Morrígan circled the name “Earl Roth” with her Simian inkpen and jotted down the verse and page number in her own notebook. She had started recording everything she did regarding her research, from the times, dates, methods, and results of her experiments, to the conclusions and postulations that arose from them, even when reading dusty old tomes written by druids long dead.
‘In Terrían, the first Necromancer was tried and executed for his crimes. In the year AC 178, Earl Roth of House Conchobhair built a crematorium in the same style of the Simians of Penance, declaring the crypts full and the graveyards overflowing. Some of his subjects protested, but Roth was an educated man, cunning with words and wise in the ways of magic. He convinced them to bring their dead to be burned to ashes and sent into the air. The crematorium was built and serviced Terrían for five years until a fire tore the building down to its foundations. Some records tell of how the building was struck and torn by lightning, as if a sign from Lord Seletoth himself that it was a place of sin. True enough, the floors were found to be false, and the wreckage revealed dozens of corpses, disembowelled and violated. An off-duty guard was the first to arrive at the scene, and he described how the bodies were sewn together and impaled upon bloody skewers of silver and gold. Limbs had been removed from some and attached to others, forming grotesque monstrosities bred from a twisted imagination.
‘On trial, Earl Roth admitted that he had been attempting to create life from death and pleaded that he be allowed carry on with his research. He was sentenced to death by burning, and he was the last person to ever be cremated in Terrían.’
Morrígan underlined the words “silver and gold” on the page. She had read about other mages like Roth, and each had pursued the same goals through different means. Putting the leather-bound edition of On Heresy aside, she opened her own handbook and flicked back through the pages.
‘Earl Roth used silver and gold to bind corpses together,but Callaghan the Black used a simple needle and thread.’
Both men were also healers. Based on her uncle’s work, it seemed apparent they had all stumbled upon Necromancy in the same way.
She turned further back through the pages, reading her notes on the Druids of Rosca Umhír, holy men who turned to Necromancy after years of work as undertakers. There were no accounts of them binding flesh together, but they were the only ones who seemed to succeed in reviving the dead. A simple farmhand in AC 244 had claimed he saw one of the druids, manipulating a set of bones “like master would a puppet.” The Church intervened, and the seven druids were hanged together, on the banks of the River Trinity.
What would the Church say about this? Morrígan turned to the table behind her, piled with assorted body parts sprawled on top of one another. She was happy that she was no longer brewing alchemical potions, for her uncle had succeeded in manipulating the limbs without them.
It was the corpses of the four sarcophagi Morrígan found that lead to their success. After they had removed the old limbs, Morrígan insisted that Yarlaith take control of them without trying to recreate the events with Fionn the Red. It took some time, but eventually he grasped one of the legs. “Necromancy is a magic of the flesh!” he had cried, as the severed leg bent at the knee.
He was thankful for Morrígan’s help and set her reading history instead of slaving over hot-plates and glassware.
She scribbled into the margin of her notebook. ‘The Druids of Rosca Umhír succeeded without the use of alchemy or binding, for Necromancy is to flesh as Hydromancy is to water: elemental manipulation.’
She turned and reached out to grasp a severed arm for herself, focusing on the black markings etched into its skin. In her research, Morrígan learned that many of the corpses uncovered by the Church had strange scribblings upon them. It was widely believed that these were ritualistic symbols used for dark magic, and On Heresy even dedicated an entire chapter to deciphering their meaning. She knew now that those markings held no magical powers, though, and simply served as anatomical markings for where bone met flesh and blood flowed under skin. Their only purpose was to make it easier for a Necromancer to grasp at them, as Morrígan did with ease.
Regular practise with candle flames and loose rocks had honed Morrígan’s fledgling power to that of a novice mage. The control over the four ’mancies came easy to her now, provided she avoided harnessing the strongest part of her soul: her pendulum. That part of her power was still hung outside her control; a dozen broken glasses and a half-charred workstation lay testament to that.
She narrowed her eyes and forced her power into the markings on the limb. The sensation of Necromancy was unlike that of other magic. Instead of feeling heat or moisture between her fingers, like Pyromancy and Hydromancy, Morrígan heard screaming, raging through her skull. This time, the bloodcurdling roar of a man gave Morrígan confirmation that the arm was under her control. The voice formed barely audible words in the back of her mind as she let her power flow through the veins of the arm, up into its hand, and closed its fingers into a fist.
Ground-breaking, sure, but there is much left to do.
She turned to face her mother, who still lay in her coffin, veiled and beautiful. We are close, Mother. Closer than ever. The season above ground was spring, turning slowly to summer. In a few moons, it would be a full year since her mother died, but Morrígan was far from ‘conquering her grief,’ as others from the village had said she would. Sure, she no longer cried herself to sleep anymore, nor did she flare up in anger for no reason, but she was far from moving on. She wondered what kind of person she’d be if it wasn’t for her uncle’s experiments. She thought about how things might have turned out if she hadn’t spent every waking hour with those potions and corpses.
Would I have really gotten over Mother? Would I have fallen in love, like a normal person, and went on living a happy life?
Lost in thought, Morrígan gazed over at the coffin. From the first rumour that the king was planning on raising taxes to the day the battalion of mages came to Roseán, she thought about how much her tiny hometown had changed. The inn was gone, and Peadair had left to start a new business out in Point Grey. Taigdh, Sorcha, and even Darragh were growing up, gradually taking on the responsibilities of adults.
But where does that leave me?
It took her a moment to notice that the same fat, black rat from before stood just below the coffin, raised on its hind legs. It looked up at Morrígan, as if tilting its head in awe at the girl in black.
“Go away,” she muttered, but the rat didn’t move. It was unlike others in the cave, all of which fled at the sound of a Human voice. This one stood as brave as Old King Móráin Himself. Edging closer to Morrígan, it opened its mouth slightly as it raised its head, as though it were smiling.
“Scram!” she said, raising her voice, but the rat just looked on with beady black eyes.
Rage boiled in Morrígan’s chest, and she picked up the seventh edition of On Heresy and threw it down at the rodent. With a sickening crack, the book landed on top of it.
Then there was silence.
After a moment, Morrígan got up on her feet and reached out for the tome.
The rat’s neck was twisted grotesquely under ruffled fur, with all four of its tiny paws curled back in agony. Its eyes met Morrígan’s, and it whimpered meekly.
Broken neck, or spine, perhaps. Serves you right.
Suddenly, the most peculiar thought crossed Morrígan’s mind. With a smile, she scooped up the rat up and brought it to her uncle’s workspace.
***
Morrígan walked across the beach later that day, embracing the ocean air she had been deprived of for so long. The tide washed back and forth, leaving jagged rows of seaweed and debris spaced out along the sand. Clouds of sand flies swarmed and buzzed around her as she passed, knocking into her exposed ankles; she had taken her shoes off to feel the sand between her toes.
Strange objects often washed up on the beach. The tides usually crashed in from around Gallow’s Head to the north, carrying strange rusted assortments from Penance. Once, after a particularly rough storm, Morrígan and Taigdh found part of an old Simian engine amongst the seaweed. She had wanted to bring it back and show her parents, but it was too heavy to move.
I bet I could use magic now, though.
In her practises with Geomancy, Morrígan saw how it was much harder to grasp steel compared to iron. It was difficult, but just within her ability.
Yarlaith had recently brought news that her parent’s estate had finally been sold. After many weeks of paperwork and correspondences, the family plot and home were handed over to a wealthy merchant from Point Grey. Taigdh and his father would still continue to rent the property for the time being, but once the summer came to an end, Morrígan would be off to the Academy of Dromán to continue her studies of magic, with enough gold left after tuition to live a comfortable life as a student.
On the beach, this time instead of rusted machinery, the sea had washed up the carcass of a baby seal. A group of crows picked at the exposed ribs, squawking and fighting over its flesh. Morrígan crouched, approaching the birds in silence. She balanced herself up onto the balls of her feet and craned her neck forwards to get a better look. There were four birds in total: three on top of the seal, and another hopping around it.
Morrígan spotted a small rock, buried in the sand. She raised a hand and pushed at her power, pulling the rock up into her fist. Using magic was so much easier now that she wasn’t using her “pendulum” as she had before. She felt far more in control of her emotions, too, and by extension her soul’s power.
Oh, what will the other students say when they see me arrive at the Academy, already a skilled mage?
With another subtle push, the rock flew from her hand and shot towards the birds. After a screech and a flutter of feathers, three of the crows were gone, with one left dead on the sand. Morrígan rushed over to admire her handiwork; the rock had embedded itself in the bird’s chest, leaving trickles of blood mottled through black feathers. She watched as the other crows landed on another row of seaweed further down the beach.
Why don’t they leave? Don’t they know how free they are?
In a way, Morrígan felt trapped in Roseán. Sure, she had a means now to leave and study in Dromán… but that would mean leaving her research, her mother, behind. As much as she dreamed of some day doing both, now she was starting to realise that she may have to choose one over the other.
