Fionn and Cormac walked through the house’s tiny garden toward an open wooden door. As they stepped into the abode, the ruin of its interior was immediately apparent.

What was once a quaint little house had been ransacked from floor to ceiling. Furniture was overturned, paintings and pictures torn from the walls. Fionn stepped through the familiar hallway, back toward the white mage’s clinic.

Gods, has it been only a year? he thought. Sometimes, it seemed like a lifetime ago when Yarlaith had sewn Sir Bearach’s arm to Fionn’s shoulder.

Feels like less to me, remarked Sir Bearach. I still find myself forgetting that I no longer inhabit my own body.

Whether the remark was meant in sarcasm or not, Fionn couldn’t tell. Before he had a chance to consider it further, Garth stepped into the hallway.

“The dead haven’t been through here,” he said. He gestured into the clinic. “This mess was caused by the living.”

The room beyond was in a worse state than the rest of the house. The screens and curtains that once gave the clinic’s patients privacy lay torn and broken. The beds were turned over, with crumpled bedsheets strewn out across the floor.

Fionn stepped forward carefully, for the shelves that once housed Yarlaith’s alchemical equipment were cleared, their contents and glass scattered to the ground.

“This was an act of passion,” said Garth, speaking with the air of an expert. “Someone, or some people, did this in a fit of rage.”

“A mob?” ventured Fionn. It was common knowledge that the country folk were fiercely loyal to the Church’s teachings. If anyone had learned that Yarlaith was a Necromancer, then….

“Sir,” called a voice. One of the other Simian scouts stepped out from a small study on the far end of the clinic. “I think you should come look at this.”

Garth strode across the ruined clinic, Fionn and Cormac following cautiously behind him. As he approached the door to the study, Fionn felt a frigid draft sweep across the back of his neck.

“There’s a trapdoor on the floor,” reported the Simian scout. “Should we investigate further?”

“Yes,” said Garth. He had hesitated for a fraction of a second before replying, but it seemed like the scout hadn’t noticed. “I’ll go first. Ready your arms, lads. I don’t know what we’ll find down there.”

The Simian scout crouched down to the ground and busied his fingers with the wooden floorboard. Fionn had no idea what he was doing, until a trapdoor seemed to materialise before them. The scout lifted the door deftly and barely flinched as a breeze washed through the study.

How on earth did he spot that? wondered Fionn. But he didn’t wonder on it for too long, for now a deep hole yawned in the centre of the room; a rope ladder hung down from it like a slender tongue.

Garth didn’t hesitate this time. He promptly swung his legs down into the hole and climbed down the ladder. The scout followed him, leaving Fionn and Cormac above.

“You stay here,” said Fionn. “If the others come looking, tell them where we are.”

“Sure,” said Cormac with pride, as if he had been given the most important job of them all. In truth, Fionn was painfully aware that the man’s mind was still slightly unhinged, considering all that had happened to him before.

And besides, thought Fionn, letting his feet dangle down, I have my magic to keep me safe.

He descended the ladder carefully, looking down over his shoulder between every other step. Squinting through the darkness, the ground was visible some thirty feet below.

A strange place to build a house. Assuming the tunnel was here first.

A strong, pungent odour struck Fionn as he turned around. He found himself standing on a cavern floor, with a wide tunnel spanning outwards, and curving off to the left. The faint sound of Simian voices echoed around the corner, and Fionn followed, trying hard to place the scent.

Like meat, he thought, the stench growing thicker with each step. Bad meat, spoiled and warm.

As he took the corner, the tunnel widened into a large chamber, with massive stalactites dripping from the ceiling. But his eyes were drawn from those to other hanging objects, lining the cavern walls.

Severed limbs of various shapes and sizes filled every inch of wall. Some had clumps of blood dripping down onto a red-speckled floor. Beneath the limbs sat a wooden table, with an assortment of tools and sharp objects arranged in a tidy, clinical manner.

“What is this place?” He walked through the laboratory, past rows of shelved potions and alchemical ingredients. Garth stood on the far end of the chamber, examining another workstation, this one with glass bottles and vials arranged across its surface. The chamber was lit by two tall torches in the centre of the room. They appeared to have been ignited by the Simian scout, who was tending to a third torch nearby.

“Fionn,” said Garth, beckoning the mage over with a nod. “Tell me, do you recognise any of these oils?”

Fionn strode over. Of course, he recognised the name on the oil’s label immediately. The brothers of the Academy used something similar to preserve their dead for burial. When he relayed this to Garth, the Simian snorted rudely.

“Smells like it hasn’t been working. Take a look around and tell us if you find anything useful.”

“Sure,” said Fionn. He wasn’t quite sure where to begin.

Another table stood on the far end of the laboratory, with stacks of papers and notes piled on top of one another. Fionn went to it and found a thick, leather-bound journal lying upon it. The page presented was written in an elegant script, though erratic and inconsistent, as if made by a hasty hand. Fionn began reading it frantically, his sense of dread growing with each line.

My previous fears have manifested in my work tonight. I feel as if the truth was just beyond reach all along, and it would have only taken a single rational look at the whole picture to realise it. I was reluctant to do anything else but push forward, and now I’ve paid dearly for it. Gods, even as I write this alone in my study, I can still hear her voice.

Necromancy is the manipulation of the soul. The flesh is never altered. The soul of the dead is bound to the user in the process, but control over the corpse is only a side effect. Because my first test subject was also a mage, and still breathing, he regained full control over the severed arm. This explains why he heard the voices even after he recovered from the operation.

I’m dismantling the workshop as soon as dawn breaks. The Church has outlawed this School of Magic not because of its desecration of the dead, but because of what manipulating one’s soul can lead to. I will not elaborate here, however, lest this document falls into the wrong hands. I’ll take the truth to the grave if I must.

Gods, forgive me. Please.

“No,” muttered Fionn, scanning back through the passage after he had finished. His heart pounded with fear. ... first test subject was a mage.

It’s us, whispered Sir Bearach. The bastard operated on us… here.

Fionn flexed the fingers on his oversized hand. This was where it all began. Fionn’s recovery, the molestation of Sir Bearach’s soul, the horde of the undead….

Fionn reached for another pile of notes. He spotted the date on one, marked as falling under the Moon of Macha from the previous year. He flicked through the pages, past diagrams of severed cadavers and lists of ingredients. Wild scribblings appeared here and there in the margin, ranging from idle musings to elaborate conjectures on the nature of healing magic itself.

As he browsed, a glint of metal appeared in the corner of Fionn’s vision. Beneath another pile of papers, there sat a strange brass object, about the size of a dagger. Fionn reached for it, gently pulling it out from under the notes. The brass was shaped into a pipe, of sorts, curving into a wooden handle with beautiful, intricate carvings. On the inside of the curve was a tiny trigger, like that of a crossbow. He held the object up before his face, examining each inch in minute detail. The craftsmanship was impeccable, with an elaborate mechanism of tiny switches and bolts at the centre of the object. Though he had no idea what the object could be for, Fionn found himself fascinated by its design. He held the opening of the brass end to his eye, peering down into the object’s body, hoping to see more of its internal mechanism.

“No! Put it down!”

Before Fionn had a chance to turn, Garth grabbed him by the shoulder with one hand, and deftly discarded the object with the other.

“What is it?” asked Fionn, his eyes never leaving the contraption.

Garth hesitated. His lips pursed into a thin line, as if deep in thought.

“It once belonged to me,” he said eventually. “I believe I met this Morrígan girl before.”

“You did?” asked Fionn. The other Simian scout appeared by Garth’s side. Although he appeared to have been drawn by the commotion, he didn’t seem interested in the strange, brass object.

“Fionn, the Silverback has been hiding a great deal from you,” said Garth. “Keeping the truth from outsiders has been our priority since he took his seat on the Triad, but I believe our priorities have changed, now that the kingdom is being chewed up by the dead.”

Garth picked up the object, wrapping his fingers across the wooden portion. He seemed incredibly comfortable holding it, as if it was an extension of his own hand.

“We are not scouts,” he began, “but spies. My skirmishes across the Clifflands did include cartography, but also involved gathering information on the Crown’s battlemages, stationed in settlements like this. I got too close to the battalion here, however, and they captured me. While imprisoned, I was visited by a girl. She distracted the guards and set me free. I left this weapon with her so it could never be linked to me.”