Chapter 152

All around her, the others continued their studies, their faces masks of concentration. They knew as well as she the cost of failure. None of her fellow prisoners acknowledged her as she stood, picked up the scroll before her, and climbed back over the bench behind her.
Walking around the table, her legs and bottom aching from sitting on the hard stone for hours, Denethia made her way toward the Master's desk at the back of the chamber. The sickly green light of the magical globes that chased back the darkness almost seemed to retreat from Celdin, seated at his desk engrossed in his own studies.
He sensed her approach and looked up, hints of a smile twitching his lips. She had to fight the urge to turn away from the piercing stare of his dark green eyes, and yet she had to battle the attraction to him as well.
Denethia bowed her head and held the scroll out in front of her when she reached the Master's desk. The desk that was the Celdin's throne was a masterpiece in granite, covered in intricate carvings depicting death and the undead. Directly in front of her eyes was a carved scene of a skeleton ripping open a pregnant woman's womb to drag out the unborn babe. Her stomach rebelled, and she closed her eyes tight while awaiting the Master's pleasure.
"You have learned the spell," Celdin said. It was not a question, just a confirmation of what he already knew. His deep, cultured voice was the same one that had stolen her heart as a girl, but now it aroused fear in Denethia.
"Yes, Master," she responded, not looking up or opening her eyes.
She could hear his chair sliding back across the stone, and knew he was rising. "Come," he instructed as he took the scroll from her hands.
Denethia followed, her eyes cast downward at the hem of his black satin robe swishing over the dark stone below. The sound of his heels echoed throughout the chamber, a sharp contrast to the sound of his bare-footed slave behind him. When he stopped at an ironbound door, she again closed her eyes and tried to master her fears. The spell he expected her to demonstrate in mere moments was difficult, and the thought of the results made her skin crawl.
The door opened, and a wall of cold air slammed into Denethia. Even colder than the rest of the cavern, it also carried a charnel house stench that brought the taste of bile to her mouth. Celdin proceeded into the room, and she followed without hesitation, knowing the consequences of a pause.
When the Master stopped and turned, she raised her eyes once again. Lying upon the bloodstained limestone bier was a corpse. Stiff and obviously long dead, the body was covered in bruises, and bones pressed against the flesh of the unfortunate victim's throat, evidence the young man's neck had been broken. The body was nude, and somehow that indignity offended Denethia even more than the marks of his violent death.
Sitting next to the corpse was a wooden bowl, which contained all the spell components she would need to cast the spell she had mastered minutes earlier. Picking up the bowl, Denethia took a deep breath of the reeking air, and began the dark ritual.
She traced the final sigil upon the chest of the corpse, her finger coated in the mixture of blood and ash required by the spell. It was all Denethia could do to maintain her composure as she drew the runes on the body, fighting the urge to recoil from the clammy flesh beneath her fingertip.
Putting down the bowl, Denethia chanted the magical phrases that would culminate the spell. Celdin looked at the sigils drawn upon the corpse, and nodded approvingly as his unwilling apprentice intoned the harsh, guttural syllables of the death spell.
Denethia spoke the final word in a loud voice. She was so lost in the gathering power of her magic that the dark nature of the spell lost all meaning before a wave of anticipation. In the face of that power responding to her call, she could not help but feel a sense of triumph.
The corpse lurched as if hit by a great blow to the chest, then began to twitch, arms and legs moving randomly, resembling a puppet with tangled strings. Denethia could feel a connection to the horrific caricature of life. Instinctively, she knew she could command it and sense what was going on around it, even at a great distance. The creature's lurching hurled it from the bier to land at her feet, though the movements of the body were becoming more coordinated by the moment.
"Command it to stand," Celdin ordered.
She concentrated, utilizing her connection to the animated corpse to command its actions. The random, jerky movements of the creature smoothed as the connection to her mind gave it direction. Slowly, it rose to a standing position, head lolling backwards on its broken neck.
The Master smiled and said, "Very good." He then began to chant the words of a spell, and when it was completed, Denethia felt the line of power connecting her to the creature snatched away. The walking corpse belonged to her Master now, even as she did. Though her stomach was sour, and her senses screamed in disgust, Denethia felt a sharp pang of loss as the connection to her creation was wrested from her.
The corpse turned and walked away, following the orders of its new Master, going to join the other animated dead that stood still as statues in a tightly packed group at the back of the frigid chamber.
"Come," Celdin instructed, and Denethia followed. They left by the same door they had entered, but turned left instead of right in the corridor beyond that portal. Walking into an area declared forbidden to her, fear gripped Denethia's heart as her Master led into the unknown.
Keeping her eyes lowered, again watching the hem of her Master's robe, she clenched her teeth and fought the urge to run. Here, new most often meant more horrific. He opened another thick door, and again Denethia followed when he passed through the portal.
The floors here were not the natural stone of a cavern, but were instead smooth, worked by the hands of man — or magic. Curiosity got the better of her, and she glanced up slightly to the side, seeing walls smooth and worked like the floor. They passed numerous doors as they walked down the hall, but the Master continued to walk at a brisk pace, ignoring them.
They passed through a wide doorway, and Denethia realized that here the stench of death was far weaker than she had known since her imprisonment. Celdin stopped, and Denethia stiffened involuntarily, preparing for any number of new horrors to be introduced into her existence.
The Master turned and placed his hand beneath her chin, raising her eyes to his, "Congratulations, Denethia. You have now earned the right to leave the squalid conditions of your novitiate. I accept you as my apprentice."
Denethia knew the appropriate response; it had been impressed upon her many times over the years, "Thank you, Master."
Celdin turned to a dark-haired woman in black satin robes, "Kyleria, see that she is bathed and dressed appropriately, and then inform her of the conditions under which she now serves."
"Of course, Master," the woman responded in a deep sultry voice.
He left then without another word, leaving Denethia to absorb the sights of her new surroundings. The room appeared to be carved from the solid rock, the walls lined with bookshelves, filled to capacity with scrolls and books. Study tables — each with their own magical light hovering overhead — filled the floor of the room.
She had always dreamed of this, studying magic under a Master in a school full of others who shared the gift. Her parents had never been able to afford formal instruction, but they had always promised Denethia she would have what they had been denied.
Now, her dream was a nightmare.
Always an obedient and considerate girl, the lesson she learned from her first rebellious mistake would now follow her until the end of her days. She would not study under a kindly old graybeard — one who nurtured her talent and praised her success — but a cruel taskmaster that forced her to use her ability for dark purposes.
Every time she felt the rush of exaltation that came with learning a new spell, it was immediately followed by pangs of regret and revulsion. As repugnant as the death magic was, her soul screaming in triumph as she mastered the spells was more troubling by far.
Kyleria interrupted Denethia's musings, saying, "Come, let us get you out of those rags and into a bath."
She wanted to talk to the older woman, perhaps making a friend who could help her forget the truth of her imprisonment here, but she was afraid. Kyleria was obviously high in her Master's favor, and Denethia feared that the woman might be just as cold-hearted as he.
Nodding her head to indicate she understood, Denethia followed the dark-haired woman out of the study room. Thinking about the opportunity to bathe after weeks of being denied the privilege lifted her spirits — but only for a moment.
The blood on her hands and the stain on her soul could not be washed away by mere water.