23. Chapter Twenty-Three #3
I jump back as what I assumed was a dragon statue opens its green eyes.
Its diamond pupils dilate, and it yawns, returning to sleep.
It doesn’t move as I get closer, but my fingers tap where my daggers are positioned on my upper thigh.
There have to be thousands of leather tomes filling the god shelves, and it’s unclear how I will find the one on necromancy if it even exists in here.
The dragon opens its eyes and stretches. It appears carved of the same material as the gods, and it makes me wary that they might animate too. His green eyes are the only things on him that look alive, that and the steam spewing from his nostrils with each breath.
He thumps his tail on the floor. “You’re still here.”
“I am. Are you the librarian?”
“I’m the guardian of this place. Not a librarian. What do you want?”
“I’m looking for a book on necromancy.”
He taps his head with a long claw. “What do you want to know about necromancy?”
“What is it? What does it mean to have that power?”
“Manipulation of the dead. Speaking with them, and for some, animating them.”
“Bringing souls back to life?”
His tail thuds on the ground, back and forth. “Only the most powerful necromancers can do such things.”
“So, it is possible for a necromancer to truly bring back the dead?”
“Yes, but there are usually consequences. Like the body can’t fully be restored.”
"Like maybe they can only be a skeleton, but with a soul?"
"Maybe, but it would take an unusually powerful necromancer to bind souls to anything.
Usually, it would result in zombies like creatures that are still decaying bodies, or voids that are not decaying, so like the skeletons, but they have no soul or personality.
They only obey the master who resurrected them. "
"So that is what a void is." I stare up at all the gods’ faces and try to recall if they are exactly the same ones as in the other room. “Who are these statues of?”
He taps his head again with his claw. “The race is known as the Leqru that use to rule over these lands, but not how people assumed. They walked among the humans, monsters, and fae. They conquered them as practice and devoured gods.”
“Practice for what?"
"Worlds they cared much more about. They sent their children here to learn, so they could rule with fewer mistakes in lands they valued more.”
“I’ve heard a similar story, but they are not gods?” I walk around the circle to study each statue.
“Some people believed them to be, but they devoured anything that was perceived to be divine. Beings much more powerful than anything known to exist in this realm. Some say they are oblivion itself.”
“Oblivion? Nothing.”
“Chaos incarnate. The spark of all creation. Beings much more dangerous than anything ever claiming to be a god. The stars themselves, but also not stars at all.”
“That gives me a headache. Does their true form cause madness?”
“Yes, to view the face of a god eater is to realize one’s place in the universe. A mortal’s place is as insignificant as the dirt under your feet is to you. The human mind fractures when it realizes this.” The dragon stands and paces from one side of the circle to the other.
I stare up at the faces of the most powerful beings in existence. “These god eaters. The ones here are actually children?”
“At first, they are, but they mature within a few years by learning and growing. There is a strange magic in this realm that it took a long time for the Leqru to realize because some cases were successful. Some of their children would graduate to a more mature realm.”
“Some wouldn’t?”
“Right. The longer the beings stayed here, the more human they become. I believe that is also why it took them so long to realize there was an issue because how could a species so insignificant affect them so greatly. It’s something so deeply rooted that not even they could remove it.”
“It makes them mortal. Human.”
“Yes and no. They gain more features of humans, and some have even reproduced with mortals. It creates offspring more closely related to gods. Children with magical abilities much more powerful than a normal mage, but still not as powerful as a Leqru.”
I rub my head as thoughts fly much too quickly through my mind. “Children who could raise the dead, like a necromancer, but with greater skill?”
“Yes, that would be a possibility.”
“Are the Leqru still sending their children here?”
“No, they abandoned this realm after one final failure made them leave forever.”
“Lazzus,” I whisper.
He puts his front paw where I imagine his ear hole is. “I’m sorry. My hearing isn’t the greatest when covered in stone.”
“Oh, I was only speaking to myself. Are you an actual dragon underneath all that marble?”
“I am an actual dragon made of marble, but I have magical stone coatings to make me more durable but less likely to hear.”
“It looks like they sent many here. You’d think for such powerful beings they’d have figured it out faster that a strange magic was altering their kind.”
“They didn’t because at first nothing unusual happened here, and then only occasionally. Some failure is expected. They pull the failed back and send them elsewhere. But if there was any delay to their mission, the strange magic would take hold and change them.”
“Can anything defeat them?”
“Nothing known.”
“Neera!” Zyon’s stern voice makes me flinch.
I spin around and know instantly from his enraged expression that we’re about to have an argument.