Cenotaph of Bones: Chapter 41 (Patreon)

Chapter 41: Deal with a Devil

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I groaned as I opened my eyes.  Apparently, the gods decided I didn’t need a nap.  Instead, I needed to go dream walking and look at stuff.  It was probably punishment for making a joke about Wrath.

As I looked around my new environment, I realized I was standing on the edge of the roof on a building overlooking the fountain I had seen the necromancer using as a dark qi collection point.  The only reason I was able to see was because the flood of dark qi was being sucked into the fountain like a drain had been plucked from the base of a tub of water.  The courtyard was awash in energy, the spinning power almost hypnotizing as it was drawn in and condensed inside the stone basin.  Where I had appeared was right on the edge of the qi, and the rest of the city was covered.  It made it feel like I was standing on the edge of an island surrounded by darkness, the only things visible were the peaks of the tallest buildings surrounding the fountain.

While I watched, the necromancer came stumbling out of the building across from me.  He seemed disheveled and unsteady, leaning heavily on his staff to help him make it out the door of the crumbling palace or temple he was holed up in.

After making his way down the stairs, he leaned heavily on the lip of the fountain and shoved the end of the staff into the condensing qi.  It created another vortex, drawing in the power much faster than the fountain’s formation.  Just like before, it slowly condensed into an orb that fit into the end of the staff.

“This time will work.  It has to work…”  Hadad’s voice was more like the croak of a frog than a human.  I imagine being by yourself for a long time with no one to talk to made it easy to not talk for long periods of time.  “I’ll show you.  You’ll see what happens to liars!”

He pulled the staff out of the fountain when it had shifted from a glowing violet to a throbbing indigo.  With the speed of a striking snake, he spun and smashed the freshly-formed orb on the ground hard enough to chip the cobblestone paving stones.  It shattered like glass, spraying chips across the courtyard in a fan of crackling energy.  An orb the size of an acorn rolled free, emitting the indigo light with a throbbing pulse.  Once again being careful not to touch it, Hadad bent over the glowing gem with a spoon and fork to pick it up off the ground.

Before he could walk back inside, he was struck by a series of tremors that shook his body hard.  The acorn-sized gem fell off the spoon, bounced, and rolled against the rim of the fountain.  Hadad didn’t stop shaking, and suddenly threw himself down on the hard ground with bruising force.

“You think to change our arrangement, my bag of skin and bones?”  The rasping voice that came from the death cultivator’s mouth was completely different from the dry croak I had heard before.  Hadad writhed in pain on the ground, and I finally got to see his face as his hood fell away.  He looked younger than I expected, no older than my friends and I.  His gaunt features were smudged with dirt, and his long black hair was clumped with grime.  Hadad probably had a deep tan complexion before coming underground, but now he was so pale I could see his veins running under his skin.  “I think it’s time for me to show you the cost of insubordination.”

“No!”  The dry croaking voice of Hadad broke through whatever hold had been on him, but he immediately vomited blood in a spray that coated the ground in front of him.  “You lied, demon!”  He got back to his hands and knees, but wavered, too weak to stand.  “I’m not the one who broke our deal!”

“Wrong.”  The rasping voice returned, and Hadad climbed to his feet, any former issues with instability gone with the aird laughter that shook his shoulders with mirth.  “Your family will be returned to you.  It isn’t my fault that you are too weak to perform the ceremony now.  I have no doubt my experiments will return them to full life once we can power the runes and ingredients with increased levels of power.”  The necromancer turned and walked with fluid steps back to the building he had come from.  “Next time you make a bargain with a demon, you should remember to include a time limit.  Now, we have things to prepare.  The light sends its agents, and we want to properly greet them.”

As I watched, the possessed cultivator walked back into the arched doorway just as the levels of dark qi started to lower.  Hadad stumbled once, turning back to look at the gem created from dark qi before he disappeared inside.

My mind ran through what I had seen.  Hadad was clearly in control of himself only part of the time.  He must have made a deal with a nox when his ship wrecked to bring his family back from the dead, but the demon had only been interested in creating an undead army to sweep the Empire.  The only thing I didn’t understand was the gem he had created with his staff.  It reminded me of the dark qi cores I had collected from some of the lesser nox creatures I had killed, but far more powerful and pure.  What purpose did it serve?  Was he trying to kill the nox inside himself with it somehow?  He had certainly been afraid to touch it.  Before I could hop down and inspect the small gem, I was pulled back into darkness.

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