Never Die Twice - Chapter 24

Walter Tye, a nineteen-year-old Pale Serpent apprentice, spoke the ancient words of power from his grimoire. He suffocated under his dark robes, the very air suffused with the putrid stench of death.

Gathered in an underground chamber, in the bowels of their Black Citadel, twenty necromancer apprentices surrounded a white-haired dead woman trapped in a coffin of ice. Dunes of bones, femurs, and pounded skulls covered the hall’s floor, while four black stone pillars—the same material that gave the fortress its name—supported the twenty-feet ceiling above them. Stalactites above hung organic sinew and veins, pulsing with life.

The Grandmaster of their brotherhood, the lich Asclepius, oversaw the ceremony; the ancient undead stood at Walter’s side, while he completed the ceremony.

While most expected him to follow the original [Ritual] to the letter, the young necromancer had modified it somewhat, removing superfluous lines, editing some words, and streamlining the chant. Tye believed these changes would improve the odds of a successful transformation… and he was soon proved right.

The frigid coffin began to resonate, threatening to melt. Yet instead of turning into liquid, the ice compressed around the corpse trapped inside it, creating a dense layer around the skin. The flesh fused with the chilling permafrost, turning it deathly blue. The woman’s pale beauty turned into a ghoulish visage, her eyes into black holes, and her warm body into a frozen, skeletal corpse.

“Arise, [Winterwight],” Walter declared. The woman opened her mouth, breathing not air, but the cold chill of winter itself. The room’s temperature dropped to below freezing, as her bones animated with unnatural strength.

Her life may have ended, but her undeath had only begun.

Asclepius patted Walter’s shoulder, congratulating him on his success. With this successful ceremony, Tye had graduated from apprentice to a full member of the brotherhood. The youngest Initiate in history.

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“Congratulations.” His fellow apprentices clapped, although Tye could see a few of them were green with envy. Walter stoically nodded at each person, although he had never been close to any of them.

Even after spending six years at the Citadel, he still had trouble opening up to others.

“What will it be now, Walter?” Asclepius asked his apprentice, as the lich teleported the two of them into his private study. Unlike normal chambers, the lich’s abode had no obvious exit. The blackened walls were decorated with shining runes and gloomy, colorless tapestries. Cracks in the black stone making up the room seemed to pulsate with purple energy, and Tye often heard ghostly whispers when he listened. Besides a bone desk and chairs, numerous whispering shelves populated the room, hundreds, if not thousands of skulls replacing books.

Tye knew that each of these skulls held their deceased owner’s knowledge. In Asclepius’ case, dead men told tales.

“I would like to access the Brain Reliquary, Grandmaster,” the Initiate asked, standing while the lich sat behind his desk.

“I expected as much.” Asclepius nodded to himself. The reliquary held tomes and knowledge unsuited for an apprentice’s gaze. “You shall be granted access to it, but you misunderstood my question. I asked which path you intended to tread.”

Which path to immortality.

To become an Initiate, an apprentice needed a Master’s sponsorship and approval; while Initiates became Masters when they added a milestone in the Great Work, finding a new road towards immortality. Most were necromancers having discovered a specific form of undead, but not all. Mistress Asenath, in particular, had found a way to extend her life by transferring her body into imperfect clones and soulless bodies. This way, the organization encouraged innovation, creativity, and outside-the-box thinking.

“You possess the exceptionally rare [Magical Prodigy] Perk,” Asclepius praised his student. The older undead sounded almost paternally proud of his protégé’s progress, in the six years since he found him amidst ruins and corpses. “We are only five to possess it in the entire kingdom. You have better chances than most to achieve lichdom, once you level up enough.”

“I have given it serious thought,” Tye admitted. “But I would prefer to explore other forms of undeath. I hope to find one capable of traveling between Helheim and Midgard at will.”

“To physically smuggle souls through?” the lich asked, his apprentice nodding. “Interesting. I am not certain it has ever been done, but such discovery would certainly propel you to the rank of Master.”

“The title matters less than the journey,” Tye quoted one of the lich’s old words of wisdom. “And in this case, the destination. What better way to understand how to break the cycle of souls, than by exploring the afterlives directly?”

His words seemed to both amuse his mentor and cause him concern. “I attempted to explore Helheim during one of its Convergences, long before you were born. One of Loki’s endless jailbreak attempts. I barely took a step through the tear, that Hel’s hound Garm fell upon me and pushed me back.”

“Perhaps a subtler form of infiltration would work? Such as becoming an undead inside Helheim?”

“Through a delayed spell?”

The two debated the magical theory behind such a feat for a while, the lich cautiously interested in the proposal. In the end, Asclepius favored free thinking, and so would let Tye do as he wished so long as he didn’t bring Hel’s attention upon the order.

“Her church already asked the old king to allow an inquisition three times, which he, in his great wisdom, refused,” Asclepius said. “The new king, Siegfried… let us hope that he does not rethink his father’s policies.”

“Are you worried, Grandmaster?” Tye asked. It was unusual for the elder lich to feel concerned about mortal politics.

“My colleague Calvert usually informs me of royal decisions ahead of time, but he has been worryingly silent for a while.” The Grandmaster dismissed his apprentice’s concerns. “Do not worry yourself with this, and focus on your research. As an initiate, you will be granted a private laboratory and funding.”

Finally, Tye would enjoy full and complete autonomy. He especially hoped to explore the [Diabolism] school of magic, and promote his [Alchemist] class; the young magician had the gut feeling that it would synergize well with his [Necromancer] levels at some point.

“Grandmaster, may I ask you a question? A personal one?”

“Asking questions is proof of intelligence.”

“Which god do you worship?”

Most of the Pale Serpents were at best indifferent to deities, and at worse despised them. It struck Tye as odd that their leader was the exception.

Asclepius stared at Tye in silence, making the younger necromancer uncomfortable. Had he overstepped his bounds? “What makes you think I worship a deity, young man?”

“You possess the [Staff Master] Perk, but no necromancy class that I know grants it,” Tye explained himself. “The only classes with it that I know are [Battlemage] or [Priest]. Yet you didn’t show any hint of Perks associated with the [Battlemage] class.”

“Sharp,” Asclepius commented. “You are correct, young man. I do have levels in a [Priest] variant, although my original religion has long since been forgotten, as was my homeland. If you wish to know, my cult predated the Aesir and Vanir unification, and the very creation of Avalon. The Aesir I currently draw my power from is not the creature I venerate; he simply grants me his patronage, so long as our interests align.”

The situation seemed even more complicated than what Tye thought. “Why did you switch deities? Which god grants you patronage? I didn’t know an Aesir was sympathetic to our cause.”

The lich let out a dark, deep chuckle. Something in the question amused him greatly. “One day, I may tell you. But for now, this shall remain between my lord and me.”

Located in the Logres region, the Black Citadel was as much of a place as it was an unliving creature.

From outside, the fortress appeared as a jagged spire of ink-black stone looming over the countryside; on a closer look, one could see sinuous spines and sinew embedded in the structure, flesh mixing with rocks. The building lacked any windows, besides a single archway where supplicants and gravediggers’ carts went in.

The only other way in was through teleportation.

Having reviewed his new laboratory in the deeper levels, Tye was rather satisfied. While he would need to make commissions to get better equipment, Asclepius had granted him a large space to run his experiments; and one isolated from the rest. The necromancer couldn’t stand noise while working.

While the floor smoldered with alchemical smoke and crystals on the ceiling provided light, Tye moved amidst the hundreds of undead working in the citadel. Most of them were mindless zombies and skeletons, people who sold their corpse while alive to be reanimated. The Pale Serpents were rather proud to have done away with the barbaric institution of thralldom, replacing slaves with mindless undead labor; one day, necromancy would push Avalon into an era of modernity, whether the kingdom liked it or not.

Outside of the workers, the other undead were sentient creatures making up the organization’s staff; most of them necromancers raised by their fellows so they could avoid death by old age. Among the Pale Serpents, embracing undeath at one point was, while not mandatory, strongly encouraged.

“Ah, Tye.” A female vampiric Initiate, the [Plague Doctor] Striga, caught him while he was on his way to the [Custodian Rune]. Fresh blood covered her black overcoat and beak-shaped mask. “Can I borrow you for a moment?”

“Certainly,” the necromancer replied courteously. “Do you need my assistance with something?”

“Yes, an operation scheduled tomorrow. The victim suffers from [Hel’s Breath], a magical disease of great potency.”

“I’ve heard of it.” A very nasty plague that caused the victim to spit black bile, and eventually suffocated the victim by filling their lungs with their own blood; unless magically cured or resistant to diseases, it killed every single infected in time. It was said to be Hel’s weapon of choice to cull Midgard’s population, whenever she felt like the gods owed her more souls.

“According to my research,” Striga said, “it is less of a disease than a self-replicating Helheim spirit with a basic degree of intelligence. Not only does it desire to spread, but it can also lie dormant and even cause the victim to appear cured for a while, to maximize the infection rate.”

Screams echoed from the other laboratories below as they passed by. Right now, Master Ostanes was experimenting with a new procedure to flesh-graft monstrous organs on human bodies, and while he faced many setbacks, the early results were promising. Yet, although he always made sure to preserve his subjects’ life, the famed alchemist cared nothing for their pain or comfort.

Thankfully for him, the order had no shortage of volunteers. Desperate criminals willing to do anything to avoid eternal condemnation; sick people suffering from a deadly plague immune to conventional healing; old, rich patrons willing to make a generous donation for better, improved bodies. The price was always the same: services to further the Great Work, either in life or death.

“I will introduce an artificial spirit of my creation to counteract Hel’s,” Striga explained. “But the victim was preserved in alchemical suspended animation to slow down the disease, and I worry that it may upset the body’s chemical balance. Having an additional alchemist to oversee the process may save a life.”

“Tomorrow morning?” Tye asked for confirmation, the doctor nodding. “I will be happy to help.”

“Thank you. If the results are noteworthy, perhaps we could introduce a ‘healing spirit’ to the masses and eradicate the plague forever. Hel will certainly create something else, but this will be a major milestone in the story of medicine.”

Tye bid the doctor farewell, Striga returning to her lab while the necromancer reached a purple, serpentine rune inscribed in one of the walls. Upon touching it, Tye summoned a purple, hooded ghost. “I wish to access the Brain Reliquary,” he asked. The ghost made no sign that he had heard the request, but one of the walls on his left crumbled, revealing a hidden stairway.

The custodians had haunted the Black Citadel since its foundation, having been its original architects. When the building neared completion, they had asked to be buried alive inside the walls, so their spirits may one day see the Great Work completed. Their unseen hands cleaned the citadel, put books back in their place, removing the dust and the stench of blood.

Over time, they had gained a degree of power over the structure, creating hallways and stairs from nowhere, rearranging rooms, etc… they only allowed invited guests to move unhindered, and immured intruders.

Tye climbed the stairs for more than fifteen minutes, before reaching two immense, thirty-foot-tall doors covered with spiraling runes. The necromancer touched them, the gates opening in response and letting him enter the reliquary.

This archive appeared as a bone-white expanse lit by ghostly candelabras; half the shelves were occupied by books, and the other half by dark purple, crystalline tablets. These devices, developed by the Pale Serpents, could hold telepathic information and impart images, words, and knowledge to anyone consulting them. In time, the brotherhood hoped to do away with paper entirely and store the content of entire libraries in one tablet.

A giant brain the size of an elephant occupied the center of the hall, preserved within an alchemical brew. Those who died and could not—or did not wish to—be raised as undead, or who suffered the final death, had their brain extracted and added to the Reliquary. Their mind would join those of their predecessors, preserving their knowledge for future generations.

“Welcome, Initiate Tye,” the librarian politely greeted Tye. A tall, lanky bone demon with insectoid wings, he dressed in crimson robes and scribbled arcane words on a scroll behind his desk. “Are you looking for something particular?”

“Information on Helheim and its Convergences with Midgard.”

“Second row to the left, next to the prophecy archive, third shelf when starting from the bottom.” The scribe pointed the way towards, before returning to his work. As he passed close, Tye recognized the scroll as an incomplete passage of the Lesser Lemegeton, a treatise on [Diabolism]. Asclepius must have asked the fiend to make a copy.

Much to Tye’s surprise though, he found Medraut already present in the area, reading a grimoire heavier than a boulder in the company of a female mummy. For once the knight didn’t wear his helmet; in stark contrast with his black armor, his hair was golden like the sun, and his eyes like sapphires. Even in his early forties, he remained quite handsome.

“Walter, fancy meeting you here,” Merdraut saluted him. “Congratulations on your initiation. To think it has only been six years…”

“I would not have gotten so far without your guidance, Lord Medraut.” Tye bowed deeply. While none could replace his parents, he had always treated the knight as an uncle of substitution. Medraut was always a source of wise advice.

“No need to be so formal, my friend.” The knight patted him on the back. “We are brothers-in-arm now.”

“Brothers…” the mummy at his side whispered. Tye frowned at hearing her speak, having mistaken her for a mindless servant.

“He is the boy I told you about,” Medraut replied. “The one Asclepius took in six years ago.”

“I see…” the mummy rasped, clearly struggling to articulate each word.

Tye examined her head to toe and realized he had never seen this woman before. For a mummy, she was extremely well-preserved, to the point of keeping patches of skin, whitened eyes, and long black hair. While she couldn’t pass for someone alive, she was a far cry from the skeletal corpses her kind usually ended up as; and from her face, she must have been truly splendid while alive. Scrolls made up the bandages holding her body, advanced magical symbols preserving her flesh from the ravages of time. The way she carried herself reminded the necromancer of a dignified, careful warrior.

“I am Walter Tye,” the necromancer greeted the mummy. “I don’t think we’ve met.”

The woman tried to speak a word but struggled to make the right sound. This surprised the necromancer since her vocal cords should be working normally. A psychological block perhaps?

“My wife, Cywyllog,” Medraut introduced the mummy, to spare her the pain of talking. “She rarely leaves our apartment, and only ever to spend time with me.”

“Not… safe… outside…” the mummy muttered, stretching words for several seconds.

“She… she had a traumatic death,” Medraut told Tye, upon noticing his curious gaze. “Even after being raised, it still affects her mind. It took one year for her to speak again, and even now interacting with others is… difficult.”

Tye could understand that. While he cooperated with others when needed, he did his best work in quiet solitude, or in the company of the undead he himself created. In her case, though, speaking seemed to cause the mummy genuine, physical pain. “I am happy to make your acquaintance,” the necromancer smiled at the woman warmly. “Your husband is a great man.”

“Not… at home…” she let out a sound that passed for a chuckle. “Never… clean…”

“You complain when I clean up my armor myself,” Medraut complained, although not seriously. “You also chastised my last squire so much, that the poor boy always looked down to avoid your gaze.”

“Bad work… do well… or don’t…”

Tye chuckled at the scene, Medraut shaking his head in response. “Is she why you left the Royal Knights?” the spellcaster asked his mentor.

Medraut nodded, confirming Tye’s thoughts. The knight held the mummy’s hand, in a way that reminded the necromancer of how his father brushed his fingers against his wife. “When I asked Asclepius which price he expected of me for returning her to me, he said none. I called it a miracle, my fellow knights called it an abomination. So I left. For love.”

For love.

Tye didn’t understand this feeling, nor the raw emotion in Medraut’s voice as he spoke the word. True, the necromancer felt an attachment to some people but nothing as strong as… whatever this was.

“Something… planned… tonight?” Cywyllog asked Tye.

“You want to invite him for dinner?” Medraut asked for his wife’s confirmation, before turning towards the necromancer. “She is an excellent cook, far better than that zombie duo in the dining hall.”

The necromancer smiled, rather touched by the attention. “I will think about it.”

“You do not have a choice,” Medraut replied, amused. “I outrank you, and at home, she outranks me.”

“Thanks for clarifying the chain of command,” Tye deadpanned, before changing the subject. “What are you reading?”

“The Yggdrasil Records. Researching prophecies is one of my hobbies,” Medraut explained, chuckling to himself. “You know, when Asclepius identified your true name, he tasked me with researching it. I guess I have become the go-to expert on matters of fate.”

His true name. The name by which the necromancer was known to Yggdrasil, and its prophetic Records.

“Nidhogg,” Tye mused, “the Malice Striker.”

His words bothered Cywyllog. “Dark name…”

“Yes,” Medraut confirmed, taking this more seriously than Tye himself, “‘Nid’ is an ancient, runic term for blasphemy and dishonor. You are likened to a serpent eating the roots of Yggdrasil, feeding on the corpses of the wicked and carrying them away as the Nine Worlds end.”

So Tye was, what, the trash collector of the universe? “I can show you my scales,” the necromancer deadpanned but didn’t dismiss the prophecy yet. “Am I mentioned in Ragnarok’s Records?”

Medraut nodded. “You are mentioned after Ragnarok, in fact. While your role may be a thankless one, you are guaranteed to survive it, if the Earthlanders fail to destroy the Calamities.”

“But if I survive Ragnarok, does it mean that it will happen in my lifetime?”

“Hope… not…” Medraut’s wife commented.

“Hard to say,” the knight replied. “It could be that you are destined to live a very long life like Archmage Calvert; perhaps even discover immortality. Who knows? The Convergences are indeed accelerating, but magical observations say that they will not reach a breaking point until centuries.”

Perhaps Tye would live long enough to see the Great Work completed then. “It doesn’t matter,” the young necromancer shrugged off, as he examined the shelves in search of a treatise on Helheim.

Medraut marked a short pause, a bit surprised by his apathy. “The Yggdrasil Records dictate everything in this world of ours, except the actions of Earthlanders and undead. You would be wise to pay attention to what they say, if only to decide your own destiny.”

“Either I will succeed in finding immortality, or I won’t,” Tye said. “Nothing else matters.”

“I admire your resolve, but the devil is in the details, Walter. If you keep focusing on the big picture, you will miss the tiny pictures that make it up.”

“Bad… metaphor…” his wife said, much to Medraut’s sorrow.

“But his face…” the knight trailed, before catching himself.

“Hm?” Tye frowned.

“I still remember Asclepius’ reaction when he identified your true name. I’ve known him for more than a decade, but I never saw him like this. He looked… triumphant? As excited as a walking skeleton can be.” The knight smiled at the younger man. “I believe he expects great things from you.”

Tye couldn’t help but redden in embarrassment, much to the couple’s amusement. “If you know the most about fate, what happens to Hel?”

If the necromancer could understand her motivations or true nature, then perhaps he could find a chink in the cycle of souls.

“That’s what I was looking for,” Medraut said. “It is said that her father Loki will lead an army of the dead upon escaping Helheim, while her hound Garm will kill, and be killed by, the Aesir god Tyr. Yet Hel herself does not seem to take part in Ragnarok and isn’t mentioned afterward.”

“Survive…” his wife whispered. “New world… death…”

“Maybe. Or maybe she respected the letter of her pact with Odin while violating the spirit, taking no side herself but sending her legions to help throw the cosmos asunder, hoping to fill Helheim with souls? There is the side of order, and the side of chaos, but Hel stands with neith—”

BOOM!

Tye’s vision went white, as a blast propelled him against a shelf. His ears became deaf for an instant, his back hitting books and tablets.

The shockwave would have broken anyone else’s bones, but thankfully, Tye had been gifted with more HP and Vitality than most.

When he regained his awareness, the necromancer found himself facing a giant boulder covered in smoking runes; the projectile had crashed through the walls, causing rubble to bury the Brain Reliquary and opening a path for sunlight to come inside. The demon librarian had interrupted his work to examine the scene, while the panicked Medraut frantically searched through the rubble for his beloved.

“C… Cywyllog!” So Tye heard, as his sense of hearing returned, as Medraut found his wife’s hand among the books. The knight grabbed it and raised her arm.

Only the arm.

The knight froze in place like a statue, looking at the severed limb he held with an empty gaze. His eyes looked down, to see the crushed shape under the boulder. He didn’t scream, didn’t cry, didn’t move an inch.

He looked dead.

Although he wanted to offer his mentor compassion, Tye focused on the source of the attack, looking through the destroyed wall.

The forest beyond the citadel shifted and crumbled on itself, a mighty illusory veil lifted. In its stead, Tye saw a great army of thousands, with catapults, siege towers, mighty magical circles…

The flags… Avalon’s… Odin, Hel, the Aesir… Why runic stones?

“They broke the defensive wards,” Tye realized, panicking. “They can teleport insi—”

They did.

Summoned by powerful magic, an entire troop of warriors materialized near the stone’s crater. Seven knights in Avalonian armor, carrying swords and spears, backed by two inquisitors of Hel. The black, cowled figures wielded fiery staves, gazing at the library with disgust.

“Pale Serpents,” the knights’ leader cleared his throat, as his troops raised their weapons. “By the divine decree of Allfather Odin himself and Her Dark Majesty Hel, you are accused of blasphemy, heresy, desecration of the dead, human experimentation, divine conspiracy, forbidden magic, and Calamity worship. By the royal order of His Majesty King Siegfried, your order is disbanded, and all its members will be put to their final death.”

“[Spell Purge],” the inquisitors declared, an anti-magic field surrounding them.

Medraut saw red, activating one of his Perks. His helmet appeared on his face, and a mighty, two-handed claymore in his palm. The leading knight didn’t even have the time to raise his shield when the Pale Serpent’s blade fell upon him, smashing his armor into a fine paste.

While the other knights struggled to contain the furious Medraut, the inquisitors set the library on fire with their fiery staves, much to Tye’s and the librarian’s indignation. “[Walter’s Venom]!” the necromancer cast on one of the inquisitors, trying to overcome their defenses.

Charisma check failed. You could not overcome Hel Inquisitor’s [Spell Purge].

“You foolish mortals!” the demon librarian roared with undying wrath, claws extended. “The knowledge in this place is priceless! Half these books are unique!”

“Then their lies will die alongside your old bones, fiend!” The demon let out a roar and tackled an inquisitor to the ground with his claws, tearing out his throat with his fangs.

“Go warn the Grandmaster,” Medraut ordered Tye, shielding the necromancer from a knight’s spear. “Gather the apprentices and escape into the lower levels.”

“But—”

“This is an order!” Medraut brook no disobedience, cutting an inquisitor in half like butter. Empowered by fury, the black knight mowed down the entire troop single-handedly, but more warriors teleported in.

Tye could only hope Lord Medraut could hold the line until reinforcements arrived.

“[Invisibility],” the necromancer cast on himself, his body turning transparent, as he escaped the library into the deeper levels. He briefly peeked over his shoulder, to witness Medraut clashing blades with a warrior angel while surrounded from all sides.

The Black Citadel trembled, as more catapults bombarded it from afar. Stones fell from the ceiling, the ghostly custodians phased through the walls to intercept intruders, while screams and roars echoed across the fortress.

When Tye reached the end of the stairs and the laboratories, the royal army had already teleported in. Armored warriors and inquisitors were engaged in a vicious battle with the Pale Serpents’ Masters and Initiates, spells and arrows flying across the air in a blinding display of light and steel.

The ground was covered with corpses. Some belonged to the knights, others to the undead staff. Tye recognized quite a few faces he had dined with sometimes, their heads cut by swords, bodies impaled on the walls by spears. The blood reached up to the necromancer’s heels, revealing his position to everyone skillful enough to notice.

And a knight in heavy armor did. “[Heimdall’s Vigil].”

A flash of light spread through the vault, lifting Walter’s invisibility and most of the apprentices’ illusory protections. Tye immediately responded by hitting the knight with a sphere of darkness, causing him to stumble, but not to fall.

The necromancer exploited the distraction to join his colleagues, the apprentices hiding behind the stronger Masters and buffing them with magic. With few spells capable of besting the royal army’s protections, Tye supported Master Ostanes, who had shapeshifted into a massive werewolf.

Like a divine savior, Grandmaster Asclepius suddenly teleported in the middle of the room, sparing the scene nothing more than a glance before casting a spell. “[Time Stop].”

In the blink of an eye, every knight present laid dead on the ground, their dismembered limbs strung into an artistic circle. Asclepius spoke a single word, the corpses assembling into a mangled, flesh abomination; the creature immediately moved towards the stairs, to defend the citadel from intruders.

The display brought back hope in Tye’s heart, and the necromancers let out a shout of triumph. With the Grandmaster on their side, they could repel this assault handily. He was worth an entire army!

The lich didn’t share these thoughts however, observing the massacre with a fatalistic gaze. Many Masters and Initiates had fallen, and while they could be raised, there was so little time to do so…

“The Black Citadel is doomed,” Asclepius told his followers, shattering Tye’s hopes.

“We can hold it, Grandmaster,” Tye protested. “We have magic, resources…”

“This is our home,” Master Ostanes said, shapeshifted into a monstrous werewolf. The Citadel was the only place where they belonged. “We have nowhere else to go.”

“We wield great power, but the whole strength of Avalon is arrayed against us,” Asclepius replied. “Our time will come… but not today.”

“But our research, the knowledge we gathered—” Tye protested.

The lich looked down on the necromancer, silencing him before he could protest further. “The Great Work is greater than our pride, or any of us. The Great Work must go on. The brotherhood must survive. Do you understand, Initiate?”

Tye shut his mouth, intimidated, but nodded.

Asclepius conjured a scroll and gave it to Tye. “Take every apprentice you can to this place. I set up a cache for such an emergency. You will find instructions and magical items, and you shall be protected from scrying attempts; if we do not join you by midnight, disperse and never return.”

Space itself was torn in half, a portal materializing in the middle of the hall. The necromancers formed a defensive line, as a battalion of knights crossed the gate, led by wizened spellcaster wielding a rune-covered staff.

Tye immediately identified the wizard, whose face was known all across Avalon. Contrary to his fearsome reputation, he reminded the necromancer of an old beggar dressed in a traveler’s rags. His long white beard barely covered his wrinkles, and beneath his feathered hat, one of his black eyes seemed weaker than the other. In contrast with his poor appearances, the sheer number of magical wards on his person rivaled Asclepius’ own.

“Calvert,” the lich whispered with a hint of disappointment, the other Masters ready to unleash spells at a moment’s notice. “You traitor. After all I taught you, you dare raise your magic against me?”

“Traitor?” The bearded wizard hit the ground with his staff. “You have guts saying that to me, Asclepius. You betrayed Asgard, no, existence itself.”

“All for a purpose,” Asclepius replied, darkness swirling around his fingers like coiled snakes. “You cannot best me in this shape, trickster. I have forgotten more spells than you will ever learn.”

“Perhaps,” the mage admitted, royal knights instantly shielding him with their shining armor. “But I do not stand alone. You cannot win this.”

“Then may your prized kingdom be cursed!” Asclepius snarled, his eerie calm replaced by bitter hatred. “Curse your puppet King, Siegfried! May he perish from Hel’s death, just long enough to watch his line and kingdom die!”

“[Time Stop]!” the mage answered, as Asclepius unleashed torrents of darkness on the royal army.

“Follow me!” Tye shouted to the apprentices while fleeing into the deeper levels as half the ceiling collapsed under the strain of powerful spells. Bow knights started mowing them down with arrows, killing one of the apprentices; a projectile almost tore Tye’s head from his shoulders, but he didn’t stop.

The necromancer ran as fast as he could, the screams of his colleagues getting cut down at his back.

They still haunted him today.

In Nastrond, Tye banished the memory as he finished drawing the magical circles on the cathedral’s ground; the corpse of the colossal serpent had been laid at the center, to serve as the ritual’s focus. Meanwhile, Tye’s [Athanor] had started pumping the springs’ water, an empty vat awaiting for the last ingredient right next to it.

After his disastrous foray into the world above, Tye had decided to proceed with the ritual immediately; after losing his home to Hel, the mere idea of the goddess holding any form of control over him had become intolerable.

Home eviction hadn’t been funny the first time, and the second had hurt just as much. Thankfully, Tye had managed to condemn the secret tunnels linking his shop to the dungeon, and hastily remove anything compromising before inquisitors bust his door. While he had escaped back to Nastrond unseen, the experience had left a sour, bitter taste in the [Ankou]’s mouth.

He would repay Hel soon, with her own coin.

“Preparing something, Darling?”

Right on time. “Laufey,” Tye said while he perfected the alchemical symbol of wind on the ground, using pasted bones to draw. “I will soon run a great experiment.”

“Is this why you gathered all these warm-blooded prisoners outside?” the demoness mused. Hagen and everyone else had gathered all the cultists, trolls, and captives outside the cathedral, bound and drugged.

“Yes. I might need your help, but let’s start with your report.” This is your last chance, went unsaid.

“Morgane couldn’t find the right opportunity to kill the princess,” Laufey lied to his face. “But she will be in position to do so soon, and I gathered interesting information about Medraut.”

And you wasted it. “I see,” Tye said, facing her with both arms behind his back. “I’m afraid I will have to require your assistance today.”

“Oh? Do I need to bleed the captives outside on your altar?”

“In your case,” the [Ankou] smiled at his treacherous food, “something cruel comes to mind.”