The hall ended with a door to the right and a portcullis straight ahead. Through the portcullis we could make out a fountain with a tree growing from it. The leaves of the tree stirred, though the air was still, and a faint, beautiful aria emanated from it.

  A necklace of intricate and alluring design lay at the base of the fountain.

  “It’s like fairy tale,” I said.

  Attar agreed, “Nothing good can come from touching that necklace, surely.”

  We retreated around the corner and sent my sword at the door instead.

  The door exploded and the floor fell away in the same instance. By the time the shards of wood finished falling to the floor, a ten foot deep pit blocked the path.

  Through the hole where the door had been we could see three large pale faced apes staring back at us. Each had a large pair of tusks or fangs protruding from upper lip.

  “Fairy tale necklace then?” I asked.

  Attar was already moving back around the corner.

  The portcullis was wood, so I tore it down with my sword rather than bother lifting it.

  “WHY?”

  The walls shook with the roar—the question, the howl—like it was an earthquake. The voice was familiar. One of the screams I’d heard echoing in the distance before.

  “THAT PATH IS NOT FOR YOU.”

  An immense hand, larger than even the ogres, appeared around the corner we’d just vacated. It was as pale as ashes bound in clay. At first my disbelieving eyes thought it might be a Trogodyte, until I was forced to reckon with the size. As the man pulled himself around the corner he revealed his eyes, wild with madness. He was no Trogodyte, but a giant. Twelve feet tall, so tall he had elected to crawl on bloody hands and knees rather than stand.

  “YOU HAVE CHOSEN.”

  His voice was out of character for a mere giant. It had the godly timbre my own could assume, though his was far more threatening. There was something of the end in it. Finality. Mortality. The black goddess within me stirred into a blazing fascination.

  “Oswic! Do something!”

  I forced my attention to my spell book, and tore my interest into pieces in the process. I’d failed to defend that which was important to me, and thus nothing might occupy that same space again. It was a problem I’d have to deal with after the threat was secured.

  My sword flew forward to transfix the giant between his eyes.

  “ALL THINGS END.”

  My sword vanished mid flight.

  The giant panted and pulled himself forward another arm’s length.

  Lightstep II

  I wasn’t going to take any chances. The next person to wound me was dead.

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  “Don’t touch me until something wounds me,” I called to Attar. He nodded in understanding.

  I rushed forward to intercept the giant. The ogress appeared next to me.

  The giant slumped.

  “NECROMANCER. THIS IS NOT YOUR PURPOSE.”

  “Ghosts are memories. I still guide their souls.”

  The ogress, under Attar’s direction, was hesitating, I had no such compulsions.

  I stabbed the giant with my lancegay straight in the back of his neck. His roar of pain nearly deafened me. My amulet blazed hot against my chest.

  “YOUR TIME HAS COME.”

  Fast Teleport

  Everything went black. I could hear a heart beating loudly all around me. Then suddenly still. A strange, dissociative tingling sparked up and down my limbs and then—

  “You do not decide. I do.”

  Attar’s words were a commandment, one which had the giant roaring almost as badly as when I’d stabbed him.

  I saw the ogress’s spear plunge down and scrape along the giant’s flesh without leaving a mark, then one of Attar’s knights charged in from behind only to entire miss the tilt.

  “Again Oswic! We will be relying on your spear!”

  My whole body felt numb. I tried to lunge and stumbled instead, missing the giant.

  What had the giant done? And why did Attar have control over it?

  “It’s a titan!” Attar shouted.

  Ah.

  A chthonic embodiment of nature itself.

  I swung my spear again.

  What was a doing fighting this again?

  My spear lanced through its eye like it had been drawn there, and the titan fell still at once.

  “Why aren’t I dead?” I murmured. My spear was shaking. Must have been the wind.

  Attar did something with his bell and skull, and then stowed them away and lay a hand on my back, “You were. I called you back.”

  “You can do that?”

  Attar chuckled, “That’s basically the definition of a necromancer.”

  “You can speak with the dead, divine the future.”

  I felt Attar’s eyebrow raise, “And my ghosts?”

  “A side effect of calling the ghosts to consult.”

  He shrugged, “Then necromancer is probably not the right term. In my land we are called something closer to ‘she who is seen’ in honour of the Dog Rider.”

  That did little to clear it up for me, but I suppose I already knew he was a psychopomp of sort, I’d just thought it a tertiary function of necromancy rather than the primary.

  “So you’ve seen a titan before?”

  “I have. A true titan, not a lesser one like this one. He is the tutor of my art.”

  “You were taught necromancy by the titan of death?”

  “Something like that.”

  I exhaled. I was surprised necromancers didn’t lead with that.

  “So he could command things to die?”

  “He could decide the moment of mortality. The length of the span rather than the end, though the-

  -sun rose-

  “-result is almost the same. But I might not have been able to save you if he could command your death.”

  “So I am no longer living within my mortal span? Does that make me more or less likely to die?”

  “I’m not sure. Theoretically you have no time of death any longer as it has already passed. The option is that you will continually fall dead at every moment, but since you are still standing it is safe to say that won’t happen.”

  “Unless the warlock’s Rift is the only thing keeping me alive.”

  “There is that.”

  “50-50 odds on mortality aren’t bad though.”

  “Not bad at all.”