Theoretical Necromancy

“You haven’t made much progress?” asked Dean Windsworth, his eyes wide with disbelief. “But you’ve been busy here for days now!”

We stood sheepishly outside near the top of the Avium where he had ambushed us enquiring about an update on our research. The evening air was cool this high up and the dizzying drop, just feet away from us, of the ledge was clearly making Olive and Crispin nervous.

“Come,” said the Dean. “Let’s talk in here.”

He tapped his claws in a peculiar rhythm on the tree trunk beside us, and with a splintering groaning sort of sound it parted into a doorway to a small parlour. The Dean ushered us inside the hidden chamber.

“One of the perks of being the Dean.” He winked conspiratorially. “I know where all the secret passageways are. Though I suppose it’s one of the prerequisites to become the Dean, actually.”

“We need a helping hand,” said Olive. “We’ve hit a dead-end with our research in the library because of all these missing pages. Someone or some group at the Avium must have done it, so we’re looking for some new leads.”

“Ah,” said the Dean. “In that case you’ll be wanting to hear about the recent strange occurrences. I thought you might ask.”

We listened carefully as the Dean described three recent unsolved mysteries that might draw us closer to our goal.

“Firstly, our Divination profession, Corvax Revayne, has been having trouble with his auguries for the past few days.”

“Yes, we already met with Professor Revayne,” I said.

“Then there is Figory Figgins, a first year student, was asking for special dispensation because of some traumatic incident on campus.” The Dean shook his head. “Exam stress, no doubt. But I imagine you want to leave no stone unturned.”

“What was the third case?” asked Olive.

“Probably the same root cause as the second,” the Dean admitted. “Jell Platena, one of our final year students, swears she saw the servitors exhibiting strange behaviour at night.” He sighed. “We found no evidence of anything amiss, but you are welcome to investigate further.”

“Thank you, Dean Windsworth,” I said. “We’ll start with Figory Figgins.”

---

Our amulets pointed us in the direction of the Freshers’ dormitories and soon we were taking an elevator platform down, down into the roots of the Avium. As we followed the directions through winding corridors and saw the state of disrepair of the rooms it became clear we wouldn’t be meeting one of the top paying students of the year.

“Looks like the Humblefolk dorms,” I said under my breath.

“I think they’re delightful,” opined Crispin. “They have a sort of… rustic charm.”

Olive just glared at me, but I was right.

We knocked on Figory Figgins’ door and after a brief scuttling sound it squeaked open and there stood a sleepy Jerbeen. At the sight of Crispin grinning, and my hulking frame, the occupant gasped and grasped at the door trying to shut us out, but I jammed my foot in the way.

“Prepare for trouble,” shouted Crispin.

“And make that double,” I squawked.

“W-what do you want?” Figory asked us trembling. “D-did the Dean send you?”

“I’m Olive, and that’s right!” said Olive brightly. “Sorry about our flamboyant entrance. We’re investigating the strange occurrences that have been happening in the Avium. We’d like to ask you a few questions. That’s all.”

Persuaded perhaps by the presence of another Jerbeen, Figory Figgins nodded and beckoned us inside to his tiny room. Olive walked in comfortably, Crispin squeezed in sideways, and I decided it best to linger outside in the doorway.

“The Dean told us you’ve been having a hard time recently,” said Olive. “Struggling with your first year exams?”

Figory’s face crumpled. “Yes.”

He was silent. He stared glumly at the ground. He remained silent.

“Would you like to tell us about it?” asked Olive finally.

“I suppose,” said Figory with an air of lethargy. “I guess it all started when I saw that monster outside my window. I was just sitting here in my room trying to revise for my exams. I kept hearing strange scraping noises outside my window. Then when I looked outside, two glowing red eyes peered back at me!” He sniffled. “I suppose you can understand why no-one believes me.”

“Now that is a strange occurrence,” said Crispin. “What sort of red were the eyes? Like this?”

Crispin swapped his eyes through a variety of glowing colours using thaumaturgy and Figory got surprisingly excited giving orders to adjust the hue and reconstructing the effect that had traumatised him.

While they entertained Figory, I squeezed myself out of the tiny Humblefolk doorway and walked round to the outside wall.

Sure enough there were marks on the stonework outside Figory’s window. Strange markings that looked like claw marks only not quite. They felt smooth to the touch as if they had been washed away over a great many years. Or perhaps as if someone had covered them up.

“Hullo, Plume!”

I heard a cry from the window above me. Crispin was leaning out of it and waving to me with an inane grin spread across his face. He tried to pull himself back inside, but the window seemed a little narrower on the return journey than it had when he first leaned out of it.

I stepped closer to get a better look at the markings and heard a crunching sound under my talons. There on the floor were small fragments of bone, hollow like Birdfolk ones. I gathered them together carefully and showed them to Crispin when I got back inside.

“Don’t worry, Figory Figgins,” said Olive. “We’re going to catch this monster that took a peek-at-chu.”

---

We didn’t want to miss out on interviewing Jell Platena on the same evening, so we set off quickly for her dormitory before it became too late to visit. As before, our amulets led the way and we found ourselves walking into airier, better-kept corridors decorated with the occasional vase of flowers set upon dainty side tables.

“Clearly Birdfolk dorms,” I said under my breath.

Olive ground her teeth but didn’t reply. Crispin, however, took the bait.

“Just because these dorms look nice and spacious and clean and tidy… doesn’t mean that this is a Birdfolk dorm!”

I laughed. “I bet you twenty gold pieces that Jell Platena is a Birdfolk.”

Crispin narrowed his eyes. “Done.”

Obviously Jell Platena was a Luma, and her dormitory certainly contrasted with Figory’s cupboard of a room.

From floor to ceiling, from wall to wall, everything that could be pink and fluffy was indeed pink and fluffy. The room had thick pink carpet and her lamps cast a pink glow over the neatly organised textbooks on her desk. Her bedspread was the same pink colour and her pillows were like puffy pink marshmallows at the head of the bed.

We had apparently disturbed Jell while she was taking a bath so she was, of course, adorned in an oversized pink bathrobe with a pink towel wrapped around her head and poofy pink slippers fitted snugly on her feet. I respectfully averted my eyes.

“Good evening, Jell,” I bowed genteelly in the Birdfolk style, one wing tucked and the other fanned out behind me. “We are so sorry to disturb you this evening, but my comrades and I have to ask you a few questions on behalf of the Dean.”

Jell ruffled her feathers self-importantly.

“Honestly, I reported this weeks ago,” she said with only a hint of refined annoyance in her tone. “I suppose you have some follow-up questions for me?”

Olive, Crispin, and I all looked at each other in a kind of confused triple-take.

“Yes?” confirmed Crispin confidently.

“Well, just in case you don’t remember, I’ll summarise for you,” Jell said and began her account of the strange occurrence. “I was helping one of my professors with an extra credit assignment, not that I need it per se but after all one is here to learn, isn’t that right! Just as I was finishing up with my notes I noticed the servitor skeletons freeze what they were doing and all traipse off in the same direction. I knew this was strange because I’ve never seen them behave in this way before - and I’m excellent at observing the small details: all my professors have told me so.”

“I can imagine,” said Olive apprehensively. “Where did the servitors go?”

“Why, towards the library of course,” expounded Jell. “I mentioned this in my earlier report and I really am quite sure that I remembered to include it there. I’m nothing if not fastidious with details: all my professors have told me so. I would have followed those servitors myself but I don’t have access to the lower levels so what could I do?”

“Maybe the servitors had to rush off to clear up a mess,” Crispin thought aloud. “And we can test that theory right now!”

Crispin reached out and knocked a vase of pink carnations onto the floor before I could intervene. The glass shattered from the sudden impact, even on the soft pink landing below, and the water quickly soaked into the carpet.

“Behold the servitors!” said Crispin, pointing to the doorway.

We waited for a few minutes but nothing appeared.

“Servitors don’t clean up after students,” Jell said curtly. “Professors? Yes. Students? A resounding no.”

Crispin coughed.

“I knew that,” he said. “Fortunately I know mending.”

We watched as Crispin began painstakingly reconstructing the vase by performing the mending spell on it piece by individual piece.

“Who is responsible for the servitors?” asked Olive, breaking our therapeutic trance of watching Crispin work. “There must be someone who looks after them and patches them up if they get broken?”

“Why of course!” said Jell as if this was the most obvious thing in the world. “The servitors are all tended to by Professor Glinda Nightseed. I always remember who to speak to if the servants are not doing their work correctly. I have a good memory for that sort of thing: all my professors have told me so.”

“Indeed,” said Olive. “How could we forget?”

---

The evening was already late but for once we had a lead and nothing would stop us from following it. We took the elevators up to the branches of the Avium again and soon found Professor Nightseed’s office up in the canopy in its own bubble which seemed to contain its own dark clouds and thunderstorm.

“Are you sure we want to go in there?” I asked the others. “That is one intimidating tower.”

The office that awaited us lay at the top of a precarious flight of stairs that headed directly into the eye of the storm clouds. It was a rain-slicked pathway to who knows what.

“Glinda is the only professor we haven’t spoken to,” said Olive. “If there are any answers to be had then they’re with her.”

We trekked up the steps and into the storm. The air cooled further and strange ethereal noises echoed from the tower above us. Soon we entered a sheltered corridor lined with bones on the walls and fire sconces to light the way. It ended in a door.

Crispin knocked.

Lightning flashed and the door opened.

“Good evening,” said Professor Nightseed. She was wearing pajamas with a skull pattern and it seemed like we had disturbed her just on the verge of going to bed.

“Oh no,” I panicked. “We are so sorry.”

“Not at all,” said the professor coyly. After these extra seconds in the light I could see she too was a Gallus and I could almost swear she was giving me a certain look in her eye. “Come in.”

Inside the office was much the same as outside it. The decoration was macabre to say the least, and the oppressive weight of the storm clouds above felt just as menacing. Skull imagery adorned the walls and other interior design, and suddenly Glinda’s nightwear didn’t seem so out of place.

“We have some questions about the servitors,” Olive began. “You’re the only professor on campus who is allowed to perform necromantic spells, are you not?”

“Am I not?” Glinda chuckled. “You could ask the same question to the Dean or any other professor and they would tell you the same thing. The Avium teaches only theoretical necromancy, and the only one of us who is allowed even to dabble in the practical is me.”

“But would you know if necromancy was being performed elsewhere in the Avium?” asked Crispin with remarkable insight for someone who usually missed the point entirely.

“Well,” said Glinda carefully, “if I focused and attuned to the energy here then I suppose I could detect the small spikes of necromantic magic as it is used, but I must stress that I have felt no such spikes in the past few months.”

“Is there anyone else you know who might be attempting practical necromancy?” asked Olive.

“Well,” Glinda paused again searching for the right words. “Every year there are some of those students. You can imagine the type. The ones with unfortunate haircuts, and no social skills to speak of, and a sad delusion that their lot in life would be ever so much better if they could just become Masters of Death.”

Glinda sighed. “These students usually drop out before they can learn enough to be dangerous. Few see it through to a full PhD.”

We considered this for a moment.

“How about I show you the workshop?” Glinda volunteered. “It may put your minds at rest that it is only I that am capable of any kind of practical necromancy here in the Avium.”

After all our efforts walking up to the tower of this office, we were surprised that Professor Nightseed directed us down through a trapdoor to another flight of stairs that took us into a kind of dank basement we would more commonly have associated with a castle dungeon.

The bone-lined walls and skull sconces continued, but the temperature dropped a little lower as we entered a large open workshop filled with tables holding half-complete servitors and tools and research notes.

“This,” said Professor Nightseed, “is where the necromancy happens.”

Before us lay perhaps a hundred incomplete servitors in various states of completion. Glinda picked up a skull and spoke with great drama.

“Alas, poor Yorick. I knew him well.”

We looked at her quizzically.

“Just a line from a play,” she explained. “But as you can see, there is nothing untoward happening here. I repair the servitors when their original bones fail them and set them back to useful work within the Avium.”

“Would it be possible to merge servitors together?” asked Crispin. “You see, we found these claw marks on the outer walls and they only make sense if they were made by a much larger creature.”

Glinda thought for a moment.

“No,” she said finally. “Each servitor is animated individually and combining multiple servitors into a single entity would lead to a lot of cross-talk between the spells. That sort of construct would be too unstable to survive for long.”

We looked around the lab a bit more but found no more useful information. We got the feeling that Glinda was holding back on us but had no evidence strong enough to build a case against her.

“It’s late,” said Olive as we gave up our investigation. “We’d better be getting back to rest before we try another day in the library tomorrow.”

“As you wish,” said Glinda as she ushered us out, the dignified professor still incongruous in her skull-patterned pajamas. “Toodlepip.”