, certainly not.

I can't care less. Any energy will suit me..."

At this point, somewhere on the surface, somewhere nearby, a woman began singing. The accursed man, chained in the living grave, lay down, having suddenly forgotten the respiratory reflex, which still had not been exterminated through hundreds of years spent under the ground. Without air, without life.

She's got a really beautiful voice! So lovely... I haven't heard human voices for so long...

The man took a deep breath. Then, a sequence of dark thoughts continued, A girl with a ringing voice and strange magic... You've come here to the Ash Field in vain. You're so enigmatic and courageous.

You're alive.

But not for long.

I was walking along the deserted field, with my feet sticking in the thick grass. My thoughts were all jumbled together because of the anger and disappointment I could scarcely restrain.

Why did it turn out like this? Why?

I've been preparing this project for a year and a half! Almost two years, even without taking the research time into account. No one has ever studied the language of bone dragons so thoroughly! Now, I can not only write and read in Ashgenrian, but also speak the language a little. What's more, I'm sure my pronunciation is even better than Professor Gardaren's! My grandma used to say I acquired the gift of being a linguist at my mother's knee. Well, I told this to the Professor when I asked him to help me with entering Graduate School. He dared to laugh, when he gave me my diploma (with a C grade) back, and said, "I'm proud of you! Now, you can translate every children's fairy-story you remember into Ashgenrian. Of course, if you can cope with a fifty thousand-word vocabulary base!"

And he was gone. What a slime he was! What was this injustice for? Couldn't he at least have done it with good grace! So what if I flunked the theory? But I knew ancient spells perfectly! I could have gotten all A's! Alas, after failing the exam I couldn't stand for a good position with my bachelor's degree in History of Necromancy and my general knowledge base. I hoped to enter Graduate School. Now, as they say, bugger off bachelor!

I cannot even take the curse off – I have no energy. Bad luck. Just no energy. With such abilities, the only thing for me is to study History. Actually, it has been History that I've been studying so far. Then, that professor messed up everything.

And now I am a free necromancer.

I kicked a ball of dirt around and sat down on a round warm stone. Then, I stared into the distance in a romantic-philosophical kind of way and sighed.

No, I'm not so good at philosophy. I'm still about to lose my control. It's lucky that no one sees my failure.

No one went to the Ash Field for a walk. This place was believed to be ill-fated. It was a place where people went to be alone for some time to think what to do next.

I had neither enough money for living on my own nor my own.

I plucked a couple of dandelions and weaved them into a wreath. Then, I found some sticks of equal length and inserted them between the flowers. What a funny yellow crown I got. I put it onto my head and smiled.

"Am I not a queen necromancer? No, better be the Queen of the Dead. Why not be the Queen of the Dead?"

Somewhere on the side, I heard a loud "croak" sound.

I turned my head and noticed a huge frog nearby examining me. It seemed to me that it had even climbed onto the nearest boulder, to see me better.

"Well, am I looking silly?" I asked the frog. "Surely you want to say that there aren't any Queens of the Dead? Well, nowadays, you can't even bring a cat back from the other world. Don't you know it was different seven hundred years ago? It was then that Reive Eridanus Castro-Firel was born. The man who raised whole troops of sorcerers!"

The frog continued watching me attentively. Now and then it made sounds, as if it was agreeing with me. It was pleasant for me to imagine that we were having a dialogue, and I was not alone there talking to myself and sitting on a warm stone.

I jumped down from my 'podium' and began to pace the soft grass, and carried on with my story.

"There was a mighty necromancer who had a bone dragon as a pet. Do you understand – a dragon! The very dragon whose language I've been learning with such difficulty! Reive had managed to conquer half the world before he was stopped."

I spread my arms wide and began to do a little dance.

"What's more, he could play the Nocturne of Death. Do you know what that is? It's a legend, a real legend. A marvelous melody, both dreadful and beautiful. A mesmerizing melody. At its sound, souls begin coming to life and dancing, obeying the mage's will. The melody is said to be terribly beautiful. It's a pity that the Nocturne's notes have been lost. I'd love to listen to the melody able to make dead souls dance!"

I stopped dancing, breathing hard.

"At our Academy, we even had a tradition: to try to play the Nocturne of Death at the end of every school year. But, as you already know, no one has managed to do this so far. The deceased do not answer back. The dark forces' music – it's not like when you catch gnats!"

The frog croaked loudly, hopped away and hid in the thick grass.

"What do you know of this?!" I gave a wave of the hand and flopped down onto the grass.

However, it wasn't as soft as it had seemed to me. I shrieked with surprise and rolled to one side. It felt as if I'd been unlucky enough to land on a sharp stone.

I moved the sedge stems apart and then saw a large segment of a stone slab. It didn't look like a normal boulder. A regular rectangular shape, marked by the lapse of time, told me it was a monument.

I became curious and began digging the soft ground and, clearing the level surface I saw it had some letters written on it. The more I dug, the more I felt curiosity and a naive joy. I recognized letters written in the Ashgenrian language!

A little later, I had the whole tombstone in front of me. The ancient text was quite readable! Time and weathering hadn't affected the letters.

A burning desire took hold of me. I sat beside my find and shook the soil from my hands. I read the text, convincing myself that I could easily read it, and at once began to put theory into practice. Not in vain had I been studying pronunciation!

Dfiera re fjynde sjfndalie dornoren,

Siantar releviont transier goren vald,

Usjera dafn sarhgerte yortonjer reido,

Salvego - gortento irontar jon... ##1

##1 Night will unveil the benighted eyes,

Twilight will put everything into place.

The sun will always set in grime

And it will rise in bloody colors. (Ashg.)

Having read the last line, I almost clapped my hands – I had managed to read the text so well! At this moment, I wanted Professor Gardaren to see my success, at least, for a second. How easily I read the unknown text! In the whole Ihordarrine, there could be hardly anyone who could do what I had just done!

Suddenly, something terrible happened, and all desire to boast of my success disappeared.

The earth began to quake. I was in trouble. I could hardly crawl away. I huddled against a huge boulder, balls of soil flying outwards as if from a small explosion.

What did we study on the extinct languages course? I began to remember frantically. No one is allowed to read unknown inscriptions aloud? Now I know why. I stuttered nervously.

A man appeared in front of me. He was tall, gloomy, and covered in soil from head to toe. I couldn't examine him properly. I could only see his black mantle and tangled hair fallen over his face. He was staring at me.

The sky turned black. It felt as if the sun hadn't been shining above our heads. The stranger's eyes were blazing blood red. Black terror gripped me.

In a second, he was there, near me, and grabbed me by the throat, with me huddling on the hot stone.

The air emptied from my lungs.

The only thought that came into my head was, The professor did the right thing to have given me a C grade for my graduation dissertation! Absolutely right thing to do!

Reive

The smell. A subtle and heady one. Oh, it's such a long time since I had a woman... A terribly long time... he thought.

The man bent over the trembling girl and breathed in the scent of the hot air around her ear. The girl seemed to tremble even more.

A sweet smell mingled with fear... Her hand is burning... I can feel her pulse throbbing beneath my fingers...

Reive paused. He decided not to do what he had first intended. As he felt the fresh air, the flow of his thoughts changed direction. As if something different, along with the dust and ashes, was disappearing within him. Something old and clawed, cruel and very embittered. As soon as he inhaled the scent, felt the throbbing of her pulse, and the shivering and closeness of a woman's body, something vehement flared up inside him. His cruelty accrued over years of torture under the heavy gravestones of the curse, began to abate. Yet it did not completely vanish.

The man moved aside and looked into his victim's eyes. They were light-green, almost a herbal color.

He had seen nothing but darkness for so many years.

Hunger was flaming in his temples. Desire as well. Blood beginning to energize was circulating in his veins, and it brought a familiar energy back to his body. It maddened the man.

I'm eager to lay her out on the ground, take her cruelly and suck her dry!

He was engulfed by wild, brutal desires, of which he was not even aware. What was he like now? A hungry beast having been startled out of its dream.

The magic... his stream of thought became calmer as he moved closer to the girl, again this strange foretaste of magic. As if someone had wrapped vanilla buns in a sealed tin, but the hot, nostril-tickling smell had seeped out of the slits. I just have to grip her throat more tightly. Until it crisps. Drink all the blood. The first time, it'll be enough for me to fill my empty fountain... Oh, Dark, how sweet her fear is...!

Instead of killing the girl, as an inner sense told him to, he took a deep breath and pressed his hips into hers. He flattened himself against the girl and bent down closer, almost touching her neck with his lips. He felt the small, quickly throbbing blood vessel. It was so warm, so...

"Hey, stop nuzzling me!" gasped the girl all of a sudden, turning her head back. "This is the first time I've seen such a wound-up guy. Oh, my God! Get off, you're all covered in dirt."

Reive looked at her with a puzzled frown, gave a start of surprise and released his prey. But he did not move farther away. He became curious.

He thought, This is such a new feeling. I haven't experienced this for a hundred years.

His head was bowed, he was examining the girl. She had long light-brown hair coiled up in a braid. It seemed to be ordinary fair hair, but if you had a closer look, the girl's hair appeared to be the color of red-hot steel.

"I'd already mistaken you for the Undead King," she snorted, shaking off the soil. "And you've turned out to be just a dirty guy in rags."

The man raised his eyebrows in astonishment. What a hit! I swear by the Black Death....

"What're you talking about?" he muttered. His voice refused to obey him. As if it was an old rusted. He spoke hoarsely and brokenly.

"Come on, you're alive?" the girl shrug her shoulders imperturbably. "That means you can't be the Undead King. He's already been dead for about seven centuries."

"For how long?" the man breathed out, rolling his eyes. He couldn't believe his ears.

Seven centuries... She's like killed me for a second time, he thought in shock. I haven't existed for over half a millennium. But how can I understand this girl's speech? The great-grandsons of this damn Ulfricus must already be dead. Shabby ass! And he's somehow managed to seal me up as he promised...

The man grinned, remembering the very last day in his and Ulfricus' lives. He recalled the monk with piercing green-blue eyes reciting a horrific incantation that the earth had not known before. And he, Reive, was laughing at the monk's actions, thinking that he wouldn't be able to pull it off. However, in the nick of time, he put out his hand, tore out his ex-friend's heart and looking into his blazing eyes full of rare gold magic he squeezed out his still pulsing life force.

Then, Darkness came.