A Reminiscence

(This is a short story set within a larger work I'm writing, if you like it, let me know and I'll think about posting chapters on here)

I stood at the overlook at the top of my mountain compound. As I watched the stars, I heard their whispering once again. They held secrets, and if I could just decipher them, I would have the knowledge I sought. The hollow points of red light in the center of my sockets shifted left and right, as I took in the beauty and power of the night sky. I could make out a few constellations. I could see the Sword of Kings, the Ironbreaker’s hammer, I knew all the stars, and their names, but still...something in them eluded me.

As my visual senses took in the starlight before me, thoughts stirred in the back of my skull, and as I traced the Eternal Sentry, my mind began to wander to the first time I’d learned the name of those stars. It was ages ago, a century, two? Time grows fuzzy when you’ve lived without need of sleep for much of it. I had been a student at the Arcane University, back when I was young, and stupid, and alive.

I was standing at the roof of one of the University’s many spires, looking up at the sky with Kallista, the one person I’ve ever truly felt fond of. She was grinning and pointing upwards.

“There,” She started, her words were sweet, like honey, she had that sort of voice, not the scratched, ragged grunting of those who have seen the world’s cruelty. It was the innocent delight of one whose life was full of joy, “Those five form the base, and those three are the roof, do you see it, Simmael?” My thoughts distorted for a second, as though a drop of water were rippling along the pool of my mind, my birth name was one of the first things I abandoned during my rise to power…

“Yes, I see it…” My voice was a pitch too high, and clumsy, I had been nervous, I recall, “and the ones in the center make the eyes?”

“Yes, Simmael, exactly!” Her grin was brighter, I could see in it everything I had ever longed for in my mortal life, it was pure, true, and alive.

Then, more ripples came, and the scene in my mind changed entirely...Kallista lay in my arms, an arrow through her stomach. She was shaking in pain. Around us, four bodies lie, I remembered them with disgust. Inquisitors. They were the witch hunters of the Empire, and they branded all who would not bow to the rules of what was then known as the Doctrine Sorcerous as witches and heretics. I had hoped that as lightning from my fingertips spelt their ends, that they knew true pain.

“S-Simmael?” Kallista asked, blood and ichor flowing from her wound freely. I muttered a silent curse to the gods, that the Inquisitor’s aim was true, that neither she nor I had studied a single spell of abjuration. “Simmael, do you have it?” Her voice started to crack, and the eyes that I had once seen full of nothing but light and tenderness now held fear and pain.

“I do, Kallista,” I replied, and drew from my pouch a mystical dagger, it glowed with the deepest of magics, it’s power was legendary, and the target of our hunt, we sought it to turn the tide of the Inquisiton, and to restore the freedom for wizards to study all schools of magic. I stared at it in contempt. It’s power could not save her. A small, perfect smile made it’s way across her lips.

“Use it, Simmael. Make things right again. Bring them down to their knees, and show the way for all who the Inquisitors would force to cower in shadow.” She had a gift for speech, and her retoric was flawless as ever. I found my heart emboldened.

“What of you, Kallista? I-I can still save you!” My voice was one encumpassed by fear. Even then, so close to my rise to power, I was still a weak creature. She leaned up and touched her lips to mine, she gave a smile and whispered. My heart sank into a dark pit, and I nodded silently.

“Please.” she muttered, her blood and bile flowing ever faster.

“I promise…” I held her close, and touched a single finger to her as I whispered a dark curse of necromancy, as dark and haunted power flowed from me, and then to her, the life in her eyes snapped off like a light, and she was dead. I sat there for a time, seconds, hours, days, which it was I knew not, only that it was finally interrupted when the room was broken down and inquisitors stormed into the room.

I was upon them with wrath like fire. I roared incantations of hate and loathing, my voice filled with the power of vindication and utter contempt. There were five, the first melted like ice in a furnace, leaving behind nothing but soft bones. The second was engulfed in ice from within, it shattered his cells and smashed him like glass. The third was caught in a torrent of wind, it encircled him sharper than a razor, and chewed his body like a meatgrinder. The fourth was filled with necrotic energy, and he rotted from within. The last was to be my truest victim. His soul tore free from his body and flowed to me. It cried and pleaded for mercy, for honor, but I had finally ascended to true power, and I tore the soul into ether.

The ether swirled around my hand for a time, as I gathered my thoughts. I had always held back in the past, never pushed the limit of my necromantic power, but today was a new day. Today I would truly live as a wizard free of all rules.

I turned to the body of my once-love and channelled the ether. Immediately, it filled her, and she began to raise, her body slowly began to sit up. It was then that I first knew something was wrong. Her eyes pulled ether like a sink drain, and they tinted a dark, sinister red. Her skin paled beyond it’s natural glow, and her veins turned black. Her hair grew stringy and her teeth grew large. She turned to see me and let her fangs show in an evil grin, devoid of all beauty and innocence.

“Someone’s been busy…” She began, as she inspected the bodies, she approached me seductively, hungrily. “To think...you’ve had all that power within you, all this time…” Her hand traced my shoulder, it was cold and lifeless, but it filled me with longing. “I’ll bet together, we could clean this place of their defiling presence, and bask it in true power.” She put emphasis on power...before she had always said freedom, or knowledge, but her undead form cared not for these things. I hadn’t known she would come back different, but I was so desperate for her that I no longer cared.

“Yes, my love.” I began, “Let’s give the Inquisition a wake up call.”