The Necromancer

The cold stone, like ice beneath my feet; the sheer cliff like Hell below. The winds were like the shrieks of the lost, and I was lost upon that black plateau. You could see the soft movement of great beasts as you looked down, their dimensions so great that the human eye could not spy the end of them. Each one was a sea in and of itself. Each could swallow our sun and little spinning sphere like a whale might consume krill, and I suppose we could be devoured before we even knew the mouth had closed upon us.

What darkness lay in these sun eaters? What unhallowed grave of countless worlds lay in them? I think I was mad to stare so long, wondering, fearing. I had traveled far to get here, delved deeply into many a forbidden tome to discover the ways up this pinnacle, for on this black mountain of dreams—it was not for the mysterious behemoth I had climbed—it was said that the last necromancer hid himself, that he had passed through the fires of Torth to flee angelic wrath; I heard the legend, and I knew I had to discover its truth.

But it was barren: I saw no sign of life or death or even undeath. The black, windswept plain held nothing. I found not even a footprint. I paced upon this dark mountain, wondering how so many a varied tale could have hinted at his presence, and how so carefully kept a secret could led me up this mountain when there was nothing to find. Has he died and faded into dust? Did this dust just blow away into that fathomless depth where those great monsters lurk? Is there yet no sign of him? Is nothing left of the necromancer?

I had found that hidden and thrice accursed book which speaks of things which ought not to be spoken of, which outlined in a riddle the way up this peak. I see now that those strange doodles I took for some alien script were really depictions of the monsters below, outlines of what cannot be compassed by the mind. It seems strange that in my memory they were on the heading of the page—should not these lower things be in the lower margin? One line had read: “Unless the grotesques look down on us, we will not see aright.”

I was a fool to go back emptyhanded, a fool who had wasted three years and more, had destroyed his name in pursuit of this quest, and I would be more foolish still—I would stand on my head. The dark stone was rough against my palms, coarse like weathered glass, and it was cold like nothing else I know is cold, freezing me now with just a memory of it, but as I dangled from that strange plain, there was a shift; I was upright and deep in a cavern. Above, the behemoth spread, eating the stars like grass.

I cannot explain that change any more than I can explain how the eyes can shift and suddenly understand the hidden picture of a stereogram. Yet it happened. I was, as it were, within that cold mountain which was never a mountain but a pit. I had to climb up to get down here, and strangely will need to go up again just to get back down, I thought.

“We are never sure of anything in here,” a voice said. “What’s up or down but the mere whims of taste? Hot or cold but a pair of words meaning nothing?”

Here were the words of the necromancer, the dogma of blurred lines leading into darkness. His voice was wearied and decayed, croaking like the creaking eves of an evil house. His visage, wrapped within a dark cloak, came stumbling forward.

“I have waited so long,” he said, “for a student. In this exile, I have worried that our cause was forgotten.” He gazed up at the monstrous things above, “Here is where our teachings were birthed, where we looked up and saw the truth. We made a pact, then, that we would undo the lies the light had taught us.”

I followed his eyes, gazing up with him to stare into that fathomless void of dark sky. The enmeshed bodies of the sun eaters were spread over us. They slowly writhed, like huge worms, their mouths scooping up galaxies throughout patient eons. They were darkness consuming light—unstoppable if slow—the conclusion of their feast the inevitable end of all.

“See?” the necromancer wheezed. “Do you see it? What hope is there when death devours stars? Death must be our god, for the creator has left his world to the whims of these undying worms. It all must pass away.”

He shambled closer, the reeking odor of his rotten flesh wafting over with him. The nauseous fumes of undeath surrounded me. The necromancer stopped an arm’s breadth away, his face hidden in the cowl of his black cloak. Here was the thing I had searched for, the thing only I believed still existed. The rumors were true; the necromancers had survived. I tried to speak, but my tongue clung to the roof of my mouth. He reached out a rotten, leathery hand, and touched my arm.

“I’ll teach you.”

His grip tightened as I plunged my dagger into his chest.

He cackled as he fell unto the cold floor. “Let it be,” he laughed. “You have seen it. At least you have seen it. They are in your mind, and you cannot escape the knowledge. All things must die, and then there will only be darkness.”

He withered away at my feet, decaying to ashes in a moment. The smell of burnt flesh filled my nose. I gazed up into the heavens, and I saw those great and wide things which I could not comprehend.

“There is a time for all things, a season for every purpose under the sun.”