Michael Scott - The Necromancer

Perenelle stirred. Nicholas was dozing with his head on her shoulder. “I thought your race were impervious to the weather.”

“Some might be,” Aoife said. “I’m not.” She held up her arm and pushed back her sleeve. Her pale flesh was dappled with goose bumps. “Why do you think Scathach and I left Scotland and never went back? We couldn’t stand the rain.”

Josh pulled his head in and hit the switch that raised the window. Beads of cold moisture sparkled in his hair. Looking at Niten, he pointed to the thick fog billowing against the windshield. “Don’t you think you should slow down?” he said nervously. “I can’t even see the road-how can you tell where we’re going?”

Niten’s eyes didn’t move, but a trace of a smile curled his lips. “I do not need my eyes to tell me where I’m going.”

“I have no idea what that means,” Josh said. “Is it like some sort of ninja trick?”

Niten shot Josh a warning look. “Whatever you do, don’t mention-”

It was too late. In the backseat Aoife stirred. “Ninjas,” she spat. “Why is everyone obsessed with ninjas? They were never that good. And they were cowards, sneaking around in their black pajamas, stabbing their victims with poisoned darts. I hate ninjas-they have no honor.”

“Scathach said she tried training them, but they were never that good,” Sophie added.

“She should have stayed well away from them,” Aoife snapped. “They were her students until they thought they had learned all her secrets-then they tried to kill her.” She grunted a laugh. “That was a mistake,” she added grimly.

“What happened?” Josh asked, but Aoife had turned her face to the window, eyes blank and distant. He looked at the driver. “What happened?” he asked again. He was curious; he’d always thought ninjas were cool, and here was a chance to learn about them from someone who had actually seen and fought them.

“You do not want to know,” Niten murmured. “When Scathach was finished with them, Aoife insisted on hunting down the few survivors.” The small man pointed through the windshield, changing the subject. “What do you see?”

“Fog,” Josh said.

“Look again,” Niten urged.

Josh stared hard. Inches beyond the hood of the car, the road disappeared into a shifting wall of wet gray cloud. “There’s nothing to see,” he said finally, struggling to understand what the Japanese immortal was getting at.

“There is always something to see, if you only know how to look,” Niten suggested. He raised his head slightly, pointing with his chin. “Look on either side of the road, see how the fog shifts and coils; now look directly ahead and see how it moves.”

Josh squinted out through the glass and suddenly noticed something strange. “It seems to be moving quicker in front of us than it does on either side.”

“The heat coming off the road keeps the fog in motion,” Niten said. “There is no reflected heat coming off the soil and stones on our sides, so the fog is still.”

“So that’s how you keep the car on the road.” He nodded, impressed.

Niten smiled. “Well, that and the white line running down the middle.”

Perenelle leaned forward and breathed deeply. “But this is no ordinary fog is it?”

Aoife blinked and then she slowly and deliberately turned to look at the Sorceress. “No, it is not natural. He knows we’re coming. Any moment now, we will shift…”

Even as she was speaking, the smooth hiss of tires on concrete changed to rattling grit.

“… from this world into his Shadowrealm.”

Josh frowned. Was it his imagination or was the fog clearing? He was turning to ask Sophie when, in the space of a single heartbeat, it vanished altogether, revealing a lush pastoral landscape that swept down to a distant blue sea. The road was now little more than a dirt track, lined on either side with fruit trees, only neither the trees nor the fruits they bore were at all familiar. He looked over the back of the seat at his sister and raised an eyebrow. Where are we? he mouthed.

She shook her head. Safe.

He was about to ask her how she knew, but he saw the way her eyes darted toward Aoife and understood instinctively that Sophie didn’t want Scathach’s twin to know the extent of her knowledge.

The landscape looked similar-very similar-to his own world, but there were subtle differences. The trees were just a little larger, the grass taller and all the colors sharper and brighter. He leaned forward and looked up into the sky. It was a bright eggshell blue streaked with white clouds, but he could see no sign of the sun. He ducked his head to get a better look out the windshield, then searched the sky. “There’s no sun,” he whispered in awe.

“That’s because this is the realm of Prometheus,” Nicholas answered from the backseat. “We’re underground, in the Shadowrealm once known as Hades.” He coughed, the sound wet in his chest, and sat back again.

“Everything you see around you is an illusion-remember that,” Perenelle finished.

“Hades…,” Josh began, voice rising in alarm. A flicker of movement distracted him and he turned to look out his window. The car was now creeping along the dirt road, and he saw a figure step out from between the trees on one side. It was followed by a second and a third, and suddenly a long line of vaguely human-looking beings lined the narrow track. They appeared unformed, ill-shaped, with heads too large or one arm longer than the other, big feet on thin legs, hands with too many fingers. The faces were almost blank, with just slight impressions where a mouth or eyes would normally be, and they were all bald and had no ears or noses. As the car drew close, Josh saw that their deep brown skin was cracked and seamed with countless wrinkles… like dried mud. “They’re Golems,” Josh whispered in horror, remembering the mud men who had accompanied Dee when he’d attacked the shop.

“Not Golems…,” Sophie murmured. Memories were tumbling through her head; images had started to flicker, dark, terrifying thoughts of an ancient nameless city. “No, not Golems…”

“Not Golems,” Aoife snapped, twisting in her seat to look at him. “Do not even mention them in the same breath. Golems are mere shadows of these creatures. These are the last remnants of the First People.”

“The First People?” Josh shook his head. “I’ve never heard of them.”

“You haven’t?” Aoife asked incredulously. She looked at Nicholas, Perenelle and Sophie before turning back to Josh. “You do know that my uncle Prometheus created the original humani out of mud?”

The idea was so ridiculous that Josh started to laugh, and then he realized that no one else in the car was even smiling. He looked at his sister and saw her nod slightly. “The First People.”

“He made humans out of mud? That… But that’s just…”

“We’ve seen mud and wax people this week,” Sophie quickly reminded him.

“I know, but they were artificial creations, animated by the power of Dee’s and Machiavelli’s auras. I can-sort of-understand that.” He looked at the misshapen figures lining the road and turned back to Aoife. “But you’re saying that Prometheus created the human race!”

Aoife looked directly at Josh as she spoke. “My uncle appears in the mythology of many races. He has many names, but the story is the same: Prometheus created the first humani out of mud using an ancient technology that was so advanced it seemed magical. Some of the other Elders created beasts, but Prometheus went one step further. A step too far, for many. That was the reason the Elders hated him and banished him, and why he was sentenced to a long drawn-out death in the Hades Shadowrealm.”

Josh twisted around to look at the humanlike figures standing unmoving by the sides of the road. A sudden thought struck him and he twisted in his seat to look at the four people in the back. “So if he helped create the first humani,” he said hopefully, “then that means he’ll help us?”