“I would like to be healed now if possible,” Tam said, pointedly.
“Do you need anything extra?” Bas questioned. He was writing a letter with the sole pen he had brought.
Hazel was rummaging through both of his packs. He had quickly swallowed a piece of jerky and then seemed too absorbed in healing to eat more. “If you have any mana stones, they would be useful.” He pulled out certain items—such as a chalk made from fat and charcoal, some small clear pebbles that were likely his own supply of mana stones, and a crude piece of metal that resembled an eye. A small book was something he also referenced a few times.
The result of about half an hour were lines crisscrossing the tree and the pieces of crystallized mana placed into gouges in the bark and divots in the ground. Symbols in another language were written around certain lines; clarification was what Hazel said. Tam knew what the words said and translated, while Bas complained about his old court teachers who had tried to teach him ancient languages.
“What about the eye?” Orion questioned. She had gotten bored very early on and was happy when it seemed Hazel was done.
Hazel held the metal eye out to Tam. “This is a sort of purifier I made.”
Tam accepted the eye and held it in her left hand.
The light was being drawn from the living things around them, concentrated by Hazel around the drawings. The swirl of energy entered the drawing and slowly turned the lines white; the energy, however, changed to an inky black in return and shot towards Tam who stood in the middle. The eye was open now, completely black and poured out white light towards Tam’s arm. She gritted her teeth as an odd sensation shook through her bones.
Sirius howled, but made no movement towards Tam. She pressed against Orion instead and made the bounty hunter move back from the ritual.
It took time before the ritual was done. Time enough for Orion and Bas to see how the surroundings were fading from their vibrant colors; now dull and dead.
Bas had enough time to let the ink dry then folded and coiled his letter to fit it inside of the phoenix’s message container. He fed the creature another piece of jerky and then shooed her off his shoulder.
The phoenix seemed to grumble a bit before flying off.
“That will be enough,” Hazel announced before the gathering of light faded. He leaned against the dead tree. He wasn’t breathing heavily, but he was obviously tired. It seemed that lightshow to fix Tam’s arm was not easy to do.
The four humans, the phoenix, and their animal companions had been exempt, but everything else was dead. The tree which offered them shade was withered, bark cracking and mint green leaves falling off onto those beneath its branches.
Tam slipped her arm from the sling and undid the brace. She cheered quietly as she made a fist with her right arm and shook it out. Her eyes were normal. The metal eye that acted as a purifier had cracked and she handed it over apologetically to Hazel—he seemed to have expected this outcome and put it away without comment.
Orion looked around at the irregular area of death that they had caused. She wasn’t disturbed by their actions, but there was something unsettling about a place without other living things. However, she watched Tam and smiled. Her own guilt over Tam taking the hit for her had been dealt with some.
Bas similarly looked happy, but he saw the devastation around him and frowned. “Will this hurt the area?”
“Not for long. By next year, there will be new grass.”
“The tree won’t. It’ll still be dead,” Orion countered. She passed Hazel a bit of jerky.
Hazel accepted the food, then started scuffing out the markings and collected the mana stones. “Maybe, but I did what I needed to.” He would have appeared indifferent if not for how hard he was furrowing his brows.
“You have repaid me,” Tam said. She rolled her shoulders and seemed already to be contemplating how to build up lost muscle. “Thank you.”
Hazel nodded towards her.
“The necromancy is kind of cool looking, but I still prefer elemental magic.” Orion gnawed on her piece of jerky with an absent minded force.
Hazel’s relaxation after Tam’s forgiveness was quickly taken away. His tone was lecturing, “Necromancy is what I’ve chosen and I am satisfied. I’m not foolish enough to risk my life to gain a contract.”
Orion was about to give Hazel more jerky, but stopped. “Foolish?”
There were memories flickering through her mind. It was one thing to know how dangerous elemental contracting was, and another to remember how it had almost killed Charlotte. Or, had killed Charlotte. Orion—her or her memories—had only come to this world in the aftermath of the disastrous ice contract.
“A lot of people only try it if they don’t have any other option. My first contract was earth and that was using the old method. So, truly, skill issue.”
Bas held his hands up out towards the two. He was about to speak, but Hazel responded first.
“I’m not trying to piss you off, Orion. However, for my situation, it’s not worth risking my life when I have things I need to do and I have other tools. Elemental magic has its uses and your control of it is rather good for your age.” Hazel’s expression was not very happy, but it was calm with loose eyebrows and lips. He rarely talked for long unless he was educating the rest on something. This might have been the first time he actually got into a proper argument with anyone here. “I have my own means. I do not need elemental magic. ”
Orion’s mouth hung open for a few moments in surprise. “I wasn’t trying to piss you off either.”
“I think Orion was just trying to keep things moving on and not have us dwell on things, not that everything is properly fixed. Right?” Bas’ stare was sharp, as if he had an arrow nocked and pointed towards Orion.
“Yeah. I was just trying to keep things light hearted. Sorry.” Orion offered up another piece of jerky—Hazel accepted both with no further prejudice. It seemed she had hit a touchy subject, but perhaps she should have expected that with how Hazel was raised as a necromancer.
Their short break ended on that somewhat awkward yet overall positive note, and the four mounted their horses.
Orion had more questions today than she ever had in her life, and by God, was she going to get some answered. “Did you never find someone else with an ice contract before me?” She was pretty sure they weren’t that rare.
“I found one, helped her quite a bit, but she died not long after.” Hazel sighed. “I even tried resurrecting her in a specific way and failed. That wasted most of my supplies.”
Something about that caught Tam’s attention, but she soon focused again on trying to steer her horse. She was out of practice and hadn’t used her right hand for months.
Orion shrugged. She went onto the next question. “Why don’t more necromancers use healing, or more healers use necromancy?” It was clearly more effective than the town healer they had gone to.
Hazel summarized: “It’s a bit of a rare technique, the conversion is tough, and the surroundings must be significantly ‘alive’ to heal.”
“That reminds me. Do you need anything for resurrecting regular undead?” Bas was the party’s resident wallet, and he acted like it.
Hazel chuckled. “Some, but it’s a bit easier than one would expect.”
They reached the next town in the evening. Tam and Hazel grabbed supplies—things either to eat or to raise the dead—while Bas and Orion set up a camp near the graveyard.
Bas started the fire, as he usually did. Orion caught some more food and cleared an area for them to sleep on their blankets.
Bas huffed. “Why are you staring at me? Are you not tired of asking questions even after going at Hazel all day?”
“I’ve realized that sometimes I say things I shouldn’t, or, at the wrong times,” Orion admitted. She remembered how she had acted towards Tam and Bas—how she had thought of them as just a rich brat and a timid servant.
“Everyone does that sometimes. Now that you’ve noticed, you’ll get better.”
“I’m still not sure how to change how I judge people immediately.” Orion sat down and let Sirius lay her head in her lap. After a while, she ran her hand through Sirius’s fur and feathers in long strokes.
Bas stopped drumming his fingers against his leg. He was still crouched by the fire but his expression was reassuring. “That’s fine. You’re still trying to figure it out.”
When Tam and Hazel came back, Tam gave Orion and Bas the news that she had discovered why Hazel had chosen to name himself.
“I did wonder. Your eyes aren’t hazel,” Orion said.
“Tell them, or I’ll do it myself,” Tam added. Judging from her expression, she had been teasing the older man about it.
Hazel sighed as he confessed, “Tel Legen is allergic. He hates the taste as well. I decided I might as well name myself something he hated and could kill him, even if it was something as mundane as food. Fifteen year olds do not have a decent naming sense.”
“The horror. The scariest thing to the king. . .a common food,” Bas joked. “We should change our plans and just poison him.”
Hazel shook his head and took out his trumpet. He was off the duty of making dinner tonight, which meant he could play with Bas while they waited.
They all ate and waited for night to fall properly. It was a cloudy night that hid the stars and moons from those below. A light fog drifted around aimlessly.
Orion and Bas argued as they walked towards the graveyard and Hazel set up the few things he needed. Their debate was over the risks of forming an elemental contract. Neither had a knack, but Orion had survived making two contracts.
If not for Hazel’s memories and Bas’ map, they would not have known that there was a mass graveyard here. It was just a large flat area with small stones and puddles.
A washbear was in the graveyard, and Tam placed some dried fruit down for it to eat. The creature stared at them and cautiously took the fruit before retreating further out of range.
Hazel took out his trumpet and started a song that was in essence the opposite of a dirge—it was light, loud, and brash—a song of life. According to him, the dead responded best to guidance through song.
There was a low rumble in the muddy ground. As it was a mass war grave made from a battlefield, there were no head stones. Instead the dead clawed out of the earth in a confusing chaos. Their skeletons were covered in mud, not a bit of the pure bone white to be seen.
Orion briefly questioned the insanity of helping someone raise the undead, especially one they had been sent to kill.
After this point, they were all too deep in a conspiracy to kill the king.
A/N
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