6. Alistair
six
Alistair
Alistair awoke slowly. His entire body burned.
Was something wrong with his dawnflame? He shifted, trying to get more comfortable, and found his limbs restricted.
His eyes shot open. and he struggled to rise only to realize that he was wrapped tightly in a thick woolen blanket. A fire blazed in a nearby hearth.
Where am I? What the Light happened?
Bit by bit, it started to come back to him.
The blizzard had been far more brutal than he’d imagined.
The wind and snow had shrouded his vision, and even with dawnflame to fortify his flesh, a deep chill had sunken into his bones.
He recalled his body numbing, his legs giving out as he collapsed to the packed snow, and then…
“Two times in one day, paladin. For a champion of the Light, you’re surprisingly terrible at saving yourself.”
Alistair spun, still cocooned in his wrapped blanket, and found the necromancer leaning against the bottom of a curving staircase, flanked by two armed skeletal guards.
Though Alistair recognized the bare stone of the crumbling tower, the haphazard sitting room separating them appeared more plushly appointed than either the main hall or the cellar where he’d been imprisoned.
He must be higher up. In the necromancer’s private chambers.
A shiver that had nothing to do with the cold clawed its way down his back. For what insidious purpose had the necromancer dragged him here?
“You rescued me from the storm?” he demanded. “Why?”
The necromancer scowled, a red blush coloring his pale, sunken cheeks.
“Because I didn’t want your death on my conscience.
” His scowl deepened. “No matter how much you might deserve such a fate. What were you thinking, running out into that mess of a storm last night? I warned you how bad it would be.”
Alistair felt his own flush of embarrassment.
In retrospect, it had been a shortsighted decision.
At the time, however, anything had seemed better than remaining trapped here, waiting to die at the hands of an evil necromancer.
Not that he could show his self-doubt or regret—he dared not display any hint of weakness before such a dangerous adversary.
“Don’t presume to lecture me on questionable choices, fiend!” He tried to muster stern condemnation, but his blanket cocoon somewhat ruined the effect. “I’m not the one who has been terrorizing a defenseless village. Are five victims where you draw the line, then?”
The necromancer knit his brow. “I have no idea what the Dark you’re talking about.”
“There’s no sense denying it! The townsfolk of Singer’s Rest already informed me of their four missing members.
” Alistair glared at the pair of undead hovering near the necromancer.
“No doubt they made fine new recruits to your army. Tell me, did you murder them on the spot, or did you kidnap and torture them first like you intend to do with me?”
Throwing his hands in the air, the necromancer spun away. “Shadow and shade, how many times do I have to tell you that I have no intention of harming you? I’ve saved your life not once, but twice! Is that not proof enough of my sincerity?”
Unease nibbled at the edges of Alistair’s certainty. Could the necromancer be telling me the truth? “Just because I don’t understand your motives doesn’t mean they’re pure.”
“Keep telling yourself that if it makes you feel better. But if you believe nothing else I say, believe this.” The necromancer leaned in until his face hovered right above Alistair’s, his pale blue eyes like shards of broken glass.
The raw pain reflected in their depths stole Alistair’s breath.
“I would never harm an innocent,” he said, jabbing a long, elegant finger into Alistair’s chest to punctuate every other word.
“Which is more than I can say for your precious Order.”
Alistair was shocked to discover that part of him wanted to believe the necromancer.
His anguish felt too genuine to be a ploy.
Yet, what other explanation was there? People didn’t simply vanish into thin air, and Alistair had witnessed the necromancer’s undead invading the village with his own eyes.
Perhaps I can learn more by playing along.
Swallowing, he looked away from the necromancer’s piercing gaze. “If you didn’t kidnap those missing villagers for more undead fodder, then why did you attack Singer’s Rest?”
The necromancer abruptly rose, towering over Alistair. “I didn’t attack anything!”
“Oh, yeah?” Alistair said, resisting the urge to shrink back. “That’s not what it looked like when I chased your minions away from that warehouse.”
The necromancer hesitated. “All right, so I might have stolen a few supplies.” He rubbed the back of his neck in a way that reminded Alistair of a kid caught doing something he wasn’t supposed to who feared a scolding.
Alistair had worn that same expression plenty of times himself while waiting to face his father’s wrath. “But that does not make me a murderer!”
“Then, what are you doing lurking alone in these mountains? Are you concocting a dark ritual?” Alistair peered about the sitting room, though he wasn’t sure what he expected to spot. A summoning circle etched in blood, perhaps?
Something like hurt flashed across the necromancer’s face, and despite his resolve to get to the bottom of this mystery, remorse pricked Alistair’s chest. So much for playing along.
He opened his mouth to veer the conversation back on track, but before he could, the necromancer snapped, “I came here to get away from Dark-cursed bigots like you!”
With that, the necromancer stalked toward the stairs ascending higher into the tower. His skeletal guards trailed dutifully after him.
Alistair shoved down his regret as he watched the necromancer depart. Necromancers, along with all others who wielded duskflame, were evil. Alistair might not agree with the Church on everything, but on this point, they’d always seen eye to eye.
How many stories had his father told him about the horrors he’d witnessed in the line of duty?
In the end, the dark magic his father fought against had claimed his very life, and Alistair had sworn to do all he could to honor that sacrifice.
Merciful Light, it was why he’d taken his oaths as a Knight!
What righteous citizen of the Empire wouldn’t treat anyone willing to resort to such foul sorcery with the exact same trepidation and mistrust?
I came here to get away from Dark-cursed bigots like you!
“Wait!” Alistair heard himself call out.
The necromancer hesitated halfway up the stairs. Finally, he turned and glared silently at Alistair as if daring him to utter another accusation.
Alistair wasn’t entirely sure what he was going to say until the words leaped from his lips. “You’re not going to put me back in that cell?”
A startled grin broke out over the necromancer’s face, and Alistair’s breath caught in his throat.
The laughter in the boy’s icy eyes, the creases on his cheeks, the joy captured in his expression—it all served to dispel the pall that perpetually hung about him, transforming his gaunt face from something sunken and sullen into something almost… Beautiful.
“Why bother?” the necromancer replied with a wry chuckle.
“We both know you’d just break out of it.
If you try to leave again, I won’t stop you; however, I won’t go chasing after you either.
The uppermost level is my bed chamber and is off-limits, but feel free to explore the rest of the tower from this sitting room down.
If you need anything, you know where to find me. ”
The necromancer started to turn away, and Alistair found that he suddenly didn’t want the conversation to end. Perhaps it was the prospect of being left alone with nothing but walking corpses for company. “I don’t even know your name. I am Alistair of House Halion.”
Meeting his eyes again, a hint of a question in them this time, the necromancer said slowly, “Ignatius.”
A heavy door slammed shut at the top of the staircase once Ignatius and his two guards were through. Alistair stared at the closed door for a long moment, gathering his thoughts.
On one hand, he had his first solo mission as a Knight and a clear-cut duty to protect Singer’s Rest from a necromancer the village leaders seemed certain had been terrorizing their town.
And on the other, he had a necromancer named Ignatius barely older than a kid who claimed he wanted to be left alone and allegedly went out of his way to spare Order paladins sent to kill him.
This assignment was shaping up to be not so simple after all.
Alistair didn’t hear a peep from Ignatius the rest of that day. He tried to smother his disappointment, telling himself he was being absurd. What reason could he possibly have for missing his would-be captor?
If I don’t talk to him, I’ll never get to the bottom of what’s really going on.
Except…he already knew what was going on, didn’t he? The facts of this case seemed pretty cut-and-dry, so long as he didn’t allow emotion to cloud his judgment.
True to his word, Ignatius granted him the run of the tower…
such as it was. It didn’t take long for Alistair to realize he’d essentially seen everything already.
There was the storage cellar where his makeshift cell had been, the kitchen, and the great hall with its heavy doors leading outside.
Then, higher up, there was the sitting room where he’d awoken after his ill-fated escape attempt.
The only room he’d yet to visit was Ignatius’ bedchamber on the top floor above.
Ignatius must have issued new orders to his skeletons while Alistair was completing his circuit of the tower because when he returned to the sitting room, he found an area cleared to make room for a makeshift sleeping palette.
A pile of blankets lay draped on top. The sight left Alistair vaguely unsettled.
It seemed too…homey for a summoner of the undead.