The Necromancer

Prologue, Part 5

At around eleven, the bookkeeper finally exited his shop and locked the door tight behind him. I watched him waddle down the street from my spot in the pub across the street, where I'd used up my three remaining silvers on some pints of ale, waiting for him to leave for the night.

I slipped out into the street just as the man's fat bottom vanished around a corner down the block. Otherwise the entire town seemed completely deserted, which is just what I needed. I performed a hasty summoning ritual that brought Lirk back pressed up against the glass of the display window. "Thank you, Master," his muffled voice told me. That's what they always say when I summon them; it's some kind of reflex or something.

"Don't just stand there," I hissed at him. "Open the damned door!"

"Yes, Master." He stepped down from the window and disappeared into the store. A moment later the deadbolt slid open with a thunk, and the heavy wooden door swung inward. Lirk stood before my with his ridiculous skeletal grin, like a dog waiting for a pat on the head.

"Good job, Lirk. Now get out of the way." He stood aside as ordered as I briskly entered the store and promptly banged my leg on some kind of table near the entryway. "Mother..." I grimaced and tried to sooth my throbbing shin. "Damn it, Lirk, get me a candle!" Light spells were for healers and pansies, so Dad had never encouraged me to learn anything useful like that. Nooo, I had to focus exclusively on Dark Magic, just like him.

Lirk, who didn't really need light to 'see,' or whatever he did with no actual eyeballs, went to rummage around behind the counter and soon returned with a tall wax candle dyed bright blue. Now a flame spell was something I could pretty easily do, and soon we were making our way down to the basement with no further accidents or falls down the rickety steps.

"Ok, Lirk," I told him. "Spread out and look for the book: A Compendium of Magical Artifacts. It's big and thick, with red leather covers and yellow pages." The basement itself had a dozen rows of shelves, each stacked with numerous books; half of the spines were unlabeled, and they didn't seem to be in any particular order. This could take longer than I thought. Damn this bookkeeper and his shoddy organizational skills!

"1001 Magical illnesses..." I muttered as I ran a finger over the titles on the shelf, "History of the Mymph Coven... Mudlump recipes..." Sheesh. Who would actually need some of these books? Who actually eats mudlump? I've been on the edge of starving for a long time and I wouldn't even touch the disgusting, slimy swamp creatures.

"Master!" Lirk called from the opposite end of the room. "Is this the book?"

I leaned around the corner to find him pointing at the familiar red spine. "Yes!" I practically cried. "Bring it here!" There was a small table amidst the shelves where I could sit down and find the passage on the Ruby of Mertialz. Stealing the book would just bring suspicion, since I had asked about it earlier. But the merchant wouldn't have any clue if I just placed the book back on the shelf when I was done, maybe missing a page.

Lirk reached up and pulled the book off the shelf... and the weight of it falling caused his arms to just snap straight out of their shoulder sockets. It landed on the packed dirt floor with a heavy thud and a cloud of dust. Lirk's arms clattered to the floor nearby, and some of his finger bones rolled under the shelf. "Sorry, Master."

I rolled my eyes. So hard to find good help these days; I couldn't wait till I unlocked the Ruby's power and could finally upgrade to some better servants with some actual flesh on their bones to hold it all together.

I picked up the book and carried it over to the table, then returned to help him with his little predicament. I managed to get one of his arms back into place, but the other one wouldn't slide into its socket. "You're going to have to wait till I resummon you tomorrow," I told him. "I don't have enough materials to do another ritual now." I stuck the remaining arm into his mouth to hold. "Now get the rest of your fingers out from under there so that we can go as soon as I'm done."

"Fank oo, Masser," he responded as best he could with his arm stuck in his jaw, and dropped to the floor to pick up his remaining parts.

I turned my attention back to the book and flipped it open. Magical crowns, magical rings, magical undergarments, magic armors... plenty of magical necklaces that did all sorts of things... AHAH! I turned one last musty old page to see a near-perfect depiction of the necklace that was currently weighing down my left pocket. The beautiful stormy ruby and the delicate gold chain practically jumped off the page.

"Ruby of Mertialz," I read in a whisper. "Originally found in the mines of Hosacks and hidden by one of the workers for seventeen years, it was eventually found by the ruthless Necromancer warlord Mertialz... killed thousands of men in the Battle of High Freven... Unspeakable power... lost when Paladin general Hefertiam banished the necromancer's soul from this plane..." I skimmed the page faster and faster, not really caring about the history of it. "Ah! Activation." Even Lirk managed to extricate himself from under the bookcase to listen to this part.

"There is no known method of activating the Ruby."

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