Rise of the Dead Prince (25 page)

“Tell me what to do,” he
said.

34
The Darkest Art

R
aven cawed again. “Of course, you first need to go into the gray state,” he started. Meier complied. “Good. Now this will take some time. We’ll start with the big man. Do exactly as I say, because soon you will not be able to hear me.” Meier listened closely. He focused all his will into this one important t
hing.

“You are not a necromancer, Meier. You never will be. You simply have no will to dominate. In many ways, that is all a necromancer needs,” said Raven calmly. “That is why you must proceed with a surgeon’s hand. You must trick your actions, in a manner of speaking, into being dark. No, worse than that. They must be the darkest. It will be unpleasant
…
,” he trailed
off.

“First, I want you to picture the mind in all its glory. It is in the mind that we are kept and nowhere else. Now I want you to think of the necromancer and all they have done. You must funnel your anger to them. Not hot, burning rage. No, it must be cold and focused. Think of making them pay, but not in one swift act of justice. Think of taking a slow and heartless revenge. You want to make them suffer. You want to have them at your mercy, Meier. Now this is key. You want to hold the necromancer in your
thrall
. You must
dominate
the darkest wizard! You must not want this merely to make them stop, but because the necromancer
deserves it!
They do deserve it, Meier. You must make the necromancer your plaything, and to do that, you need minions. More than minions, you need fallen champions, great captains in your power. You want to use these men to complete your will of taking the necromancer as your own. You want to lord your might over the necromancer. You need power to do this. Great power. It is a power that is now in your hands. Think of the source of it. Such power! You want to be the master of
death itself.
You want the power over death! You need it!
You are the master of d
eath!”

Raven continued. “Now delve deep into the deepest well, and when you get there, think of all this. They are your own thoughts, Meier. You are slave to no one. Once you have seen the cold, pale sea of luminous green, you must bathe yourself in it. There are no names there, only the elevated strong and the pitiful weak. You will feel the power over death, and it will elate you like the finest wine in your veins. You will think of the dead things before you and delve into every part of their anatomy. You will
force
it to work. You will
dominate
death! You will pull a handful from the luminous pool, and you will put it into them. You will see them animated as a result of your dominance. You will assert your will over their whole existence. It is a dark thing, the darkest thing, and it is a sin against the so-called natural order, but it is a power that dominates nature itself. You do not fear it! You are the master of all. None can compare. In that moment, you are the supreme being in all the world, and you will press the undeath into them as it was pressed into you. You will bless them with your dark gift. They are then
yours!
Any power they have is yours! All they do is yours! Animate them! Pull them from the nothingness! They will be your tools! They will be your hands, your outstretched fingers, yours to keep or discard! Now delve! Seek the pool! Force it to give you all you require. Make it
obey!”

Raven carved sigils into the ground. Once again, they were foreign, and indeed they had not been looked upon by human eyes for centuries. “‘Kurai,’” he said, gesturing to the first symbol, “means ‘mind,’ and this is “‘Kokoro.’” Raven hopped to the second symbol. “It means ‘dark.’ Together, they make a spell lost to humans for over a thousand years. It grants mind and form to the dead, but at the price I have already described. Remember all I have said. No
w go!”

Raven cawed once loudly, and then Meier was gone. He was deep inside himself. He thought as Raven had commanded. He discarded all notions of virtue and morality. It was difficult, but not impossible. He thought of what had been said. He made himself reach for the power needed to make the necromancer pay. He would take it by force. He would take more than he needed. He would take it. He must! He made himself offer whatever was needed to make that ha
ppen.

Meier offered everything. He left his soft heart behind and willed it to become like ice. He traded his kindness for cruelty. He thought of all he would do when he came face to face with the necromancer as
equals.
No, that was not enough. He, Meier, would dominate the necromancer. The dark mastermind would pay dearly for all that had been done. Not even a thousand deaths would be enough. No pain could give what was deserved, not even slowly over a thousand years. Frigid winds blew, but Meier did not feel them. They were nothing. He would walk a thousand miles in the dark to reach the
goal.

Meier slipped deeper. It was colder and black as pitch. On he pressed into his mind until the glow of the sickly green pool lit the vast cavern. The pool was like a river that did not flow, stagnant and festering. He would take it all as his own, even if it took an eternity. Meier walked forward confidently. It was power itself, but he hurried for nothing and for no one. It was already his. He simply needed to reach out and take it. Stepping into the pool of his own making, he slowly lowered himsel
f in.

The feeling was ecstasy itself. There he stayed until he had gorged himself on the raw ascendancy that dominated all. He was omnipotent, the most powerful being ever to live! It was not enough to know it for himself. He must show it. He would make them all bow! He would bring the world crashing down in a ruinous heap for his pleasure! He turned his gaze outward and saw these two fallen creatures. They would be his, for he would raise them with his power and make them obey! They would have no choice! He was their ma
ster!

Meier’s eyes opened in the real world once more, but they saw nothing. They were completely black. He looked with unseeing eyes, and then there was light. Pale and violet, it shone upon the corpse before him. It was his to control as he saw fit. It needed to be strong and clever, as it had been during its pitiful life. He began to color it in his mind. Meier felt himself still sitting in the pool, its essence covering him to the waist. He lowered his hand to gather and bestow some of his vast power into this, his fortunate and unworthy minion. Before him was an empty shell, killed by nature, and now he would defy nature and all its limitations to bring it back into the world. He was the master of nature itself, for even its pathetic laws could not constrain his ascend
ancy.

Something nagged on his blackened mind. Why should he raise one when he could easily raise the other at the same time. His power was more than sufficient. He would give them more power than was natural. He would use them as fodder to topple the pitiful minions of his foe, and then the vile pretender would grovel at his feet. The necromancer was nothing. There could be only one master of all. He would make these two his first demonstration. It was his too give, and he had an unending supply. With a hiss, he moved to face them both. He willed them to move like puppets on strings. The meat of their bodies bent and floated to lay side by side before his feet, as was appropriate. Meier and stood up, smi
ling.

Raven looked on in horror as he witnessed how things were turning. Meier should not have been able to move, let alone levitate, the corpses. Something had gone wrong. Raven had never been more terrified in his long
life.

“What have I done?” he whispered to himself. Meier’s eyes were not supposed to have gone black. It was a sign of one who had gone as far down as one can go. It was a sign of one who was there to stay. Now he was walking and moving the corpses with his mind alone. It was like nothing he had ever witne
ssed.

Raven cursed himself. His childish will to see the heroes reborn had led him to do this hideous thing. Meier was a good person! Raven shuddered as the realization came that Meier had become a creature of pure evil. It was a state that only the fully corrupted users of magic reached. He should never have pushed him so! It was not because of the power of the fissure that had broken through the dam. This was different. It should not have happened.
It could not have happ
ened!

Raven admitted his own foolishness. Why had he been so proud as to believe that he knew all? His ignorance had created an enemy to Valahia that was just as vile and corrupted as the one that was already poised to destroy it. He slowly accepted what he was seeing. The Meier he knew and admired was gone. It was not a place that Raven could reach him from. All he could do was to sit and watch as his disciple reveled in the power of the so
urce.

Meier looked down disapprovingly. He hesitated but then made up his mind. Yes, these two had more than proven their abilities. He thought on how much power to give them. There were deserving of none, of course, but he wanted them to be excellent. They must be worthy of their master. Once he turned the army of the dead to his will, he would need generals. The corpses lay before him feet first. He held his hands together in between them and then drew his hands apart slightly. The bodies shuffled slightly apart. Meier glanced over at the sigils Raven had given, and with a scoff, he wiped them clean with his mind, replacing them with two more as he
did.

Stepping forward, he knelt in the soft earth and put a hand on each cold chest. Raven called out, his eyes wide as he read the new sigils. He suddenly knew what was happening. They would become mons
ters!

“Meier!
OH, PLEASE NO
! Not that spell! Not here!
MEIER
!” Raven cawed with all his might. It was no use, but he had to try. It was all his fault, and he had to try. “Meier, forgive me!” he said, and swooping like a bolt, he began attacking his student in a flutter. If he could get to his eyes, it would cripple Meier’s power somewhat, at least for a while. If only he could get to them, this abominable ceremony could be sto
pped!

Raven did not even last a second. He managed to make a tiny gash near the temple, but the second Meier saw him, Raven was frozen in midair, completely unable to
move.

“Silly bird,”
hissed the frigid voice of Meier. Being so close to the icy exhalation caused Raven to suddenly be covered in a thick layer of frost. As he floated there, Raven’s body was rocked with a near-mortal pain. The cold had passed through his insides as well as the exterior. With a smile, Meier released the bird and blew. Raven went flying backward in a straight line and into the nearest tree. It made the same sound as a stone when he hit. His immobile body then struck the ground as if it were some lifelike statue. The sound gave Meier great satisfaction. It was better this way. The pitiful raven deserved to die sl
owly.

Suddenly, Meier’s body rocked back violently, as though he had been struck. He looked around. There was nothing there, at least nothing living. His black eyes could detect nothing else without their purple glow to guide them. He found his stare turning to where the near-dead raven lay. There he was, clearly incapable of anything except slowly dying. Meier felt another blast, and it knocked him straight onto his back. The sun hit his eyes. It was like a thousand daggers had stabbed him simultaneously. He hissed and screamed in his awful ethereal screech. It was not the sun that did it. He did not fear the sun! It was something else. Something was
toying
with him. Surely none could be so foo
lish.

Meier looked inside to find the source and discover what was wrong. It was a mistake. He sat in the pool again and pulled the power necessary to find the culprit. Instead of feeling the ecstasy of the pool, he felt a horrible burning, dragging him from within as though he were being torn apart. The pain was horrific. Then it
came.

A white light leaked down from above, burning through everything, even the cavern ceiling. It covered him completely, surrounding him in a circle. The pool hissed and burned, shying away from the light and leaving Meier seated on the hard stone. Meier cried out, but no noise could be heard. There had to be some reason for all of this. He was Meier, the most powerful thing in the world! Nothing could contain
him!
His answer came without d
elay.

Floating down from above, there was a form, casting a blessed shadow on Meier and reducing his pain. Meier looked up to regard it. As it neared, it was obvious what it was he was seeing. It couldn’t be, but there it was. He was many things, but fractured was not one of them. Meier was seeing some image of himself bathed in light. But why? As the form closed in, it turned around and descended head first the rest of the way. It was smiling. The thought sickened him. The pain eased slightly, but it was still horrible. Meier looked into the smiling face of the light-swathed specter of himself with pure ha
tred.

“Have you ever pulled a bowstring with all your might?”
it asked him. Meier answ
ered.

“Begone, you ridiculous memory!” The image smiled widely enough for its eyes to close. Meier felt as though he would r
etch.

“You know what happens when you can’t pull any further?”
the thing asked kindly. Meier just sne
ered.

“I swear I will destroy you if it’s the last thing I do,” he said contemptuously. Meier concentrated on all he had recently learned. His power would be sufficient to end this. The pain was an acceptable price for continued domin
ance.

“Your strength fails, and you are forced to let go,”
said the image. Meier tried to ignore the voice, but it proved to be impossible. Failing strength? Maybe for the
weak
. He was now reborn to darkness. He was beyond such tri
fles.