Page 22 of Grave Situation

This time, he can’t prevent himself from reacting. His eyes cut to me, and whatever he sees on my face has him paling. I hope he understands that I need him to do this because I can’t. I can’t ask this question. I can’t seal this fate.

His throat works, and his lips part, but it’s still a few moments before the words come out. “Source of Creation,” he begins formally, “is the danger beyond death the thing that we know as zombies?”

The chamber stills as we hold a collective breath.

~Yes~

Someone moans, the sound a mournful, despair-filled echo of our feelings. Master Cranch raises a shaking hand toward the stone, then drops it. “Someone is raising zombies?” he croaks.

~Yes~

“Just one someone?” I ask sharply, the question bursting from me. “Can we stop them before this becomes a greater issue?” Because one class Ididpay attention to was the one on the zombie wars. They happened a long time ago, so long that most history books don’t reference them anymore, and the common people believe zombies to be a mere nightmare tale. After all, the easiest way to prevent someone from doing something is to make them think it’s not possible.

But at the academies, we’re taught a deeper history. Partly so no healer or mage will ever be tempted to play with the veil of death, and partly because if some fool does, we—and the dragon riders—will be the first and only line of defense. The unTalented have little recourse against a zombie. The only saving grace is that a necromancer can raise only one zombie at a time, and it takes a certain amount of kinetic energy—more than any other spell. To raise them in army-level numbers would take years, and people tend to notice something like that. Unfortunately, that’s why necromancers like to work in groups—and recruitment is often too easy. The promise of riches, revenge, power… the return of a dead love or child. After the stories I’ve heard, nothing could convince me to seek out the spells to raise the dead, but clearly, not everyone feels the same way.

Which is why I wait with bated breath for the stone’s response.

CHAPTER SEVEN

~No~

The thin hope fades. Whether it was answering the first question, the second, or both, it doesn’t matter. If we can’t stop the necromancer—or necromancers—early, then what’s coming is a disaster beyond imagining. Our only hope now is to find the stone’s champion.

Which is going to be my job.

I should have done as my father wanted and become a courtier. I could be lolling around at the Queen’s palace right now, flirting with pretty young men and women and getting drunk on the best wine around.

A jolt of impatience startles me, and I flick a glare at the stone. This manner of communication is going to get old very fast. But I let go of my self-pity and glance around the chamber. Unlike with the responses to earlier questions, there is no uproar. No chatter. No arguments. The room is quiet, the councilors overcome with their fear and despair.

Maybe the stone has reason to be impatient.

“Well,” I say, my voice tearing through the silence and startling several of the masters, “at least we know what’s coming.I suppose the next step is to consult the scholars, prepare as best we can.”

Master Cranch stares at me blankly. “What scholars?”

Suddenly unsure, I look at Master Samoine. His face is gray, drawn, and his eyes are lost. That scares me more than anything else could. “The… the scholars of the zombie wars. They’re the experts on this, yes? Which masters have made the wars their field of expertise?”

My master slowly shakes his head. “There are no scholars of the zombie wars.”

The sudden dryness in my throat makes it hurt to breathe. “I don’t understand.”

“Everything we know about the zombie wars, you learned in your classes,” Master Cranch says somberly. “There is nothing else. No records. No stories. Nothing. It was all destroyed to keep it from happening again.”

My jaw drops. The stone pulses in my mind, a sense of contempt for our stupidity. “We only know what we teach in classes?” I repeat. “But… that’s nothing. That’s….” I scrape through my memories. “It’s a handful of tales about the scale of slaughter and the length of the wars. It’s… it was barely enough to fill a single term!” My voice is rising. “How can we not know anything else?”

“It was destroyed,” Master Cranch says again, “to keep anyone from?—”

“That obviouslyfailed,” I shout. “Because someone out there is raising zombies, which means they not only learned how, but they know more about them than we do!” I suck in a breath. “How can we protect anyone if we don’t even know how to kill the damn things?”

“Our predecessors did what they thought was best,” someone behind me says, and I round on the assembled mages with thoughts of murder uppermost in my mind.

“They were wrong,” I snap. “Andwewill pay for?—”

“Talon!”Master’s whip-sharp warning stops me. This isnotthe time to lose my temper. I’m a very junior mage in this room.

I take a breath. “Forgive me. I’m… afraid. People are going to die before we can even work out how to kill the enemy. I know our ancestors were trying to protect us, but…someoneshould have been designated the guardian of this information.” My breathing is ragged as I turn back to the stone. When the councilors recover from their shock, I’m going to be knee-deep in shit for speaking to them that way. I don’t have time for that, so we need to move on. “Do you know how to kill zombies?”

~Yes~

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