Bayett Read online

  Bayett

  Killing myself was going to be harder than I thought.

  I looked at the knife in my hand, poised against the flesh of my arm. Six inches long, single edge, ivory hilt. The blade was razor sharp, the evidence running down my arm in warm rivulets from the shallow wound. I steeled myself, and the blade bit further. For several long moments I held the pose, before lifting the knife and hurling it across the room. It clanged against the wall and fell to the floor, but I ignored it. Again I had failed. The scratch on my arm would join the other scars that marked past attempts.

  It wasn't as though I was afraid of death. Far from it, I was intimately familiar with the afterlife, having discovered the ability to speak with the spirits more than two years ago. No, it was the pain that scared me, shamed as I was to admit it. It was the one final hurdle that stood between myself and the brief moments of complete freedom before eternal oblivion.

  I slumped against the wall of the small hut I called home. Giving up on suicide attempts for the evening, I turned to the next best thing: the spirit world.

  Ever since my parents had died - I say 'died' because it's easier than saying 'my father killed my mother and then himself' - I found myself with the unusual ability to speak with the dead. Imagine coming home one evening and finding your father sobbing over the body of your mother, a bloody knife in his hand. Before you can process the scene, he takes the knife and thrusts it into his own neck, falling to the ground to join her.

  Bad enough, right?

  Now imagine that you can see their spirits floating above their bodies, misty, hazy representations of the most important people in your life. Within moments, the mist dissipates, leaving you wondering whether you were hallucinating.

  It gets worse.

  After the law enforcement has gone, after the bodies have been cleared away, after the shock has worn off, and you've convinced yourself that you were seeing things, after you've passed through all the stages of grief, you decide to do some research. And you discover you're a Necromancer.

  You flip through the pages of the book, and the words hit you like a brick. It says: "Necromancers can bring the dead back to life." You could have saved them, if only you had known.

  No wonder I'm so screwed up.

  I tipped my head back against the wall, preparing to enter the realm of the dead. I had learned so much since my revelation. Most of all, I had learned to be careful. After all, Necromancers are Madmen, and subject to the same risks that all Madmen are. If we draw too much power from the Madness, we risk letting it take over our minds. No human mind can handle that, and it leaves the affected Madman mindless, a shell of a human being. They become a Ratan. A fate worse than death.

  Carefully, I reached out and touched the vast source of power. It was a conscious act now, where it used to be instinctive. As always, it reached back. Once the connection was made, it was a struggle to keep the power from flooding the connection. But it was worth it, because now I could enter the spirit world.

  I slowed my breathing, closed my eyes, and allowed my spirit to separate from my body. It only took a moment before the familiar feeling of weightlessness came over me. Opening my eyes again, I looked down at myself, sitting on the floor. My body, my anchor, the only thing holding me back from sailing through the skies without limits.

  I sighed - in as much as spirits can sigh - and moved my spirit away from my body, intending to get as far as I could before my body called me back. Moving in this form as easy as thought. I merely had to think of moving in a direction, and I was. I passed through the walls of my hut as though they were made of fog,and indeed, they looked the part. Anything that was not in the realm of the dead was blurred and indistinct, difficult to make out. Structures were more substantial than living things, which were little more than a wisp of smoke.

  For nearly ten minutes I roamed the spirit world. It was empty, which wasn't unusual. There isn't as much death around as you might think, and most spirits return to nature within minutes of death anyway, unless a Necromancer is around to bind them.

  The emptiness, the silence, the solitude - I loved it. Nothing could bother me here.

  A flash of light to the right caught my attention. As bright as it was, there could only be one source: someone else had entered the realm of the dead. I knew I didn't have much time left, and curiosity briefly overcame my desire for solitude. Who had died? I had to know.

  As quick as thought, I shot towards where the light had come from. Oddly, it led toward the graveyard. I soared high, and dropped down near the beacon of light.

  It was a man, mid-thirties by the look of him, glowing clear and bright in this otherwise murky place. I stared at him for a few moments; he stared back. I was waiting for his spirit to disappear, to fade back into the essence of this place, feed back into the world to be born again.

  However, I realized with a growing sense of dread, he was waiting for the same thing.

  This was no recently deceased spirit. This man knew his way around the spirit world. The question was, was he free, like me, or bound to the Asylum?

  His eyes narrowed. "So," he said. It wasn't so much speaking as it was a voice that resonated with my spirit. "You are a Necromancer, then, am I correct?"

  I froze. If he was with the Asylum, he'd be with his Qui. If he was with his Qui, they'd have to come after me, bring me with them, to chain me to a Qui myself. I said nothing.

  "I don't recognize you from the Asylum," he continued. "So I'll assume you're on your own."

  My mind screamed at me to flee, but my spirit stood rooted to the spot. This was worse than becoming a Ratan. This was a lifetime of being chained to another person. Worse, it was a merging of minds. No more freedom. Ever.

  "What's your name?" the man said.

  With a supreme effort, I focused my will on returning back to my body. My spirit raced back to my body as fast as thought, and I shot up from the floor with a gasp. For a few moments I stood there, staring at nothing, as the adrenaline rush faded.

  He didn't know who I was, I rationalized as I tried to calm myself. He only saw my spirit, he wouldn't be able to find me.

  Even as I thought it, I knew it wasn't true. Though I had never seen my own spirit form, it was based on how I saw myself in my mind. There was very little doubt that I appeared in the spirit realm as I did in life.

  Surely they wouldn't even search for me, I thought. Surely I wasn't important enough to put the effort into. Surely they could just leave me in peace.

  My nerves were shattered. My hands were shaking. I needed something to calm down. I needed chemicals.

  For years, I had been experimenting with the effects of various substances. When mixed together, burned and the vapors inhaled, these substances had profound effects on one's mind. I searched through the shelves of bottles containing mushrooms, herbs, and liquids, settling on a certain herb known as Calenthis. I pulled it off the shelf and tried to recall the effects. A calming sensation. Freedom from worry. Relaxed state. Most importantly, it had a simple preparation.

  Satisfied with my choice of herb, I poured some into a small stone mixing bowl. Some of the herb spilled to the floor as my hands shook. I ignored it and placed the bottle back on the shelf. Taking the bowl in my hand, I made my way to the fireplace, where some embers still smoldered. I thrust a dry stick into the heat; it caught almost immediately. I placed the bowl on a small stand on my work table and used the stick to light a small pile of tinder underneath it.

  Within moments, the herb had started to smoke. Eagerly, I thrust my head into the fumes and inhaled deeply. The sensation was immediate. I felt my nerves begin to calm, and my hands relaxed. The table no longer shook as I leaned on it. Another deep breath, and my mind was overtaken with calm. I collapsed onto a small chair as the smoke fill
ed the room. I was content.

  I don't know how long I slept there. All I know is that I awoke to the sound of someone pounding on my door.

  "Bayett Laysen!" A voice shouted. I almost fell off my chair. "We know you're in there! Open this door or we'll break it down!"

  They had found me.

  The herb's effects must have lingered, because I felt calm as I walked to the far side of the room. They won't take me, I thought as I picked up the knife that still lay on the floor. Not alive.

  A few moments later, a hole appeared in the door, filled by a metal boot. I very nearly snickered at the absurdity of the situation. A crash on the other side told me that the boot's owner had lost his balance. The boot disappeared, and a second later, the lock splintered and a heavily armored man stumbled into the room.

  I pressed the edge of the knife to my neck as two more men and a woman entered the room. One was armored like the man who had broken the door, one was the man who I had seen on my previous excursion. A brief moment of panic flitted across my mind, but it was easily quelled by the knowledge that I was in control. I wouldn't go with them. I would die first.

  "Stop," I said. "Don't come any closer." The knife dug into my neck, and I felt a drop of blood trickle onto my chest. "I swear I'll do it." The armored men stopped and backed away warily, but the other two held their ground. However, they stopped advancing.

  "Bayett," the strange woman said in a soothing voice. "We're not here to bring you harm. You must understand, we only want to help you."

  "I don't need your help," I said. "Leave. Now!"

  "I'm afraid," she continued, "that we have no choice in the matter. Madmen such as yourself are too dangerous to be allowed to roam without a Qui. If you were overtaken by the Madness, this entire village could be destroyed. Is that what you want?"

  I hesitated. The entire village? "No," I said hesitantly. "But there's another option. I do not fear death."

  The woman extended her hand and took a step forward. "Come now, Bayett," she said. "Neither of us wants that."

  I almost smiled. Shifting my grip on the hilt of the knife, I looked the woman in the eyes. "That's where you're wrong," I said. I closed my eyes and took a breath, then in one swift stroke pushed the blade through the side of my neck. The pain was incredible as the steel split skin, opened veins, and pierced my throat, exiting on the far side.

  My hand fell from the hilt. My legs lost their strength, and I collapsed to the floor. Warm blood poured from the wound, and I quickly passed out to the sound of feet running toward me.

  Having my spirit ripped from a body which would no longer support it was quite a different feeling than releasing it voluntarily. The pain was incredible. I was disoriented for a moment, but soon found myself face to face with the spirit of the same man I had seen earlier. I laughed.

  "Thought you had me, didn't you?" I said. I floated in the spirit realm for a few moments, relishing the freedom. Without the anchor of my body, it was an amazing experience. I basked in the feeling, knowing that, in a few moments, my spirit would dissipate and return to the elements. That didn't worry me. For the moment, I was happy.

  Moments passed, turning into seconds, then minutes. I paused, and doubt entered my mind. It didn't usually take this long for a person spirit to dissipate. I glanced at the other man's spirit, who was still there, watching me.

  "You've bound me, haven't you?" I asked.

  "Yes," was his only reply.

  "Why?" I said. Binding was a way of preventing spirits from leaving the spirit realm. It involved attaching the spirit to a physical object, much the same way it is attached to a body. It lasted until the object was destroyed, and was the origin of more than one ghost story. "You're not going to get me back into my body, what's the point of trying to trap me here? As soon as you leave, I'm going to release myself." It was easily enough done by a Necromancer.

  "Only for a moment more," the Necromancer said, glancing down at my body.

  Curious, I turned and looked down at the floor. Entirely within the spirit realm, it was nearly impossible to see the living, but what I could make out was the woman kneeling over my corpse. What was odd was that my body should have been clearly visible, as it was no longer living.

  It was not.

  I turned back to the man's spirit. "You brought a Healer!"

  He nodded. "I know the struggles our kind face. I suspected this was a possibility. When she has finished Healing your body, she will administer a potion to keep you asleep for several days. Then I will return your spirit to your body, and when you wake up, you will be in the Asylum."

  "How could you?" I hissed. "How could you betray a fellow Necromancer?"

  He sighed. "Betrayal was not my intention. If I thought it for the best, I would have simply let your spirit dissipate. But you are strong, rare in one untrained. With training, you could be one of the best. The Asylum will train you."

  "And chain me to a Qui, like you!" I spat. "If you truly want what's best-"

  "No," the Necromancer cut me off. "You are only Joined to a Qui if you choose to be. If you wish, you may remain at the Asylum indefinitely, training, teaching, or just reading at the library. They will not force you into anything."

  My eyes lit up - or they would have if I had eyes. "Library?" I said. I had devoured the few books that I could find in the village, and hungered for more.

  "One of the best in the world," the man confirmed. He glanced back to the body on the floor. It was now as faded as the other people in the room. "It's almost time," he said. "While it will make no difference to the end result, my conscience would be better satisfied if I knew you were coming willingly."

  I hesitated. This village held nothing for me. I had no friends, few acquaintances, and only the study of my alchemy to keep me occupied. The Asylum had a library where I could study and read texts to my heart's content. They wouldn't force me to submit to a Qui, I could remain free to learn and experiment.

  I looked back at my body, now Healed. I would be chained back to the world of the living. But I could visit the spirit realm whenever I wanted. The decision was made.

  "All right," I said.