Chapter Fifteen
Chapter
Fifteen
Harbinger
Slowly,
the murals and myths turned to laboratories.
Cages
were the first sign of experimentation. Many of the testing areas seemed
indistinguishable from a dungeon, their rows littered with the husks of metal
bars and rotten straw beds. Occasionally, there were small rooms with drains in
the floor, whose only purpose seemed to be the washing and processing of
bodies, the same way that a farmer might groom their cattle before the
slaughter. By now, centuries of neglect had melted through the prison, leaving
the horrors as nothing more than a shadow on the stone—still, if he tried,
Isaac could faintly see the foundations of manacles in each of the forlorn
cells, including the claw marks raked into the walls.
He
imagined, for a moment, what the experience might’ve entailed.
These
prisoners would likely have been slaves, a tribute of
sacrifices offered from a vassal of the necromancer empire. They would be
shackled, herded together, transported down through the catacombs, and paraded
across the bony pavements of the necropolis. If they were lucky, their fate
would be met at a life extension center, their souls sucked through their flesh
and ground away into medicine. If they were unlucky, they would be transported
all the way to the pelvis of the colossus, where they would be subjected to
batteries of necrotic experiments, continually killed and resurrected until
only wisps remained of their essence.
He was
very glad this empire had died.
The
flooded ruins had ended somewhere around the lower abdomen. By now, the two of
them were making their way through testing grounds and research stations. Many
of the larger rooms were dominated by sets of alchemical equipment, mixed with
a few apparatuses that Isaac could only guess aided
the transfer of transmutational energy. In contrast, some of the areas had an
obvious martial nature. Zaria was quick to point out the positions of rusty
weapon stands, reinforced doors, chokepoints in the hall. To his credit, Isaac
also noticed a few sets of metallic coils embedded into the ceiling, which were
the equivalent of catalysts for a necrotic hex. A few of the sigils had left a
faint scar in the masonry. If they were still active, they would manage such a
snarling of entropy that any person who stepped within their field would be
vaporized in the blink of an eye. Fortunately, all of them were dead.
Isaac
still watched them carefully.
The
longer they went on, the more it became obvious that the testing chambers had
been funded by the city’s government. In his estimation, they had been designed
both as a place to further the study of necromancy, and to serve as a last
bastion for the ruling class, should some invasion or rebellion cripple the
city. For an empire that sustained itself on the lives of its vassals, this was
not an unreasonable concern.
Of
course, Isaac saw no signs of conflict now. The laboratories were buried in
dust rather than rubble. There was no indication of violence, civil unrest,
famine, some type of plague, or any other calamity that had killed countless
civilizations before.
He had
to wonder—how exactly had this city died?
“Squire.
Observe.”
Isaac
stopped reading a rotten notebook. He turned to see Zaria juggling several
glass flasks, the flared bases and thin heads spinning unpredictably through
the air.
“Stop!”
he yelled, aghast.
“No,
no, trust me, I can do this.”
With a
flourish, she tossed one flask into the air while catching the rest in her
palms. As the flask completed its arc, she craned her head forward, trying to
angle the flat of her skull beneath. The flask landed right-side, exactly
between her ears, staying perched only a moment before sliding through the fur.
She tried to catch it, lost her grip on the other two flasks, and three pieces
of glassware ended up shattering on the floor.
“Ah,”
she said. “Shite. That usually works with tankards.”
“Could
you not destroy ancient relics of the past?”
She
brushed some of the shards with her foot. “Were you impressed, though?”
“Incredibly.
Now stop touching things.”
He
began to make notes of the chemical reagents lining the walls. Zaria retrieved
her poleaxe from its resting position against a prisoner's cell. She stopped
suddenly, head swiveling back to the entrance. Her ears went tall.
Isaac
paused. “Did you hear something?”
She didn’t
respond. The laboratory ceiling hung low, the tremendous weight of rock and
earth seeming to bulge above their heads. Every sound felt ready to be crushed.
“Thought
I heard some scuffle,” she said, after a moment. “Might just be nerves.
Unsettlin’ ain’t even close to describing all this.”
Isaac
grunted in agreement, continuing to write. Around them, the laboratory
glassware was filled with skulls preserved in jars, cross-sectioned femurs
still lying under primitive microscopes. A few sections of the wall were
wrapped in the vine-like tangle of ossein, the matrix of fibers that made up
all skeletal bones. A brush of his hand confirmed that the fibers were composed
of actual bone. He wasn’t sure if the ossein had been planted there for
decoration, or if it had grown by some unspeakable festering process. The way
it spawned across the walls suggested the latter, which only made Isaac
question if the necromancers had discovered a way to grow bone from a
controlled medium, like others grew wheat.
Was it
still growing now, like a plague, deep in the heart of the earth?
He
decided to leave that question for later.
A short
distance away, Zaria examined the scratch marks carved into the metal of a
particularly large cell. “Got a question for you, love.”
“I’d be
surprised if you didn’t.”
“How
did—” She paused. “What’s that mean?”
“Nothing.”
“You
calling me stupid?”
“Not at
all,” Isaac said. “I’d characterize it as a vast inexperience in the matters of
academic pursuit.”
“Talking
like a book will get you pressed like one.”
“Ask
your question, please.”
She
gestured at the cages. “So, these cannibal wizards—they sucked the souls from
the prisoners and ate them, right?”
“I
wouldn’t use those words, but yes. That was their practice.”
Zaria
prodded a rusty bar. The metal flaked with a touch of her naked toe. “They
could just . . . suck your soul, right away? I mean, right outta you?”
“Yes.”
“Would
you . . . be aware? Of it happening, I mean?”
“Yes,”
Isaac said.
“You
would be?”
“Oh,
yes. You would be aware of your fate, until the soul itself was destroyed.”
“And
you know that, for a fact?”
“Some
experiments were done before the Scorch. They produced some . . . immoral
results.” He read the label on a vial of moldering acid. “Once the Diet was
formed, it heavily regulated the field, to ensure ethical development.”
Zaria
grunted, kicking the cage again. The rusty bar snapped and tumbled away. “Could
they do it the other way ‘round?”
“What
do you mean?”
“Could
they put their own souls in someone else’s body?”
“The
goal,” Isaac said, “was to replenish their own soul energy, to extend the
length of their life. Putting a soul in a new body wouldn’t fix that. There’s
no energy being added to the equation.” He continued to write. “They weren’t
just consuming the souls, either. The corpses had a purpose in fighting for
their armies. They made furniture of them. They had uses for the bone.”
“Furniture,”
Zaria said. “Outta people.”
“You’re
wearing leather armor, aren’t you? What do you think leather is made of?”
“Cows?”
“Livestock.”
“Aye,
well—” She adjusted the strap of her pauldron, looking disgusted at the
material. “Vekra’s tits.”
Isaac
continued to write.
“What
I’m getting at,” Zaria said, “is that you said they were warring, constantly,
to get these bodies. War brings injury. Soldiers would come back without a
limb, with burns, broken teeth, arrows they couldn’t dig out. Always a lotta
cripples, coming outta war. These bone cunts must’ve had broken bodies. So why
did they never put their own souls into other people?”
“It
doesn’t work like that,” Isaac said. “It’s called core rejection. A soul can’t
be implanted into a body that doesn’t ‘fit’, for lack of a better word.”
Zaria
trailed her hand along a hanging chain.
“It
depends,” Isaac continued, stuffing his tablet into his pack, “on the
composition of the original body, and how it compares to the new. Putting the
soul of one species into another is near-immediately fatal. Even a same-species
transfer—human to human, for instance—can cause a very deleterious effect. The
new body can’t bend its limbs. It can hardly draw breath. The organs starve
from lack of nourishment. And the brain itself—the organ which shares reasoning
with the soul—almost always drives the new soul insane, from what we assume are
the incompatibilities of personality. The old person lingers in the flesh. They
infect the new, leeching memory and habits and thoughts. The results are . . .
disquieting.”
Zaria
looked down the line of cages. It stretched to the end
of the room. “Stuffing new souls into old bodies doesn’t work at all, then?”
“It
only works with family,” he said. “Close blood relations, like father to son,
where the inheritance is strong. Even then, it’s tricky. The Diet of Nine
hasn’t developed the proper technology to do the procedure without great risk.
To date, few have survived the operation.” He flipped a page on his sketchpad,
continuing to jot down notes. “That was one of the reasons my father was sent
to this tomb. These necromancers excelled in manipulating souls, and the Diet
hoped they might find some clues or machines that could improve the
discipline.”
“I
don’t like that,” Zaria said. “Some things should stay buried.”
“Magic
can be made ethical. That is why the Diet exists.”
“Ain’t
a diet about eating things?”
Isaac
did not answer.
The