Hecried until the tears were streaming down his face, until he heaved and gasped,until the noises that came from his throat were more guttural and wretched thanany he had ever made before.He cried until the pain inside him was floodingout, raw and livid and endless, feeling as if his soul had been ripped from thefibers of his flesh, like the innumerable victims of the necromancer factory.
He tooka clutching grip of Zaria’s arms, moaning something inarticulate.She huggedhim tighter.He stopped trying to speak.
When hefinally regained himself, the green torchlight still burned above the dais.There was still lab equipment on the benches, chemicalvials on the shelves, skeletons on the testing rigs.Dust still swirled in theair.The skeleton of the necromancer still reclined in her chair, her skullgaping in shock towards the ceiling, as if she could not believe that her timehad truly come.
Theonly thing that had changed was the necromancer’s device.It was no bigger thana steel cuirass, lying empty and unpowered.With hisvision still blurring through tears, he found it incredible that everythingaround him had remained just as it was, because his entire world had justchanged forever, and, yet, almost nothing about the world had changed.Itseemed outrageously unfair that everything could continue to exist as it was.
Isaacrested his head in the tufts of fur around Zaria’s collarbone, absently rubbinghis fingers along the device.The metal felt very cold.
“Hewaited for you, love,” Zaria said, loosening her arms.“He waited a very longtime.He scoured every chance he had, just to give one to you.”
A sobrocked his chest.
“Youbein’ here made him happy, for just a moment.That was enough.”
Thedust curled in the air.It seemed to twist with a life of its own.Isaacwatched the eddies and curls, remembering the way the necromancer souls hadflown through the flakes and specks, as if conducting their energy through thestrangely metallic debris.He hoped, very briefly, that his father would stillbe with him, watching his son through some scattered, intangible means, gazingon through the years, his essence contained forever in the wind and sky andsand.
Helooked at the device, and he glanced around the dusty, gloom-filled room, andhe hoped just as quickly that his father was truly dead, that the dissipationof the soul brought an oblivion to all awareness, because if it did not, deathwould only be another cage, another torture of the mind.In this way, he couldbe glad that his father had died.
Thethought gave him a modicum of peace.
“Treasure’snearby,” Zaria said, beginning to stand.Her large hand squeezed his shoulder.“Gonna look.If you need something, just shout.”
Hemight have nodded back.She squeezed his shoulder again, heading out throughthe closest door.Only silence was left behind.
Afeeling of weight came from the walls, the heavy pressure of rock and dust andtime.
Aboveeverything else in the room, Isaac found himself staring at the corpse of thenecromancer.Eventually, he found the strength to limp back to her chair.Heran his fingers along the rotting fabric of her laboratory coat.He scratched anail at the scorches on her ribs.He peered into her empty eyes, wondering ifhe could somehow divine her name.
She hadbeen dead all along.He had spent his entire life training to kill someone whohad died before he was even born.If he had not been exhausted from the day’sefforts, the irony would have made him sick.
Isaacstared into the necromancer’s face, rubbing the flag of the stripes and stars,his thumb digging at the few fabrics of blue still remaining around the corner.He tried to bring himself to feel some emotion.He looked into the emptysockets of his nemesis, and he felt nothing but a dull ache, deep inside.
“Isaac!”Zaria shouted, her voice far away, echoing out from what appeared to be thedepths of a tunnel.“You’ll want to see this!”
Helooked over the lab equipment.The sorceress had written a journal, and therelative lack of rot on the paper suggested it had been carefully preserveduntil just before she died.He carefully flipped through the pages.As near ashe could translate, the unknown sorcerer had been expressing regret.Some wordsroughly translated to gold, pillage, slaughter, and worship.The words forremorse and sacrifice frequently appeared together.Occasionally, the word forgold would be next to another word that he could only translate as lightning orenergy.
“Isaac!”
Therewas a small apparatus hanging above the bench.It took him a moment torecognize it as the model of a star and its planets.He noticed, immediately,that the sun was far larger than it should be, and the number of planets wasentirely wrong—for some reason, the sorceress had placed nine around thecentral star.On the third planet, fingerprints were mingling with the dust,suggesting that she had often palmed the little metal ball, imparting it withsome lone, special meaning.Isaac couldn’t imagine why, because his own worldwas only second from the sun.
She hadwritten a word on the third planet, scratched directly into the metal.Ittranslated to dirt.
Soil?
It wassomething to that effect.
For amoment, Isaac looked at the small metal ball, feeling strangely wistful.Slowly, with no ceremony, he released his grip on the necromancer and walkedtoward the sound of Zaria’s voice, leaving a wind of dust in his wake.
ChapterTwenty-Two
Weightof Wealth
Thegold stretched away, rising like a tide.
Therewas no mistaking the distinctive tint, no disguising the truth of the treasure.All the same, as Isaac emerged from the confines of a concrete tunnel, he foundhimself comparing the gold to every shade of yellow he had ever seen before.The hue was more vibrant than the morning sun.The color was not as pure as theseed of a mustard.Pyrite—fool’s gold—had a much sharper glint when it caughtthe light.Here, the light reflecting from the metal was soft and seductive,like a piece of lingerie, as if it wanted nothing more than to beckon the eye.
Everycomparison fell short.There was no equal.
