Tale of the Necromancer by Kathryn Ann Kingsley
9
With each day that passed,a little of his Marguerite returned to life. He had extensive experience with the dead that walked, and the fact that she resembled them so acutely hurt his soul. Every passing moment that he watched her in her empty shock wrenched his heart from his chest.
It was no wonder. To suffer such loss would send anyone into a near fugue state. But, day by day, as they ticked by, she seemed to come back to herself just a little bit more. The first time she smiled at him over dinner, he thought he might weep with joy.
He was to blame for her grief. He knew that. And he would be responsible for mending it. And when she was allowed to spread her wings and become the woman he saw buried deep within the cowed, frightened thing that had been raised to be meek and quiet, he knew he would have a proper Greek fury on his hands.
And he eagerly looked forward to it.
It would take months. Perhaps it would take years. But he was certain she would come to love her new life—and him in turn. He was already beginning to win her trust. She no longer flinched from his touch. She did not stiffen when he climbed into bed beside her at night. He did not touch her; he would not dare for anything more but an embrace or a gentle kiss to the cheek.
Her body would be hers to give. Her heart, the same. He had vowed it to her, and he was a man of his word. He had taken enough from her to have her as his wife. He would take no more.
It was two weeks into their return to his home that he found her prowling through his library, fingers tracing the spines. Smiling, he leaned against one of the wood plinths that held up the balcony that ringed the room and watched her.
She had found his tomes on magic. Of course, she had gone straight for those. His more…salient books and scrolls were hidden away in his “workshop” in the basement in a locked room. What she would find in these shelves would be scandalous enough by all standards without discovering his studies on the resurrection and animation of the dead.
Plucking out a tome on demonology—which was entirely lies, by his measure, but worth keeping for the sake of academic comparison—she took it to a nearby sofa and sat down to read.
He could move silently when he wished. Creeping along the wall, staying to the shadows, he came up behind her. Leaning down, he placed his hands on either side of her on the backrest and tucked his mouth close to her ear. “Demons, hm?”
She shrieked.
Laughing, he ducked away as she swatted at him.
“You cur! You damnable cur!” She slapped his arm. “You nearly killed me!”
“Now you are the one who is being bombastic. I did no such thing. I merely gave you a right good start.” He plucked the book from her lap. “And you are starting in entirely the wrong place, little magi.”
“How so? It is a book on demons, is it not? And do you not derive your power from them? I thought it best to begin by learning the names of those I would be calling upon.” She stood from the sofa, his childish mischief already forgiven and forgotten in the wake of the chance for forbidden knowledge.
He knew the allure quite well. The flicker in her eyes was one he was certain he shared in quite often. He placed the book back on his shelf and began searching for another title. “Demons? Hardly.” He gestured idly over his shoulder as he browsed. “They are an unpredictable lot. I prefer not to deal with them if I have the chance. If you believe I am ‘unduly theatrical,’ as you say, I have nothing compared to those you might converse with from the great plane below. They can be a bit…histrionic.”
“Wait—” She followed eagerly beside him. “Wait. You have met demons? Truly?”
“Of course. I have met the king of all demons.” The look of pride he knew was etched upon his face was unbecoming of a gentleman necromancer, but he could not help it. “Stern fellow. Quite serious. Hardly the cackling madman that the churches would have you believe. No hooves, either.”
“You lie.” She nudged his arm. “You have not met Lucifer himself!”
“Oh, but I have. We spoke of philosophy. He does not believe there is a God, you know.” He smirked.
“That makes no sense at all. God is the one who cast him out.”
“Not as he tells the tale. By his words, he and his ilk simply left Heaven in what you could call a religious schism with his more faithful kin. Perhaps he is a deceiver, as they say. But I had no such sense of the creature when we met. We drank wine, we ate dinner. He answered my questions, we sat by my fire, and then went on his way. Quite an uneventful if perfectly pleasant evening, to be quite honest.”
“You are lying to me still.” She folded her arms across his chest. “Are you truly even an alchemist?”
“Ah, and so the shoe lands.” Turning to her, he could not wipe the smile from his face, no matter how serious he was attempting to appear. “Do you demand a demonstration of my power, princess?”
“I—” She hesitated. For a second, the meek woman she was raised to be fought for purchase. But she squared her shoulders and lifted her chin. “Yes. I do demand it. Show me you are not a charlatan, Johann Faust.”
Oh, how he wanted her in that moment. The sheer measure of her voice undid him and unraveled his defenses as if he were made of nothing but straw and she were the vengeful gale.
Goodness, she is right. I am theatrical.
“Hm. And what would you have me do? Summon the elements—fire, wind, and rain? Transmute our dinner from steak to lead, perhaps? Or would you like to dine with the devil himself, as I have? Shall I summon a demon from the pits to amuse you, my princess? Shall I pull Lucifer from the depths of Hell to join us for dinner?”
“No, no. A demon is too much. And I do not know what I would say to them, regardless. And certainly not the King of Hell. I would first send him a letter before summoning them to your dining room in a ball of fire.” She paused and furrowed her brow thoughtfully. “It must be quite irritating to be summoned unexpectedly, not to mention inconvenient. Can you even imagine what it must be like for them?”
The laugh that burst from him was unlike any he had ever made before. Or perhaps for as long as he could remember. It was full of happiness. And the kind of bliss he felt in his heart he knew was unique to his life. He stepped toward her, and before she could react, he cradled her head in his hand and kissed her.
He had promised not to force himself upon her. And to that, he would always keep his vow. But he had to kiss her. He had to. When he broke away, her eyes were lidded, and the perfect emerald orbs that dwelled there were dark with shy desire. Her chest rose and fell quicker than before.
He watched as her cheeks turned red, and he forced himself not to smile in pride once more. How he wished to lay her down on the sofa by the wall and take her, then and there. But no. He made a promise he intended to keep. Yet with each passing day, he was convinced she would come to him in time.
Focus, you old fool. You are nigh over nine centuries and yet you are acting as though you are but fourteen. “What would you have me do for you, my considerate magi? What is the one power you could possibly wish for?”
“There is no way you control the world, Johann. Do you mean to say you command all the magical forces of the universe?”
“No. I merely dabble in them.” He smirked. “Name it. If you could have such power—any power at all—for what would you wish? To fly? To speak with the birds? Name it, and I shall not only demonstrate the gift, I shall teach it to you.”
She considered his offer in half seriousness. He knew there was a part of her that was merely playing along with him. She did not believe him—but she would. She would before the night was out. If his little magi wished to command the forces of the unseen world, it was time for her to believe in it.
When she seemed to settle on a decision, the words that left her mouth stopped his heart for a moment. Everything in him ran cold as ice. He learned, right in that moment, a valuable lesson he would never, ever forget.
Never underestimate Marguerite Valard.
With unwavering determination, she spoke seven words that unraveled all his careful plans.
“I wish to speak to the dead.”
* * *
One would have thoughtshe had stabbed Johann in the stomach aside Leopold’s still-bandaged gift. He flinched and recoiled, turning his back to her as he walked away half a dozen paces. “Marguerite, you do not know for what you ask.”
“Can you do it or not, oh mighty sorcerer?” Her strange numbness seemed to have snapped and given way to a kind of cold, steely anger. She did not know for what reason she was mad, but it was there. I am angry at the world for having done this to me. And I want to say goodbye to my friend. I wish to ask my father for his advice.
“Necromancy is a dark art, princess. It is not to be practiced lightly.” His hand twitched and clenched into a fist briefly before releasing. “It unsettles the soul to perform it.”
“Will it harm you to do such a deed? To summon someone from the beyond?”
He hesitated for a long moment before nearly imperceptibly shaking his head. His words were a dire whisper. “Choose again, I beg you.”
“Will you pay some terrible price? Will you be lessened in any way for doing as I ask?” She stepped toward him. “Tell me why you dread this act so, and I will relent.”
An even longer stretch of silence followed. When he finally broke it, his words landed with the weight of boulders. “What you will learn from those you wish for me to call will only cause you grief and pain.”
“But you can do it?”
The quiet rush of the fire in the hearth of the library was the only thing that stretched between them for what seemed like minutes. “Yes.”
“Johann…do not lie to me, I beg you. Are you a necromancer? Do you command the dead?”
Silence. He turned to look at her, and the expression on his face made her take a step back. It was not angry, it was not threatening, but the intensity of it was like finding herself standing unexpectedly next to a blaze. “I can do many things, my princess.”
Reaching out, she gripped the back of a chair that sat at the table in the center of the room. She needed something to steady herself with. “Can you command the dead, Johann Faust?”
His jaw twitched. Lifting his head, those liquid silver eyes of his bore into hers. Finally, like a gavel, the word fell. “Yes.”
“You denied it before. You lied.”
Something in him snapped. He growled in anger and whirled from her, beginning to pace. It seemed out of pace with their conversation, and she did not know what had upset him so. “What I study is forbidden. The magic I work would have me hanged or burned. As it is, I am chased from one corner of the globe to the other, forced to change my name, give up all that I know, and slip into hiding! Kings and queens are happy to have my services as an alchemist, but the moment they learn my true nature, I am a foul demon and a fiend. Think on the life I live, my love, I beg you, and take some modicum of pity upon me.”
She paused. “Change your name?”
“Of all of what I just said, that is what you focus upon?” Running a hand over his face, he sighed. “Yes, Marguerite. I have had many names. Many lives.”
“Johann Faust is not your real name…?”
“No.”
“We are wed, and I do not even know your name.” She let out a breath as if he had struck it from her with a blow. She pulled the chair from the table and sat, afraid she might not be able to stay standing.
When he approached her and took a second chair to twist it toward her, and sit so that his knees brushed hers, she did not recoil from him. They slept in each other’s embrace each night. If he wished to harm her, there was nowhere for her to run.
Hands lifted hers from her lap, and he kissed her fingers. “My name…my true name, the day I was born, was Faustus Diogenus, in the city of Istanbul. I have not been that man for many years, I fear. The name I prefer, the one I think of myself as, is Gideon.”
“No surname?”
He shrugged. “They’re useless when one has no family and hails from nowhere and everywhere at once. I pick and choose new surnames as they suit me. But I required something more German to convince the locals, and…Johann Faust is who I became.”
“You do not look German at all.” He was from the east. The Ottoman empire. It made so much more sense, than him claiming he was half Spanish and half German.
“Not much to be done about that.”
“I am a fool. I should have known. I should have put it together.”
“No, Marguerite. You are struggling to keep your head above water in a world that is flooding in a storm.” He reached out and gently stroked her hair.
“Gideon.” She tried it to see how it felt, watching those silver eyes in return as they trained on her as if she were the only thing in the world. “It is a far better name for you than Johann.”
He chuckled. “I am happy you think so.”
“I must ask a promise of you, Gideon.” It did flow much nicer. It was a better name.
“Say it, and it is yours.”
“Swear to me, my husband, that if I ask you something…you will not lie to me.” She shook her head. “I will not ask you to tell me all your secrets. I fear that a necromancer must have many to spare.”
The grunt he made was enough of a confirmation of that.
“But if I ask you a question, promise me that you will speak the truth.”
He kissed her hands again. “Yes. I swear it on my mortal life.”
“Then I must ask you this…did you command Leopold’s father to kill him? Were you in control of him?” She did not dare think about the consequences of the answer. If he were to say yes…
“No.” The answer came quickly, and searching his silver eyes for the lie, she found none. Or perhaps she was simply naïve. But she had no means of proving him wrong.
She nodded once and took his hands. The simple gesture softened his expression. The hard lines smoothed at the edges of his eyes, and for a second, she was caught off guard by how beautiful he was. How perfectly handsome.
Lifting a hand from his, she placed her palm to his cheek. His eyes slipped shut, and he leaned into her touch. He looked so…desperate for her affection. So grateful for every moment. “You truly do love me.”
“Did you doubt?”
“Of course. I am no one but the bastard daughter of a king. Besides, you do not know me.”
“I fear you stole my heart the moment I saw you, sketching away in secret in the courtyard, pretending to be studying your book.” He smiled, eyes still shut, still basking in her gentle touch. “I knew you well enough then. You were not one to do as you were told. You would defy me at every turn. You would do as you wished—when you wished it, and I would have no say in the matter. And in that moment, my fate was sealed. I had to have you. I had to free that young woman from the chains in which her life had placed her.”
“An odd manner of freedom I have, married to a man whose name I did not know, nor his dark vocation, until a fortnight after our wedding day.”
“I never said I was perfect.”
Laughing, she leaned in and acted on impulse. She kissed him. It was hardly the passionate embraces he paid her when she least expected it. It was shy—furtive and unsure. She did not know what she was doing. Her first kiss had been given to Leopold when she was but a child. He had not reciprocated, and at the time she had not understood why.
She expected him to crash over her like a tide. To take her kiss as the waving of the flag at the beginning of the tourney, and to throw her onto the table and have her. She knew how deeply he desired her—the proof of it was often plain without his intention. The feeling was growing startlingly mutual.
A large part of her wanted him to do it.
But the other part remembered her lost friend.
To his credit, he restrained himself. He let her kiss him at her own pace, and while he matched her passion, did not drown it with his own. It was not a heated embrace, but a tender one. And when she parted from him, the look on his face—eyes still closed—was one of pure and total bliss.
He truly does love me.
Stroking her thumb along his cheekbone, she smiled faintly. The thought that came to her was one she should perhaps have kept to herself, but it seemed too cruel to deny him hope. “I think I might come to find you a perfectly satisfactory husband, Gideon the Necromancer.”
“Doctor Gideon the Necromancer.” He smirked, his voice still dreamy and quiet. Silver eyes finally met hers. When he spoke again, his voice was a whisper. “Thank you.”
“But I must insist.”
He sighed. His expression fell. “Princess, I…”
“I value your warning. I do not even yet fully believe that you can do what you say. But if you can, and this is all the truth of the world we live in, do not think me so childish as to not know the dangers of tampering with the beyond. I only ask you, please, try to understand. Leopold and I are”—she winced as she corrected herself—“were inseparable. He was my best friend in the world. He was more family to me than my brothers and sisters. I forgive you for taking his life, for you are right in that you had no desire to do so. But…please.” Tears pricked her eyes. She ignored them. “I wish to say goodbye.”
He wavered, gaze flicking between her eyes, before he lowered his head, resting his forehead to hers. His white hair brushed against her cheek, soft as silk. With a sigh, he stood, still holding her hand.
“Come, my little magi. There is work to be done, and it is time for your first lesson.”