Ghost Ascension, Epsiode 10

You creep to the table, circling along the skull-covered wall, your boots making no sound against the floor. The yellow-eyed man does not move, and as you draw closer, you grow more and more certain that he is dead.

And that he has been dead for some time, too, to judge from the gray pallor of his hands.

You feel the low tingle of sorcery as you approach, as if a spell has been laid over the yellow-eyed man.

For a moment you are almost overwhelmed by a memory. Those yellow eyes, narrowed with rage and hatred, and dread filling you, his hand raised in the beginning of a spell, and then…and then…

And then nothing. You can remember no more.

You take a moment to collect yourself, and creep to the table.

Still the yellow-eyed man doesn’t move.

The first thing you see on the table is a map. A city, you think, with the words written in an archaic form of High Nighmarian. Looking closer, you see it’s a map of Caer Magia, once the stronghold of the Magisterium, destroyed mysteriously at the end of the War of the Fourth Empire. An open book rests besides it, the pages describing the Valley of the Emperors. It’s open to the section on Anacepheon’s tomb. The rest of the books look like works on history. Some of characters on their covers that you can’t read, but you recognize them, and suspect they have to do with necromancy.

And still the yellow-eyed man doesn’t move. He must be dead.

You look into his hood, peering at his face.

And only years of training and experience keep you from screaming.

It’s Korthion.

A magus-turned-necromancer who came very close to killing you, the last time you saw Korthion was two months ago. He was dead. You were sure of it. Lucan had caved in his skull with a couch leg. You know necromancers often cheat death (you’ve seen it firsthand) but you didn’t think Korthion had that kind of power or skill…

Besides, he looks very dead now.

Even as the thought crosses your mind, Korthion stirs, the muscles beneath the gray skin of his face twitching.

He’s looking right at you.

Alarmed, you step back, a throwing knife in your hand…

But Korthion shows no sign that he sees you. Instead he looks up, gazing at the ceiling for a moment, and then he drops his gaze, again looking right at you.

And still he does not seem to notice you.

He stands up. His movements are…strange. Artificial. Almost as if invisible strings are pulling his arms and legs, rather than the power of his own muscles. He walks around the table, so close that you could reach out and grab his robe.

Your mind races. The cloak, you realize. It blurs with the shadows, shields you from mind-altering sorcery…and also protects you from divination and spells of seeking.

Whatever light Korthion’s sulfur-yellow eyes use to see, it isn’t coming from this world.

Korthion stops, looks at the stairwell back to the main level of the catacombs.

“Damn it,” he hisses. His voice has an odd…resonance. Like a second, deeper voice is speaking out of his lips at the same time. “I told Nikaedes not to bring the girl here. Or any of her friends.” Then he starts to laugh. “But…he’s here, isn’t he? I’ll make him pay, for what he did to me. I’ll make him scream. I wonder what the Countess will do, once I make her kiss his bloody stumps. There’s still time. Yes. I still have time.”

He begins walking towards the stairs.
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