Prologue
Victus stared at the pile of bones, dust, and cloth. Here lie the remains of an ancient scribe no doubt. This place used to be a Scribal Monastery, a place for learned men to devote their lives to preserving knowledge. Over a hundred years have passed since Robarian raiders from the south had passed through here, killing mercilessly taking what little food and provisions the Scribes held, leaving behind the most precious items of all. Victus carefully pried the scroll from the clawed bones that once were hands. Three of the fingers fell to the floor falling apart into chunks of little more than dust, he cursed himself quietly for his carelessness. The true treasures here were the scrolls and tomes left behind. But even he wasn’t here for their ancient knowledge. Sites like this littered the caves and forgotten places of this part of the world. Scarred reminders of a time when knowledge spread faster than common sense. No, he was here for the bones. These bodies still echo with haunting shadows of what once was life. He was here to harness that power. He had spent years studying this dark magic, now it was time to test it.
Kneeling down the young man closed his eyes, and focused his breathing. He pulled his talisman, a black crystal humming with magical energy, from his pocket. The necromancer ran his fingers along the rune markings covering the crystal. He felt their harsh edges interrupting the otherwise smooth round shape. Pulling the energy stored inside the talisman, he focused it in the center of his body. The sensation was overwhelming, the raw power invited him to surrender, to give in to its appetite, but he resisted it. Focus. Feel the air around you. Feel gravity pulling down your body. Breath. Victus centered his thoughts. Once the magic in his gut calmed to a steady pulse he let it rise, focusing his thoughts on bringing it into his throat. The magic hummed in his vocal cords as he spoke.
“Bicarte Morti Reduntis.” The magic words flowed from his lips, words he had recited a thousand times. But this time, there was real raw magic behind this. This time they had bones to flow into. He felt, rather than saw the magic go out of him. The bones rustled as if with a breeze, and then all fell silent. Deathly silent.
Seconds ticked by each lasting an eternity. Victus’s lungs began to ache, bringing the realization that he had been holding his breath. He breathed in, and so did the skeleton.
Victus jerked back in surprise, as the boned jaw flung itself open and the sound of air rustling through the empty mouth and dispersing out the back of the skull. The chest rose and fell with a false sense of function. With each breath, the skeleton’s eyes glowed like a small fire being coaxed to life. The glow grew from an ember to now two bright orbs that filled the sockets with a soft green light.
The skeleton simply lay there, breathing. Nothing else.
“Stand,” Victus said in the most commanding voice he could muster.
Bones rattled as they moved to complete the task. Tendrils of green energy snaked out of the bones, taking the place of ligaments, muscles, and tendons, moving them with false life, before disappearing. Just watching the skeleton stand up was like seeing fireworks of green energy crackling up and down the bones. Then all settled as the skeleton stood motionless waiting for its next command.
Victus felt nearly giddy with excitement. He had done it! Here was the product of the last three years of hard work. He walked in close, looking the skeleton over with wonder. This was his creation. It felt surreal. The skeleton stood there as if oblivious to its master’s scrutiny. Victus looked into the glowing sockets and felt his excitement ebb away. There was nothing looking back at him. He had known the soul of this fellow was long gone, but his studies had led him to believe the echoes of life would still come through, that there would be some haunting of a past life. But what he saw was just an empty husk magically manipulated into a puppet.
“Talk to me,” Victus said, his voice low, lacking the energy that filled it moments ago.
The Skeleton’s jaw dropped open again, stale air pushed out and hit him in the face, but no sound. Victus’s heart dropped. He was surprised at his emotions. No part of this affected his research. This wouldn’t inhibit his plans. No, this was something else. He had long ago lost any friends in his path down the dark arts, this skeleton was the last hope of a friend his miserable heart had secretly yearned for. The realization sickened him. How could he be so weak?
Victus turned to walk towards the door when the skeleton moved. Victus froze. He hadn’t given him a command. His mind raced. Was there another necromancer nearby? Impossible, he would have sensed the magic. Had there been something he had overlooked in the spell? Was his skeleton going to turn against him?
While Victus’ brain worked into a frenzy the skeleton walked over to an old dust-covered table. On it sat Victus’ travel bag. Victus realized he had been about to leave it, had the skeleton seen that and gone to fetch it for him? No that didn’t make any sense, he would have had to command it to do that. The skeleton reached into the bag.
“Hey!” Victus yelled in surprise. “That’s not yours, you can’t go rummaging through-” Victus’s voice broke off when he saw what the skeleton pulled from the leather bag. A quill and parchment. It set the parchment onto the old table and began to write. Victus rushed over to the table.
Hello.
There, the words are written on the parchment by the skeleton’s hand. It lifted its head and looked at Victus, waiting for his next command. Excitement filled him again. Was this it? Was this what he was looking for? It was only following his command to communicate, but it had found a way to do so.
“What is your name?” Victus tensed, realizing how many implications this answer could have.
The skeleton reached out with the pen again. He realized only the thumb and index finger remained on the right hand, making the skeleton’s grasp on the quill difficult. He would have to be more careful when reviving remains in the future.
I have no name.
The response was neatly written in a clear font. A realization struck Victus. He rushed across the room, carefully picking up the scroll he had set aside from earlier, and brought it to the table. The writing style was a match! The skeleton wrote with its right hand even though it would have been more efficient to write with its left because the echoes of life had remembered how it used to write, it wrote in a beautiful script because it had remembered such writing style from its past. He had been right! This was more than simply a pile of bones, it held onto the shadows of memory!
Victus felt his throat tighten with emotion. Had anyone been here he would have denied any feelings, but alone, in a dark cavern, miles from any other living soul he didn’t care. Victus looked at the scroll, blinking away tears of joy. He tried to make out the ancient script, but it had been decades since he had last used it. He just managed to get the title, “A Codex of Classic Poetry”.
“I have found your name,” Victus said with a smile. “Codex. Codex the Scribe.”
