Akanor: Tales From Necro Box Set Read online

  He placed a flaming candle in each vertex of the star and sat down in the center of it with his legs crossed. He held the book open between his legs and began to incant, to summon.

  The tattoo on his arm began glowing angrily as echoes of an unheard lament bellowed out in a blend of chaos as the spell was finished.

  The candles’ flames dimmed and the sounds of the external world inescapably slipped away. Shadows crept forward and a vortex began to condense in front of him. The vortex started out as a simple two-dimensional, two-armed micro-galaxy, and slowly it began to deepen into a horizontal, controlled swirl of dark-purple energy.

  It was untimely: Léssemna stirred in bed and worried about the man she once loved unconditionally. She had to see what was going on. That sound of something sucking the air in vigorously caught her by surprise. She stood up wearily and began to walk toward the door.

  Suddenly, there was a very strange absence of light and sound—she blamed somnolence as the reason behind this distorted reality.

  As she entered her husband’s study, she was greeted by a purple-dark vortex hovering in midair and her husband’s untamed bewilderment looking straight at her—she almost felt loved by his gaze. A tingling sensation ran across her body, whereupon she could no longer move. A hideous voice then filled the air and crawled over her back with talons of misery.

  The Devil himself spoke out, his voice harsh and metallic, piercing the air like rumbling thunder.

  “You, who have summoned me, I have felt your cravings for the dark forces of my realm during long years of lusting. Your chance to obtain what you desire is at hand. Be aware that for this act of summoning, you will have to make a choice, for no action may go unchallenged by accountability—there is an unspoken price.”

  In a blink, Léssemnos’s arm was ripped off by an invisible force. Threads of skin and muscle trying to hold on to their former body dangled freely in the air, sprouts of crimson blood emerging in untamable rivers of vital fluid.

  Léssemnos screamed in agonizing pain and fear. He never imagined that the Devil would arise to claim such a toll. No one warned him this would come to happen! This was madness! If only he had known…!

  He was bleeding profusely, moving closer to the brink of death; but even worse was seeing his wife floating in midair, completely entranced by the Devil’s doing.

  “The arm I have taken is marked with the tattoo you nurture infinitely, that was bestowed upon you as an emblem of your apprenticeship in necromancy. I will either take it away and leave you mangled, handicapped for the rest of your days in the company of your loved one, the one you swore to love and protect under all circumstances the day you wed her—till death do us part—or let you keep your arm and give you the power requested. You shall be undisputed. I will grant you grandiosity.

  “But know this before leaping into action: if you choose the latter, I will keep your wife’s body and soul in exchange. Be quick! If you bleed to death before casting your choice, I shall take you directly to the Abyss and leave her to mourn you for eternity. I have spoken!”

  Torn from the inside out and dismembered, he could hardly hear himself think. He had to think; he had to make a choice. He loved his wife, but…the power he had desired for so long was being offered to him right there, in that instant! It would be the perfect scenario to have both the ultimate power to conquer the world and to regain his wife’s love back! The pressure of such a hard and horrible choice brimmed from his heart and crept through his body, turning horrific pain into numbness. It gave him a moment of clarity.

  With all that power, could I eventually bring her back?

  Pain snapped him back to reality; consciousness was flooding the floor with his blood. His eyes swayed wildly from side to side, looking from his arm floating amidst the vortex to his wife, completely bewitched, threatening to be sucked into the funnel. His arm glowed with his lustful desires and passions; his wife’s vacant gaze made him recall how she had been eclipsed by the horizon on the day they met.

  Foul thoughts concluded and foul conclusions arose from ill perceptions. It is now or never. The power is within my grasp. She will die. This is inevitable. But, with the power I am being offered, I will be unstoppable. I will not be hindered from bringing her back from the dead. I will not be limited.

  The choice was made.

  His arm was sewn back to his body perfectly by an invisible force, knitting muscle fibers and arteries with grace. Power surged through his soul and his senses, engulfing him in a spiraling light the color of his blood. Mighty and strong he gleamed with awe-inspiring power. His hands grasped at the air as if crushing a foe’s heart, testing the newly founded force embroidered into his body and soul.

  Movement brought his eyes up. He felt heartbroken upon seeing his wife become ensnared into the vortex, slowly, cruelly.

  She was no longer entranced.

  She screamed and struggled, kicking at the very air while holding on to the hope and the vague illusion that her husband was coming to her rescue.

  But he was stricken numb, paralyzed by despair and a false sense of fulfillment. As mighty as he felt, he could only watch as his wife was consumed by the vortex. I must be strong! I won’t give this power up, not even for her! I must endure! This is merely a test! This is my path to righteousness!

  Doubt crept into his heart and gripped his soul with the notion of having erred. What if this was wrong? What if he would never forget her, what if he would never be rid of the emotions? What if this was the path to eternal damnation? What if he could never bring her back?

  He observed with vacant eyes as his loved one was devoured by darkness. The vortex closed with a high pitched roar. Silence brimmed from every corner of the house. The reticence of sound became erosive, and it began to feed on his soul.

  There was no grand finale, no grand closure. There was no epiphany. There was only him, his power-hungry soul, and silence. He immediately began to miss her, but he was sure he would be over her eventually. She had to be forgotten! Would she?

  It wasn’t until his heart sunk deep into the floor that his legs gave in, pushed by an overbearing sense of dismay. He fell onto his knees, shattered, torn, and completely demolished.

  Thereafter he knelt for a long period of time, motionless, staring at the walls of his former house—now a cemetery generated by treason. He replayed over and over the image of his wife being consumed by darkness…

  THE REMEMBRANCE OF HER disappearing eyes jolted him back to the present. The wind with hints of decaying meat and fires burning blew the image away. The endless surge and plunge of brooding emotions carried by the memory of the trade he once made sunk back into quiescence, waiting to be summoned to torment him again upon request.

  His sight gained perspective. Observing his armies marching victoriously after a devastating war was an ironic homage to his failure. The world’s most powerful King he was, yet a King without substance. The horizon was pale, upholstered with dusty clouds of gray and viscid white, like a shroud covering a corpse.

  The emotions he swore to forget were still there; he still loved her as madly and as deeply as he did when they first met, when she was gazing at the blue horizon of the mountains, enthralled by the mysteries of the universe. Such deep-rooted emotions could not be cleansed. Not a single strand of his power had been able to dissolve his broken heart. Time only made it worse.

  Now as King Deathenor, standing tall atop the mountain of corpses he himself created to build a throne, he was cheered and venerated by all his subjects. This was the vision he had dreamed of, yet there was something lacking, utterly missing.

  He was so wrong about the emotions he thought he would feel at this very moment! He was neither complete nor proud, but a wraith, a mere shadow with no purpose. If only he could have predicted the pain and emptiness he would bear upon victory—where epiphany should have been felt instead of crushing despair—then, perhaps, he would’ve cast a different choice.

  He had fulfilled his destiny. Al
mighty and ever powerful he truly was, but powerless when it came to summoning even a whiff of contentment. Happiness seemed to have died within him the moment he fed the wrong wolf. There was no hope, no dream, and no greatness. His tattoo throbbed and pulsed with hungry power, desiring to spew malice by the second, as if it had a will of its own. But Deathenor could no longer heed its calling.

  His faithful servants clapped and screamed, marching and sounding the trumpets of victory. War sagas were being created, legends being recorded on scrolls of the great King of the world. But no one knew, however, that he had enslaved none but himself. He had everything he desired, the throne and the armies, the glory and the countless victories, and yet, he had nothing.

  “The victor! The victor stands over us!” They cheered in reverie, pointing at him from the skirts of the mountain he stood on.

  “Deathenor, the most powerful necromancer of all time! The King, the true heir to the throne! He has brought us prosperity, justice, and the conquest of all time!”

  Deathenor, he thought to himself, is my worthy name: given to me by my enemies for becoming the bringer of death. I lost my true name when I lost my wife; I lost myself by exchanging the most precious thing to me for this…power! The hunger for power holds no happiness, no joy. I am the epitome of the tragedy lived by those who never mend an error—mine was far too grave to repair. She was right, this is irreversible. I am doomed forever.

  Death would have been a reward. Rotting in a coffin next to her after long years of hard work and inspiring love would have been liberating. But no, being a powerful necromancer damned him to eternal life. And there he was, suffering his abominable fate.

  Crestfallen, he faded away from the ocean of soldiers, seeking to endure his eternal demise in solitude.

  ***

  AFTER MANY MONTHS OF FESTIVITIES, the King could finally rest within the solitary confinement of his fortress.

  The large, stone-walled complex was devoid of servants but full of absent hope. Silence filled every gap inside his castle. He needed this silence to brood, to summon the memories of yonder to feel close to his beloved. The memory bloomed wholly within the fertility of silence.

  The tattoo on his arm pulsed with hyperactive energy, desiring reckless evil. Far too many centuries had he given in to the impulsive drive to provoke wicked deeds in the name of righteousness, but now the tattoo was merely a constant, nagging reminder of his failure.

  His face had begun to resemble its true form: the sagging, drooping skin of a man who had suffered too much by his own hand and could no longer fake a smile; only sadness was left to creep beneath the bonds of skin.

  The echoes of the wails of his wife being sucked into the vortex forced him to recall how he had simply watched as she was consumed by darkness. It was her eyes, her pleading eyes, that plunged the dagger of despair deeper into his heart. Though recalling that awful moment was the only thing that brought him close to her, a venom he needed to feel at ease. With nothing else to do but brood he would remember that moment relentlessly, obsessing over it, wearing him down inch by inch, and thus his eternal demise, as death was never an option.

  And now it’s just you and me, eternal life, wondering about each other's failure. The King wished he could keep worthy company. To endure this pain with someone would give him brief periods of freedom. But alone, he was constantly aware of his tragic mistake, of this mangled world he had created for himself—and for what? Why conquer the worlds, the heavens, and the seas if, in the end, unhappiness brimmed from every crevice of his shattered soul? As miserable as he felt in solitude, he could not let it go. He needed it to remember his long-lost love.

  I love you, Léssemna—why couldn't I forget you? This is my curse, my punishment. I am dammed without you and forever it shall be. If only I could bring you back from the dead. Wait…

  Is it possible?

  Could it be?

  Something moved.

  An old thought stirred within its grave. He had completely forgotten about his old plan to bring her back from the grave.

  Now that I am the most powerful King, a wielder of necromancy, could I bring my wife back from the dead, just as I imagined when I traded her for power? But the Devil himself took her; she didn’t die a normal death, buried beneath piles of dirt! How, then, could I bring her back if she is not available for summoning? I would have to go to Hell myself to bring her back!

  The idea marinated with notions of grandeur and the desire to cheat the Devil, to make him pay for having played him for a fool, for having pushed him into a pit of despair. Seeing his wife again would be his salvation; getting back at the Devil would be cathartic. If her soul remained intact, he could say he’s sorry for eternity and make things right one way or another. Hopefully she will remember me! But will it be as the man I was back then?

  This was his chance, and he knew it; he felt it. This was his opportunity to right his fate. This would be his resolution. Besides, he had an unspoken hatred for the Devil for having urged him to choose while pinned against the sword and the anvil. Exacting revenge cunningly would make the ordeal much more interesting.

  To bring her back would mean I could have the best of both worlds—finally. With my powers, I could surely make her immortal, too! To live eternally with her…to see her again! Oh my love, my dearest! Is it possible? Can it be?

  He researched and studied every single book he came across, and not one tome of magic or single book of spells contained a passage assuring him the feat of entering Hell was feasible without casualties. Would he survive the ordeal? It surely implied grave peril…

  He searched and searched, day after day and night after night, reading and pursuing what slowly became an elusive white rabbit. Intrigue morphed into concentrated study; and concentrated study devolved into an obsessive and impulsive drive, slowly dwindling toward irrevocable frustration.

  The intensity of his study reminded him of when he was just a pupil, of when his sole desire was to become a great wielder of spells.

  He felt nostalgic as he remembered his young self—he missed those days of ignorance, of simple-minded ideas. He could not recall his own face, his smile, or his demeanor. It was so long ago. This was one of the curses of eternal life, he concluded: to forget ages past, to be deprived of what once was, to forget one’s roots.

  His past had simply become a variable that could be substituted by anything he wished to imagine. This, at first, was a fun endeavor, but soon proved to provide him with nothing more than homesickness upon not knowing or having a picture of who he was before he accepted the Devil's trade.

  He shook his head and plunged back into his research, clinging to the hope of being able to undue his living death.

  After what became weeks of intense study, only one thing was clear to him: that trespassing Hell was indeed a perilous venture.

  Many books spoke only of opening the portal to Hell; none of them detailed anything afterward or even mentioned the long-term consequences of doing so. Perhaps no one had returned to record the experience.

  The thought sent an eerie feeling down his spine. Nevertheless, his lust to complete this task grew and grew, and his simple idea became an addiction. He was resolute. He would venture into the Abyss and have a word with the Devil himself, and there negotiate with him the possibility of getting his wife back.

  He would offer to give back his powers and his tattooed arm in exchange for Léssemna; he would even barter with one of his legs if necessary. That would surely be a great bargain, would it?

  He would take his chances with the Devil. Without his wife’s love, existing was pointless. Without righting his ill actions, integrity was far away; and without redemption, his soul would stay crumbled, nothing but a sack full of dead hopes and distorted dreams.

  Blinded by his emotions and feeling capable enough to generate the incantation, Deathenor faced the stone walls of his study in the tallest tower of his fortress and placed his hands in front of himself—his dreadful power bypassed th
e need of the seven-pointed star to incant.

  A shadow grew around the necromancer as the spell was slowly created, his hands trembling as his skin was eclipsed by a spiral of black power. His tattoo began to glow with angry red colors, the engravings spewing malice recklessly.

  Something was amiss. The incantation staggered at first, reluctant to jump from his hands as the energy was forged, as if the very spell knew it held an ill omen and wished not to fulfill its destiny.

  The necromancer insisted with stubbornness, forcing the spell with all his might and, like a viscous fluid slowly moving forward as it warms up, the incantation ebbed from his hands.

  The stones of the wall where the spell was being cast turned to liquid. The sound of energy clashing against the wall reverberated within the room with increasing echoes, persisting like a tormented thought.

  The energy melted the wall and turned it into a viscous, orange energy circle. Rippled by the lingering echoes, the stone slowly morphed from a fluid state into heavy plasma, falling in blobs of mangled, viscous elements to the ground, splashing and crumbling to solidify into transmuted matter the color of charcoal.

  Suddenly, the portal solidified and for a split second, it became a perfect mirror upon which Deathenor saw his image, tall and proud, a very powerful caster indeed. But the King knew better; he saw a defeated man buried underneath a heroic mask.

  As the reflective surface began to vanish, instead of stone, liquid, or plasma, a roaring cavern revealed its dark, ominous bowels to the world with a gasp.

  A finger of mist threatened to cross the portal. The gas behaved like a tentacle, probing the dimension where the entrance had been created.