Heart of Nekropolis
The city was colorless, filled with whispering voices. They muttered things I could not understand, but which were filled with malice and seduction. They called me to my death. Part of me wanted to follow the whispers into oblivion, but I doggedly pursued the rest of the Order. Merlin’s pagan staff glowed with a werelight, guiding us through the city’s gloom. A few of the others also conjured lights on the tips of their wands or at their shoulders.
We progressed through twisting streets, black with shadow and mildew. Merlin led us unerringly, pausing neither to consider a juncture nor to double back. The whispers grew more intense, but never could I hear individual words.
We reached the pit.
Never have I seen something so benign twisted into something so horrible. It was a vast black and bottomless hole rimmed with festering pitch. Out of its maw the city slowly crawled, maybe a foot an hour, just fast enough to be perceived. My mind tried to compensate and make sense of the city’s gradual expansion, but it could not. I felt dizzy.
Merlin turned to us.
“I will take position to the east, across the pit. The rest of you spread out around it, north, southeast and southwest,” the chief of our Order said softly. He looked at me. “Hold this position. It is our only means of escape.”
I nodded. The others did too, and with that, our party dissolved. Two went round the north rim of the pit, two went south. I stepped to the oozing edge of the pit. All down the sheer walls the shadowed shapes of buildings jutted, marching inexorably upward. The whole of Nekropolis was coming.Its darkness seemed to stare back at me and I stood transfixed, hearing only whispers and seeing only doom. Then one of the whispers transformed into a voice and shattered the spell lain upon me. I looked up. Merlin was shouting to me. The others were in position. I had stared for a long time, lost in the city’s dark power.
Merlin began the banishing spell. I shook off the last of the city’s spell and followed suit. The words I had learned flowed from my lips. Around the pit the five of us began to glow in the darkness as we gathered our power. We were beacons in the night. Beacons to which the Death’s servants flocked.
It is a fairly easy thing to cast a spell with a vocalization. It is harder to cast with merely a thought. It is harder still to cast one spell with your lips and another with your mind at the same time. But we were masters, we were the greatest wizards and witches alive. It was for this ability to multicast that Merlin had chosen us.
I saw the bubbles of protection, walls of fire and light flicker to life around my companions as swarms of spirits converged upon them. I knew I had not long before I too must defend myself or perish utterly. I continued to speak the banishing spell and turned my back on the pit. For a moment the vacant streets remained empty, but then like a rising tide, the whispers grew louder. Surging out of the shadows came Death’s army, thousand strong. It was made up of black armored forms with burning eyes and glimmering blades and hooded scabrous creatures that stretched pale skeletal hands towards me. They all seemed to glide forward, riding on the mists that filled the city.
Fear fell away.
I lifted my sword.
I was a war wizard. Battle was my home. Destruction my element.
To be concluded…
~SJA
