Vigor Mortis

Chapter 3: Return with Interest

Maybe having parents isn’t all that great after all.

I head back to the stall, walk right past the meekly protesting Mrs. Grig and stick my head into the building behind her.

It’s all brick and clay, because most buildings are. The oven burns hot next to a bruised and crying young boy, probably around thirteen or fourteen. Standing over him is Grig, who at this point is mostly muttering to himself and baking bread.

“You just take it out of the damn oven before it turns black, you pathetic boy! How hard is that? Everything was laid out for you! How can you not do this one simple thing? I should disown you!”

The boy whimpers briefly before catching sight of me, panic filling his eyes.

“M-miss! Y-y-y-y-you can’t be in here!”

I sigh. At least he’s not dead.

“Betcha I can be. Grig, quit beating your family.”

“M-miss Vita! I, I’m sorry, I… I thought you said…”

“I know what I said. Can we just… not do the beating thing? You’ve definitely beaten out my love for beatings.”

“I’m so sorry Miss Vita! It won’t happen again.”

“Uh. Great. Good. That’s good.”

That was easy. Maybe if I’m careful, this will work out okay. I can help out. …No, wait. Help out how? By murdering bad people and turning them into slaves?

“Um, father? Who is this?”

“This is Miss Vita! Be respectful, boy!”

“…Isn’t she the girl that kept stealing your bread, father?”

“Yeah, I am,” I butt in confidently. “So be respectful!”

He blinks in utter confusion. Mission accomplished. But I still need to figure out what to do from here on. I can’t hide this forever, right? Sooner or later, someone will notice the dude is dead.

“Boy, bring this bread to your mother,” Grig orders. “And cover your face.”

Oh, nice one Grig! The child hurried out of the room as instructed, leaving the two of us alone.

“…What now, Miss Vita?”

“I don’t know. I’m thinking.”

I want to go talk with Rowan and Lyn. They’re reliable. They know me, they like me, and they feed me, which is about the closest thing I have to friends. But… I’m an animancer. Lyn can’t exactly walk up to the authorities and try to sell me out, but animancy is something even criminals don’t screw around with. I want their help, but I legitimately don’t know how they’ll react. That’s… scary.

My other options are to stick around and try to lay low, or to run out of the city. Running out of the city isn’t the most appealing thing in the world, since without the protection of the guard, the Templars, and the massive city walls, I’ll probably die in a few hours to all the horrifying monsters that roam around out there. I’ve lived in Skyhope my whole life, so I don’t know much about that, but the rumors are, uh, concerning. But can I stay? Grig already looks pale to the point of sickly. He’s eventually going to get discovered. I might be able to just pretend like he has nothing to do with me? Natural undead happen. It doesn’t necessarily mean a necromancer made them, I think. Although natural undead almost never reanimate after a single death. It tends to take a war. If only I could make him alive again… but how the heck am I supposed to do that? He’s not alive. People can’t just make something alive, right? His soul is puppeting his body with magic.

“…Okay. First thing’s first. Grig, can you tell me more about necromancy? You said your uncle was a Templar, right?”

“You want me to tell you, miss?”

“I never studied this crap, Grig, I’m a natural.”

He frowns.

“…It’s odd that you could be a natural necromancer. Isn’t animancy an affront to the Mistwatcher? So why would… ah. Well, it doesn’t matter. If the Miss says it is, then it is. I’m afraid I don’t know much about necromancy, though. Just undead. There’s all sorts of types. The basic ones are called Dregs. A Dreg Zombie is an animated corpse with no real intelligence. They wander aimlessly and attack living things that get close, but unless the corpse is of some powerful monster, they’re not very dangerous. Dreg Skeletons are the same, but with no meat on their bones. There are other types. More powerful undead can retain more of their abilities in life, even if they’re mindless. Those are called Risen. They’re incredibly dangerous, but the ones to really watch out for are Revenants and Wights. Revenants you know, ma’am, since I’m one, I think. I remember who I was, I can do all the things I could do while alive. But I’m dead, which makes me harder to kill, I imagine. I think most Revenants tend to try to kill the living as well, but… I’m not sure why. I don’t feel any need to do that.”

“Huh. Okay. Well, let me know if you start feeling any homicidal tendencies. Murder is bad, okay?”

“Yes, Miss Vita.”

“So, what about Wights?”

“Oh. Ah. Wights are, um, very bad, miss. I’m not sure what they are, really. My uncle said they look like a Dreg, but they act… odd. And they are powerful, he said. They send whole battalions of Templars to fight a Wight when they find one, miss. Sometimes it’s overkill. But sometimes… the Wight kills them all. Many of them have powerful magic, usually chaos magic. And if they’re left alone, they keep getting stronger. Leave a Wight alone for too long, my uncle said, and you’ll lose a whole island.”

Oh. That sounds very bad, yeah. I can’t help but wonder if I could control one… probably not something I should mess around with, though. Best to focus on the moment. What should I do with Grig? I have no idea. I can’t just bring him back to the shack! Lyn and Rowan would freak out! I need to gauge how open they are to what a monster I am before I do anything crazy.

“Okay. Grig. Here’s what we’re gonna do. Stay here and keep pretending to be alive. Don’t forget to breathe. If you start, uh, showing too many signs of corpse-ness, hide in your home. It’s really important no one finds out you’re dead.”

“Makes sense to me, Miss Vita!”

“And no beating people up!”

“Yes, Miss Vita!”

“…And don’t let your family blab about me being here. I’m just… a rich customer or something. I don’t know. You figure out a good excuse. Bye.”

“There’s a back exit this way, Miss Vita!”

I nod and follow, grabbing a bunch of bread before taking the exit and sneaking through the old, dank parts of the city I know so well. Spikes of panic flow through me almost every time I see somebody. Do they know? Are they a guard? A Templar? Is this the end? But of course, nothing of the sort happens, at least not yet. Making sure I don’t have any tails, I finally make my way to Lyn’s hideout, which we lovingly call “the shack.”

It’s a rickety old place, built from wood instead of brick. Little of interest is inside; a few sleeping areas, a mostly-broken clay oven, a dozen starving, homeless brats. All the real stuff is in the secret rooms below, but of course… I have to deal with the brats first.

“Vita! Vita, Vita, Vita!”

Grubby kids swarm around me, pawing at my shirt and cloak. I had been one of them not too long ago, though I’m older than any of the ones here by four or five years. I had just been… content to live on handouts. To eke by with the meagre life allotted to me and nothing else. Not contributing, not working, barely even thinking, really. Just existing on the generosity of someone kinder and more talented than me. And she would have let me, too. Deciding to try and help Lyn had been my choice, but I made it so late in life I wonder if I still have it in me to unlearn all those awful, lazy habits. I’ve just felt something stirring in me, something that makes me look back at my life so far and feel so much disgust that I have to move forward.

“What did you bring us, Vita?”

“Bread,” I say, handing it out. Bread is always a beautiful sight to see, but the money I’m supposed to be giving them has been used up to save my life. More worthless taking. “Is Lyn around?”

A couple of the kids nod, and one points down.

“All right. Thanks.” I nod back and scoot one of the beds aside, opening up the not-very-secret hatch and crawling down the ladder. The hideout isn’t that hidden, but Skyhope is a very, very big city and there are probably hundreds of little shacks like this one in the area. The people after Lyn just don’t quite care enough to search them all yet. It’s basically just a hole in the ground, carved from the rock by whoever owned this place prior. It isn’t pretty, but it’s big enough for two beds and a whole other room, at least.

“Hey, uh, Lyn?” I call down.

“Vita! Hey! You made it!”

Lyn’s cheerful response calls back and soon the woman is on me, grabbing me straight from the ladder and spinning once before putting me down. She has a huge, goofy grin on her face, as usual. A few strands of her red hair poked out from underneath her bandana, and with her boyish, multi-pocketed outfit it would be difficult for her to look more like a stereotypical thief.

“…Hey, Lyn,” I murmur, wiping off something oily that she had gotten on me with the embrace. Probably maintaining her knives or something. “Um. We’re friends, right?”

She lifts an eyebrow.

“Yessss, of course we are. Did something happen, Vita? You look kind of… freaked out.”

“I am freaked out,” I say flatly. “I’m honestly way beyond freaked out, right now.”

“Oh. Uh. Well, you know I got your back for anything, Vita. You kids mean everything to me.”

I grimace. Lyn’s not even that much older than me. Maybe twenty? Yet she refuses to stop treating me like a kid. I’m not that short!

“I know. I just… this one is pretty bad.”

She shrugs.

“I’m all ears.”

I swallow. This is a moment of truth. I probably shouldn’t say it all at once.

“Uh, well… it turns out I’m a natural mage,” I hedge.

She blinks. Then her grin explodes even wider.

“Yo, you what? Vita, that’s awesome! That’s the best news I’ve heard in months! Why would… hmm. Something bad happened?”

“Uh… yeah, you could say that. C-couple of bad things, really.”

There’s a pause. She looks me over carefully.

“…You kill somebody?”

I swallow.

“Um. Yeah. I did. That, uh, baker guy? Grig? He tracked me down somehow and nearly beat me to death, and, uh… yeah. I killed him. Then I had to use the money on him and what Rowan gave me to, uh, stop dying.”

She stares carefully. Considering. It’s a very motherly sort of look, the kind of look someone used to raising a dozen lying street rats often gives. Does she think I just stole the money? Maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned it.

“…I believe you,” she says eventually. “You’re way too smart to make a lie like this. And… you get how serious this is. Right? Corpses show up in town all the time, but if the guard finds someone who was killed by magic, they’re actually going to take it seriously. But I got your back in this, Vita. It’s not like I haven’t killed anyone before. Nobody’s gonna be turning you in. Have you hidden the body?”

Crap, crap, crap, crap this is the moment, this is when I have to tell her. Right? Do I trust Lyn? Do I really trust Lyn? She’s been giving me charity for the past year. She’s a good person. She would want to help, I know it, but this… this is something that could put everyone in danger.

“Okay, um…” Fear wracks my body. Would she kill me? “Um, I… I sort of…”

“Come on, V. It’s okay.” The goofy grin returns. “I got your back.”

“I made the corpse stand up and keep pretending to be alive,” I blurt out.

Silence. Lyn’s grin falls. Oh no, oh no, I’m so dead… I should try to grab her hand. Or hug her, maybe. In case I have to pull out her soul. She’s fast, but maybe she won’t realize what I can do until it’s too late. She’s strong. She’s arrogant. She doesn’t know how dangerous I am. If she goes in for the kill, I can—

“I didn’t know that was a thing that could happen,” Lyn says, sounding much more dumbfounded than aggressive. “More evidence that the Church is full of shit, I guess. A necromancer, huh? Shit. That… will be really really hard to work with. It’s still good, though. We’ll figure something out, Vita. Congrats.”

I swallow dry. Really? It’s… it’s okay?

“…But we’d better go collect your corpse buddy before the Templars find it. Probably destroy it, just to be safe.”

“Um, well, the thing is, he’s a Revenant?”

Lyn tilts her head.

“The hell does that mean?”

“He’s still… Grig. He’s still himself. Like, he’s currently running his bakery? He’s still exactly the same person, as best I can tell, other than the fact that he… listens to me. And he’s a walking corpse, I guess.”

“Woah. Freaky.” Lyn frowns, heading for the ladder. “Kinda fucked up, really. But that’s all the more reason we gotta get him outta there before he’s found.”

“But it’s not that simple! His son saw me, and he saw Grig acting all weird, and he knows my name…”

She scowls down at me, flicking a bit of hair away from her face.

“Vita, did you enter the bakery with him?”

“I-I had to! Grig was beating up his family! He’s awful unless I specifically tell him not to be!”

“So you left him alone? Vita, Rowan and I are pretty sure Templars can sense magic. Whenever they’re involved with a job, we have to go mundane or they crack down on us hard. If whatever they’re doing to figure that out can identify necromancy…”

Oh no.

“…I didn’t know that.”

She sighs and rustles my hair. Always that same goofy smile.

“I know you didn’t, kiddo. Which is why we gotta go now. Come on, follow me.”

I do. Lyn is crazy fast, but she waits for me as I pant along after her. It’s not long before the two of us reach the back entrance of the bakery. I let myself inside, finding Grig working his oven like normal. He looks up at the noise.

“Miss Vita! You… careful! That damn thief is right next to you!”

He instantly drops what he was doing and tries to “protect” me, but I step in front of Lyn, arms outstretched.

“Stop! She’s a friend!”

He stops, but scowls. He’s clearly not happy.

“…As you say, Miss Vita. How can I help you?”

Lyn steps out from behind me, her expression furrowed. She walks around the Revenant, much to his obvious annoyance.

“…You really do have him whipped, don’t you? All right. We’re going to take him to sewage and end him.”

I blink, dumbfounded.

“Do you really think that’s the safest choice, Lyn?”

“I do,” she confirms with a nod. “It won’t really do much about the boy, but if he blabs after we take this guy away they’ll hopefully just think he ran off with you. If they don’t find the body, anyway. If they do, they’ll probably suspect you of killing him, but… that’s still better than people thinking you’re a necromancer, Vita. And we’ll hide the body well.”

“…Um. Excuse me, Miss Vita,” Grig says, piping up. “If you really think you’re better off with me dead, that’s all right. I’ll happily die for you again. But I can’t say I like seeing this stupid woman trying to boss you around.”

I look up at him, swallowing dry. I don’t want to kill him. I already killed him once by accident, and it freaked me out so much I can hardly stand it. Now I’m supposed to kill him again, when all he wants to do is help? On purpose, in cold blood?

“…I really don’t know if I can do this, Lyn,” I say quietly.

She sighs, putting her hands on my shoulders. She has to lean down to look into my eyes. A lifetime of malnourishment will do that to a gal.

“Vita, sweetie. I’m sorry. I’m sorry this is happening. I can do it if you need me to, okay? But we can’t have a… whatever he is running around in the city. If people think a necromancer is in town, all hell is going to break loose. You wouldn’t be safe. You know, that, right?”

I nod, holding back tears. It wouldn’t be good to waste water.

“Okay. Follow us, Grig. Out the back.”

“Yes, Miss Vita.”

The three of us sneak much more slowly back through the alleyways, heading towards the edge of the city. Skyhope is built in and around a crater, so the edges of the city are much higher in elevation than the middle. This is, so I’ve learned, a huge pain for sewage management; sewers around the city have to be dug deep and managed carefully to prevent accidents from pooling unsanitary water in the center of the city, and since the center is the rich district they actually manage it pretty well. The designated sewage disposal areas are out near the edges, where all that disgusting sludge has to be pulled up from deep underground so that it can be deposited outside the walls. In that grossness is where Grig would die again; he’ll be mixed in with the mush and pushed outside the city walls where his body won’t be found.

I’d better make use of him while I can. …Ugh, what a horrible thought, but I do need to know as much as I’m able, especially about the people that are going to try to kill me. Just a few more questions.

“Hey, Grig? Can you tell me what you know about Templars? Your uncle worked with them, right?”

He grunts.

“My uncle was one! A proud Templar of the Church. They’re expert warriors, they are. To be granted the title of Templar is an honor! They protect people like you and I from, er…”

“From people like you and I?” I finish sardonically.

“Well. Um. It’s not just the undead that Templars fight. They’re part of the army as well, more or less. They clear out plenty of other dangerous monsters. Fight in wars, if there is one. Protect the peace at home. They are the hands and feet of all those who worship the Mistwatcher. Which is… almost everyone, I should think?”

Lyn snorts incredulously.

“Yeah, no. I’m not interested in whatever rules those cultists decide. They say the Mistwatcher wants this, the Mistwatcher wants that. It’s probably some made-up deity they use to justify keeping all the metal for themselves.”

Grig frowns at that.

“…You don’t talk to many people over forty, do you miss?”

She blinks.

“Huh?”

“The Mistwatcher is very real, miss. We’ve seen him. The One Below All. Ask anyone that was alive to be there, ma’am. He saw a star he didn’t like, and he pulled it out of the sky, just as the Church said he would. He holds the islands in the air with naught but his will. Go to the edge and look down, miss. If the mists are clear, you’ll see him too.”

There’s a moment of silence, as Lyn and I try to take that in.

“…As if two street urchins like us could afford a trip to the edge,” Lyn responds scathingly. “Get over yourself, dead man.”

He shrugs.

“Live long enough, and you’ll see him whether you go to the edge or not. They say in ancient times, people worshipped many false gods. Invisible gods. Gods you had to believe in just because you’re told to. Some people still do, I hear, and they’re all fools. The Mistwatcher is real, miss. Whatever you think of him, he’s there and everyone knows it.”

We make the rest of the trip in silence, giving me time to collect my thoughts. Everyone knows of the Mistwatcher, certainly. Even an uneducated urchin like me. The Church says the whole world was crafted by the Mistwatcher, every single island in the sky. Unlike Lyn, I believe he’s real. I just figure if this is the world he made, he must be pretty damn awful. There’s no way I’m going to worship whatever made my life. Not a chance.

“We’re here,” Lyn announces. It’s somewhat of a redundant thing to say, considering that when she opens the hatch at our feet the smell nearly doubles me over. The three of us crawl down the ladder, and before I know it we’re knee-deep in shit water. I follow Lyn as she wades through it a ways before finally speaking again.

“All right. Here’s a good spot. You want me to destroy him for you, Vita?”

“Destroy him.” It sounds more like “murder him” to my ears, and I don’t want that to happen at all. He’s… horrible. Truly a horrible, awful human being. In many ways he probably deserves death. Yet that feeling of holding his soul in my hands, how weak and vulnerable he was, how he had just fallen over… it scares me. In the same way, it scares me how obedient he is now. So many parts of my mind are screaming: Keep him! Use him! This is what I need! This is how I can finally become stronger! This is how I get out of hell! My whole life I’ve had to scrape and steal and beg just to live to see tomorrow, and now I can just make people wait on me hand and foot? How can I just… give up on that?

I turn to look at Lyn. At the woman who has helped me all these years, who fed me when I was hungry and asked for nothing in return. At the person willing to help me even now rather than toss me to the Church like the monster I am. I can’t, can’t put her in danger. Not the one, singular good thing in my life.

“No. I got it, Lyn.”

I walk up to the awful, fat man. I put my hand on his chest, trying to feel for his soul. I can. It’s kind of like feeling my own soul, except outside my body. …I suppose, in part, it is my soul. The shard of my soul that I put in him has fused with his own, making a singular form. The new soul is very different from either one I used to form it. I can’t see it, not really, but as I hold my hand to Grig, I can feel… things growing out of the core of his being. Like strings, or maybe blood vessels. Whatever they are they slither through the body, pulling and tightening and moving it around like some kind of freakish parasite. He’s a muscular man under all that fat, but his muscles aren’t involved in his movement anymore. Dutifully, he still pretends to breathe, but his diaphragm doesn’t tighten or contract at all; it just moves on its own, some invisible force inside it forcing it to do so. It feels so different, so wrong… and yet so right.

I take a deep breath of my own. He smiles at me. Then I take my hand away, and he crumples into the sludge like a dropped doll, completely lifeless.

I hold everything he was in a single palm.

Instinctively, without even thinking, I pop it into my mouth and swallow. The soul slides down my throat, but it does not drop to my stomach. I shiver as that thing inside of me that makes me myself pulls Grig’s soul within it and unravels him like a priceless tapestry with a loose thread. He dissolves into nothing, and becomes a part of me. I stagger, taking a step back as the aftermath flows through my being. My steps are lighter. I’m not as imposed by the bog. I’m stronger than I was before, just a bit. Yet my muscles haven’t gotten any less atrophied. My soul just… demands they move better, and gives them the strength to do so.

It isn’t a lot. But to a girl as weak as me, it’s a world of difference. I can’t help but let a small smile quirk at my lips.

“What… did you just do?”

Lyn’s words hit like a bucket of ice. She’s staring, her normally jubilant expression mixed between confusion, caution, and a bit of fear. Horrid realization comes crashing back on top of me. What did I just do?

“…I can feel you,” Lyn continued. “You just popped onto my danger sense, kid.”

“D—” I cough. Do I have soul gunk in my throat? “Danger sense?”

“Yeah. It’s a trick people like me can learn. I can sort of… well, judge how dangerous someone is. It’s not precise or anything. Before now, you didn’t register at all. Now you’re weak, but I can feel you. That doesn’t just suddenly happen. What did you do?”

Oh no. Well… she came this far with me. I may as well be honest.

“Um,” I squeak. “I… ate his soul, I think?”

Her jaw drops.

“You ate his soul?“

“I’m sorry! I just acted on instinct!”

“You have a soul-eating instinct!?“

“I don’t know! Yes? Maybe?” What else was I supposed to do with it? “Please don’t hurt me!”

I hunch down, putting myself at her mercy. This is all so messed up! What kind of monster am I now!? Lyn’s shoulders sag. She lets out a huge sigh, tension of the situation escaping her figure.

“Vita. Hey. I’m not gonna hurt you. I got your back, remember? Always. Rowan and I will figure something out. It… might have been a good idea. I don’t know how the Templar magic stuff works. I just don’t know anything about this, okay? Magic isn’t my bag of beans, and nobody knows anything about animancy and sticks around for long. We’re just gonna have to figure this out as we go, okay? And keep it secret.”

I nod. Of course I’ll keep it secret. Dying doesn’t sound like my idea of a good time.

“We’ll find a way to use this, Vita,” Lyn continues. “You don’t have to worry.”

“…I ripped a man’s soul out of his body,” I mumble numbly. “I didn’t even mean to, the first time. I… what if I try to do the same to you or Rowan?”

Lyn frowns.

“Grig was a fat, stupid bastard. I, meanwhile, am a powerful and sexy queen of thieves. I doubt whatever you did to him would work on me. Magic is crazy, but it’s not all-powerful, you know? If you pay attention, you can fight back. Even if you don’t know a single spell, like me! It’s just training, kid. Maybe he was too busy trying to beat a child to defend himself, or maybe he just sucked at it.”

“…I’m not a child,” I grumble, scowling.

Lyn looks at the spot of muck where Grig’s body lies, just below the surface. She gives the corpse a light kick.

“No. I guess you’re not anymore, are you? We’d better get back. We’ll find somewhere to bathe and steal Rowan for a couple days. He’ll know what to do with you better than me.”

Shaking, I lean forward and wrap Lyn in a huge hug, squeezing as hard as my newly-empowered arms can manage. It’s still not that strong, but Lyn gives a little yelp of surprise. Just a moment later, she brings her arms up and hugs back. It takes everything I have to not break down and cry.

“Hey, Vita?” Lyn asks softly.

“Yeah?”

“I know this is like a big emotional moment and all, but could we do this later? We’re both covered in shit.”

Ah. Right.

The two of us make our way to a place to wash off. Lyn bans me from getting anywhere near Grig’s bakery, telling me to stay in the shack for now. She says she’ll be back soon, with Rowan to help. Just to be safe, Lyn suggests I stay in the secret area underneath, and to not touch any of the kids. Thinking about why that’s a good idea is going to give me nightmares.

Still. It looks like I’m going to have people to help. Things aren’t as bad as I feared. Maybe things are actually starting to look up.

Hah. Yeah. Good joke, Vita.