What in Seletoth’s name is this place?
Some of the corpses were of bone, while others were all flesh and no skin. Many wore bright armour of gilded gold and plate-mail, with extravagant adornments and embroideries throughout. On one table was a fresh body that Morrígan recognised as the labourer who had died during the Harvest Moon festival. His ribs were torn open, exposing the remaining organs that hadn’t been devoured by the beadhbhs. Both his arms were removed and hung gruesomely on the wall behind.
Another pile of bodies lay discarded on the ground nearby. One was the knight who had been killed by the troll, all that time ago. His hair still seemed alive like fire, but blood was clotted in clumps around his face and beard.
Finally, her gaze fell onto the largest table of the room. It was arranged differently to the others, not crooked and corrupted with blood. On it lay a beautiful woman, dressed in a clear, white gown that stood out stainless against the gloom. A delicate veil shrouded her face, but it was thin enough for Morrígan to make out who it was.
“Mother!”
She wanted to scream. She wanted to run. She wanted to burn the Godsforsaken place to the ground and take her mother’s body to the graveyard where it was supposed to be.
She considered the others whose bodies had been violated in death. The labourer from the festival had died slowly and painfully, but somebody had decided that he would be tortured in death too. The bodies of the warriors who had fought bravely during Móráin’s Conquest had been retired here to honour their deeds for eternity, but someone had removed them from their resting places and brought them to this… butcher’s shop.
Morrígan screamed. This time, it wasn’t only the bats and the mice that answered her, but a familiar voice.
“Let it all out, Morrígan. Terror is the appropriate response to what I have committed myself to.”
Morrígan turned to see Yarlaith the White standing behind her. She gasped for a breath she couldn’t catch; her heart pounded against her chest like beast in a cage.
“You…?”
“Yes, Morrígan. I am the one who defiled these corpses.”
“But… why?” For a maddening second, she thought of cutting her uncle down with the claymore still clutched in her hands. But her grip was looser now than it previously had been.
“It started shortly after the troll attacked,” he began, his voice surprisingly calm. “Do you remember Fionn, Morrígan? The Pyromancer? You saw what happened to him out in the field. You heard his screams of agony as I tried to heal him. Do you remember seeing him after his recovery? Do you remember his arm?”
Of course she did. Although her mind was paralyzed with fright, it conjured up a very vivid picture of Fionn the Red and his oversized right arm, like a blacksmith’s.
“I told the Academy that I re-attached his arm, but it was nowhere to be found out in the field. He was alive when he came to me, but the others were dead, Morrígan. This I need you to understand. I disobeyed our religion’s most sacred laws in order to save a young man’s life, and that’s all that should matter. That night, in my clinic under the stairs, I sawed off the knight’s arm and attached it to Fionn’s body.”
Morrígan glanced back at the corpse of the knight. One arm was indeed severed from his shoulder.
“That should have been the end of it,” said Yarlaith. “But as I sewed the arm to Fionn’s bloody stump, I felt something stir. I grasped at the flesh, and instead of healing it in the manner I’ve perfected in all my years of training, I felt something else. Something different. Fionn’s blood was already flowing into the dead man’s arm, but with a twist, I was able to pour life into it. The lad woke screaming and found himself in possession of a new limb.”
Morrígan shook her head. Even with the very small understanding of magic she possessed, she still knew that this was impossible. To take the limb of one person… and attach it to another….
But none of that was important right now.
“What is this place, Yarlaith?” she said, some defiance rising in her voice. “What have you done?”
The old man smiled. “It’s simple really. There was an arm: a single Human arm that I managed to breathe life back into. I could have stopped there. I could have written a letter to the Academy and gotten a nice grant to continue my own research. But I did not. I found this place long ago and used it to store blood potions away from the prying eyes of the Gods. There is a tunnel nearby that leads right under my house, and I can access it from my study, in secret.
“I decided instead to use this place to test the limits of this Seventh School of Magic. For if I was able to revive a severed arm, why not something else?” He leaned in close to Morrígan and whispered, “Why not a whole person?”
Mother!
Morrígan’s heart surged with everything from loathing to excitement.
“You… you think you can bring her back?”
“No, Morrígan. I know I can. It will take time to get the spell right, but I know it’s possible. There is another tunnel from the lake that brings you under the graveyard. With a few careful calculations, I’ve been able to steal fresh bodies from their graves to run some tests. I haven’t been successful yet but….”
He paused and walked over to Morrígan’s mother, placing a hand on her forehead.
“But I know it can be done. I have faith. Even though it goes against everything the Church stands for, I still have faith. When my work is complete, the smallfolk will rejoice, for I will have conquered the unconquerable. For only if I succeed will I not be branded a heathen and killed as one.”
In silence, Morrígan considered all he said. Her mother looked so peaceful and beautiful, even in death. It almost seemed as if she were sleeping, and it was easy for Morrígan to picture her smiling and waking up. Morrígan remembered having a similar thought during the funeral.
“I… I don’t know,” she whispered. “I’m afraid. What if we’re discovered?”
Yarlaith eyed her carefully. “I knew you’d find this place someday, Morrígan, but you didn’t come in from the house. How did you get here?”
“I saw a Simian near the field,” she said. “I followed him up towards the Glenn. There was an entrance, a tunnel….”
She expected Yarlaith to show concern at the mention of the Simian, but he gave a sigh of relief.
“These tunnels stretch out all over the Clifflands,” he said, “and it is likely that the Simian scouts of the Triad have been using them to navigate through mountains undetected. There is much at stake if we’re discovered, so I’ll take extra measures to hide this chamber.
“What I said before still stands, Morrígan. Are you willing to give your life to this cause? Colonel Eodadh and his mages serve the Church first, the Crown second, and the people last. They will not hesitate to murder anyone they suspect to be involved in something as wicked as this. You must commit to this work until we succeed, and you will not be able to walk away until it is complete. Do you understand?”
It went against all the teachings of the Church, violating everything the people of Alabach held sacred about the dead. There would always be a place for her mother to live in her memory, Morrígan knew, but if they were to be caught, the other villagers of Roseán, and even the books of history, would remember them as monsters. And they would live forever in those memories.
But now… now there seemed to be another way to live forever, in the flesh.
“Yes,” said Morrígan. She dropped the claymore and took her mother’s hand in her own. “I understand.”
