Dirge for a Necromancer by Ash Stinson Read Free Book Online Page B

the goblin said. “It’s how I pass the time down here. I have a lot of time to pass… I paint gods and Guardians and kings and all those other things that centaurs like to hang up. Sometimes I hang them on the walls around here, or else I leave them at the foot of the stairs where my supplies are given to me. I don’t know what happens to them after that, but they’re always gone…” He fiddled with his doublet, readjusting it nervously.
    “I have somewhere I’m supposed to be,” said Raettonus. “Is there a way for me to reach the courtyard from here?”
    A mournful look crossed Deggho’s broad, flat countenance. “Y-yes, there is,” he said. “It’s down a few floors though, and I’m not allowed to leave this wing. I can show you though, which staircase to take. Ah—you’ll come back, right? You’ll come visit me?”
    “Perhaps,” Raettonus told him offhandedly, not looking at him.
    “I’d like very much to paint you, Magician,” the goblin said. “You’ll come back and let me paint you, right?”
    Raettonus looked at him blankly and then looked away. “Sure,” he said, waving him off with one hand. “Now, if you’d please, Deggho dek’Kariss, my presence is required elsewhere.”
    Frowning, Deggho lead him through the hall, down a smaller corridor that branched off of it. There were more paintings along the walls here—everywhere there were paintings, depicting any Zylxian folk tale imaginable. There were paintings of lovers, and of assassins, and of soldiers. Grisly scenes of child murder hung beside paintings of women calmly bathing in serene lakes. Monsters and minstrels and martyrs hung side by side; death, and love, and vengeance hung side by side.
    They passed what must have been a hundred paintings, maybe a thousand, before finally they paused before a broad staircase with food scraps littering its entrance. Warm light flooded the area from the floor below. Deggho told Raettonus how to reach the courtyard from there, and with a curt good-bye Raettonus parted from the goblin, who watched him go anxiously.
    It wasn’t hard for him to find the courtyard from there—Deggho’s directions had been concise and direct. He snuffed out the flame in his hand as he entered into the late afternoon light. Dark shadows lay across the yard where, far above them, iron spikes on the ramparts made a cage over the citadel. Brecan was across the yard with Daeblau, who was showing the unicorn his lance. Spotting Raettonus, Brecan excused himself and trotted over to meet the magician. “Hey, Raet!” Brecan called as he approached. “Daeblau taught me how to joust.”
    “You can’t joust,” said Raettonus with a scowl. “You haven’t got hands. You can’t hold a lance.”
    Brecan’s tail and wings drooped. “Oh, yeah,” he said, flattening his ears. For a moment he was silent, but then a thought seemed to grab him, and he brightened again. “You could hold the lance, Raet! Daeblau could teach you to joust, and then we could joust together!”
    “I already know how to joust,” Raettonus said irritably as he started away from the unicorn.
    “Hey, where’re you going, Raet?” asked Brecan, hastening to follow him. “Did you meet General Tykkleht’s kids? How’d your lesson go? I was talking to the general earlier; he wants us to join him for dinner. We can, right?”
    Raettonus sighed. “I don’t want to join him for dinner,” he said. “I just want to go organize my books and be left alone.”
    “But, the general would be so sad if you didn’t come, Raet,” said Brecan, following after him. “I wouldn’t know what to tell him if you didn’t go. Couldn’t you mess with your books some other time, Raet?”
    With an exasperated sigh, Raettonus wheeled on the unicorn. “Fine, I’ll go with you to see the stupid general for dinner,” he said, flicking Brecan in the nose.
    “Oh, that’s great!” chirped Brecan.
    “I do far too much for you,” Raettonus said as he crossed