The bedroom door creaked open and Father Wilkud entered the room where the dying men were to die. The air in the room was stale and heavy with the stench of death.
The flame of the single candle sizzled in the sudden draft of air, casting monstrous ghostly shadows that fluttered across the walls.
At first Father Wilkud barely made out that someone was huddled under the covers of the small bed. It looked as if one of the brothers had removed his habit and carelessly tossed it on the bed.
It wasn't until the seemingly empty garment moved and the wrinkled cloth fell from a head that was little more than skin stretched over a skull, that the priest was certain that someone was there.
The figure was frail and looked old, very, very old… His head was completely bald and dotted with freckles, and the only visible hair was thick gray eyebrows. His bony hands had been deformed by some cruel degenerative disease to look like claws. The old man's skin was paper thin, taut on the bones he covered, and his cold blue veins stood out against the white marble of the little flesh that covered his worn body. The bony structure of his face with its high cheekbones, angular well-defined jaw, and aristocratic nose, was clearly visible when silhouetted by the flickering candle flame.
Wilkud looked away. In his thirty years as priest of Mortis he had seen death in its infinite forms: soldiers who had suffered brutal physical wounds on the battlefields, plague patients, accidentally killed, murder victims. But there was something about the man that made Wilkud avert his eyes in revulsion.
It wasn't entirely due to his appearance; Wilkud had seen far worse things in his life.
It was something else that the old priest could not determine.
It gave the impression that the old man had to be already dead, and certainly he smelled as if he were. Nothing that was still alive should ever smell that way.
Father Wilkud shuddered and wrapped himself tighter in his black cloth habit; the bedroom was very cold despite the embers of the fire that was dying in the fireplace. The priest picked up the iron poker hanging from a hook by the fireplace and stirred the smoldering logs in the hearth, rattling the iron furiously.
"Father, is it you?"
The old man's voice was high and cracked like the chime of a broken bell, a sound that made Wilkud feel as if his spine were made of ice water.
He took a deep breath to regain his composure.
"Brother Mateo, right?"
It was the name that, according to Brother Walder, the old man had given when he was admitted to the hospital. To Brother Walder, as now to Wilkud, it had become obvious that the old man did not have much time left in this world. When they stretched out his convulsed and fragile body on the cot and tucked him up so that he was comfortable in the waiting room, the old man had asked to speak with the father in charge of the hospital. He would not serve any other priest; at this point the otherwise weakened old man had been adamant.
The old man's breathing was labored and panting. For a moment, it seemed to Wilkud that he could barely breathe, much less speak. But then, at last, the old man broke the silence again.
"Brother Mateo's name will suffice for now."
Uncertainty crossed Wilkud's mind. What could the old man mean?
Now that he thought about it, Father Wilkud was not sure how Brother Mateo had come to lie there in the temple in the city of Eastheim. He also did not know what the old man was dying of, although evidently, he now he lay on his deathbed.
No doubt his agony was due to the devastating effects of old age, and the Brotherhood of Mortis was responsible for making Brother Mateo's last hours as comfortable and carefree as possible, since he was a fellow servant of the Lord. solemn god of death.
"You wanted to talk to me, brother," Wilkud said.
"That's how it is. Yes, indeed, father ”gasped the old man. His voice was little more than a hoarse death rattle.
Wilkud was used to being called "father" by brothers and by those who came seeking the favor of Mortis and the services of a death priest for loved ones who had passed away.
But now, on the lips of this old man old enough to be Wilkud's grandfather, the term seemed ridiculous.
He had to easily be thirty or even forty years older than Wilkud, who was fifty-five; perhaps he was even approaching a hundred years old, though such longevity was almost unheard of. It must be the devastating effects of some terrible disease that had aged him so terribly, Wilkud concluded.
"That's how it is. Yes, indeed ”repeated the old man.
The man coughed and there was a horrible phlegmy gargle. With a hand that was little more than a skeletal claw, he clutched her belly above the blanket.
"Brother, what is it?" Wilkud asked with an anxiety now evident in his voice as he advanced toward the old man. "Let me help you."
"No." One hand held the veteran priest of Mortis at arm's length.
The dying wretch took a few more labored breaths before trying to speak again.
"I beg you to hear my confession."
Staring at the weak old man, Wilkud wondered what an old priest on his deathbed might have to confess that he did not already know about the god of death. But there were a thousand and one things that could disturb a man who stood on the threshold of the gate of the otherworldly realm of the dead.
A thousand and one things that could worry a man who gazed into the face of death as his eyes began to fail and saw beyond the veil of this world as he gazed at the stern, shadowed face of Mortis himself.
"Of course, brother," replied Wilkud, who sat down in the chair that had been left by Mateo's bed.
If hearing his confession could make Brother Mateo's last hours more tolerable and better prepare him to pass through the dreaded gate into the world on the other side, Father Wilkud would. It was very little to ask on the part of a dying man from a fellow priest.
In addition to the care they gave the dead, it was not uncommon for those who were at death's door to go to the hospital to request that they be heard in confession before dying, in order to enter the afterlife free of the burden. of his sins and hoping to more quickly complete his passage through the fields of Mortis.
“Yes, it is what I need. A father figure to confess everything to. A father figure who can guarantee absolution. " The old man laughed, but the sound was bitter and lacking in joy. "How ironic!"
"Sorry brother, what do you mean? I do not understand you."
"No, you can't. Of course not." The old man chuckled slightly. "But it does not matter. It does not matter. Like most of our short, pitiful lives. It doesn't matter in the slightest. "
The old man coughed loudly again.
But where to start? Where to start? " repeated the old man.
"You could start by telling me your real name," Wilkud suggested.
“Yes, that would be sensible, since you are going to hear me in confession. It would be pointless to confess under another name. After all, where would that lead me, with the austere Mortis. "
The old man groaned in pain as he rolled over onto his back.
"Very well. Let me tell you everything. My name is Viktor Drichey, son of Brechtal Drichey, and I was born and raised in the Kaleth Empire, in a town called Chipped, located ten miles southwest of Genbofen, next to the Black Mountains, on the border of that cursed vampire den from Transylvania. I was born a year before the reign of the famous Emperor Augustus.
Father Wilkud let out a soft gasp and leaned back in his chair as if he had been startled.
"That?" The old man fixed on the confessor very black eyes that seemed piercing like needles in the flickering candlelight.
"You are wrong, brother," Wilkud said. "That would make you have more than ..."
"Two hundred years old," the dying priest interrupted with a gasp. "Yes, I know. Two hundred and seventeen, to be exact. "
Brother Mateo's mind, or rather Viktor Drichey, must have been confused, Wilkud thought. He didn't know what he was saying. He certainly looked old, but more than two hundred years?
"Go on," Wilkud said as he prepared to listen carefully to each word.
“As I said, before the reign of Emperor Augustus. You will wonder how I could have lived more than two hundred years. Well, I'll confess that too. It's simple, actually. I am a necromancer.
The look the old man gave Wilkud along with these words plunged his father into stunned silence. The old man, Mateo or Viktor or whatever he was called, he was clearly insane.
In the first place, the fact that he could have lived more than two hundred years was ridiculous. Second, how could he be a necromancer, a dark sorcerer, a summoner of spirits? Necromancers were the enemies of Clerics, Priests, Paladins, and other servants of the gods.
They desecrated the holy resting places of the dead and plundered the kingdom of Mortis with their depraved morbid charms.
It was obvious that Wilkud could not trust a single word spoken by the man.
Wilkud wondered what had caused this man to go mad and lose his mind in this way.
Perhaps it was the consequence of all the years spent dealing with dying men and all the horrors he had witnessed?
Maybe it was due to something else that had happened more recently?
It was possible that he was the result of having dealt with a true conjurer of the dead.
Was this his own fate? Wilkud wondered grimly, momentarily distracted.
"Are you surprised?" gasped the old man.
“N… no, brother. No, of course not. It is just that…"
"You have consented to hear my confession," the old man reminded him sharply.
Wilkud tried to pull himself together even though he felt intense discomfort of the cause of which he was not quite sure.
Was it an understandable concern when faced with such a mental imbalance?
Or was it because the old priest's statement was plausible to him?
It was true that he had consented to hear the old man's confession, but he openly doubted the veracity of anything he might hear.
Yet he would hear it, if only to make the old priest's last hours more bearable.
After all, it was his duty, Wilkud reminded himself, though at this moment it was a duty he honestly wished not to have, no matter how many confessions he had heard up to that day.
"Go on, brother. I will hear your confession. "
"In that case, I'll start at the beginning."
And as the old man spoke in the crackling heat of the rekindled fire, Wilkud felt the cold close on him like the icy hand of death itself.
The first time I saw a corpse, I was five years old.Well, I guess that's not entirely true. He had seen Old Jack, Black Jack, the town drunk, before that. But it was the first time I had seen the corpse of someone close to me. Now it seems strange to think that he has never been close to someone, but in other times, I must admit, that someone was my mother. She had died of a fever.Did her death affect me deeply? Looking back now, I think it must have been.My sister Karen was only three at the time, and she could barely remember our mother. Our dear mother. But to me, her smiling face is as warm and bright as she was when she was alive; even now, after so many, so many years.It was she who raised us, who took care of us. She was the one who fed us when we were hungry, she comforted us when we were sick or unsafe, she encouraged us when we were sad. She was the one who loved us.<
Viktor sat in his window seat, gaping at the wonders of Genbofen. The vehicle followed the main road into the city and rattled on the cobblestones that paved the streets.In the eighteen years of his life, Viktor had visited cities before, of course. Once or twice a year he had accompanied his father to the main market in Vengenholt to collect alms from the Church of Mortis and to purchase supplies for the Chipped Chapel. But Genbofen was something very different, five times the size of Vengenholt and with a population six times the size. For the young magic student it was a wonderful thing to behold.The houses rose to heights of three, four, and even five stories above the street, and many of the upper floors jutted out beyond the main wall of the buildings. That was not important in the case of the main avenues of the city, but in the secondary streets the floors stood out so much that they transformed the roads into dark tunnels in which
"What did you think of the class?" He heard Viktor ask a great voice next to him. The accent was that of the city of Genbofen itself.Looking back, Viktor saw another student trotting forward to catch up with him as he left the classroom. He appeared to be the same age as Viktor, with a neat head of blond hair and a fuzz of beard on his chin, trimmed in the style of what Viktor believed was the fashion of the imperial capital. He also weighed between five and ten kilos more than Viktor himself. The student clutched to his chest a half-open backpack with scrolls and a quill sticking out."Fascinating. Better than he had expected. "Better than you had hoped for? What do you mean by that? "“Uh… It doesn't matter. It has truly been everything he had hoped it would be. ""Professor Theodria is certainly an excellent speaker, right?""It is obvious t
At the moment, I find it hard to believe that I was ever so impressed by old Professor Theodria. His mind was as closed to new thoughts as an Adamantite strongbox reinforced by enchantments. There was no way that he believed that there could be another way, another way of knowledge far greater and more powerful than his own. Because deep down he was a coward who was afraid of those who dared to question the primitive and antiquated understanding of the world that he considered an irrefutable truth, a way of thinking that he clung with all his might like a dog to a bone. .The school principal was a cowardly and dogmatic fool whose position of power and influence was based on a weak-minded attachment to the knowledge and practices received from others.But looking back, as much as I may despise my memories of Professor Theodria, that is nothing compared to the hatred and contempt I feel, even now, towards that shitty Inquisitor, sow sonic, rotten sewer rat
During weeks of diligent study, Viktor also regularly received letters from his sister Karen about him. They always arrived when a carriage made a postal delivery from Vegenholt, the closest town to Chipped on the main routes through the Empire. Letters that had previously been brought there by some willing farmer who transported his goods to the town to sell.And amid all this hustle and bustle of Viktor's new life, whenever he received a letter from his devoted and loyal sister, it evoked the life he had left behind. Karen's letters kept him up to date on everything that was happening at Chipped and let him know that his sister was toiling there without him, taking care of his father and taking care of her needs. They were a comforting reminder of home. There was never a letter from his father.At first, Viktor dutifully responded to each of Karen's missives, as he had resolved to do, and sent the letters through the city mail company. But
The heavy oak door of the library slammed open, breaking the quiet, musty silence of the place. The room was usually almost sacredly quiet, as if it were a shrine, but this had now been broken by the arrival of the Inquisitor.He had the attitude of a man used to having to get what he wanted by force and being satisfied with it. And, of course, no weak apprentice magician was going to stand in his way.The man was over six feet tall, wore leather riding boots, and although he appeared to have reached middle age, this made him look even stronger rather than detract from his vigor. Viktor saw thick, rope-like muscles taut on the man's neck as he laid eyes on him.Felix's profile was of noble lineage, with a prominent and distinguished jaw, short gray hair, and a neatly trimmed beard. His eyes were piercing sharp points of sapphire blue, and his teeth were bare as his lips parted in a fierce canine grin. He had the unmistak
"This is going to end right now!" the school principal roared as he rested his hands on the surface of his desk.Felix straightened and turned away from Viktor, his sapphire gaze as cold as a winter night."Why are you defending this bastard?" the Inquisitor asked in a voice as hard and cutting as an Adamantite sword. "Is it perhaps an indication of your own guilt?""This interrogation is a sham!" Theodria bellowed. "I would lend the same support to any member of the School in the face of such blatant lies and fraudulent accusations as these.""Unless he was shown to be a servant of the dark powers, of course.""Which young Viktor Drichey is not!""That has yet to be proven.""How can this boy be the 'Tomb Raider'? He arrived in Genbofen in the early spring, and the disappearances started much earlier, in the last month of winter as far a
What is madness? Do you think that I am crazy, I, someone who condemns his own soul through the practice of black magic? And for what purpose? For a few more decades of desperately decadent life? To become an outlaw from the world of the living when it is precisely the unbearable desire to live that has led me to study the forbidden rites of necromancy?I will tell you for what purpose I have done that. I have done everything for nothing, because it is the only thing I have now that I bare my soul before you: nothing. Nothing to show for two centuries of life; the lands that I once claimed as my own, the people who showed fidelity to me, all already forgotten.And the only thing I can hope for now is an ignominious end and an eternity in that twilight world of the realm of the dead, caught between the worlds of eternal rest and glorious life, unable to exist in either of them, both torturingly out of reach. . An eternity of torment. An etern