Moments after the Mage’s death, Abby began to cry. She wasn’t wracked with guilt or anger at killing the man. I think mostly it was the sense of violation from having her bedroom invaded by an assassin. While Snowy took Abby into her suite to calm her, I began to examine the candle-like wax the corpse had finally dropped. The stick was an oily light green and, when rubbed onto a stray bit of parchment, quickly dried to a transparent thin film. Without careful checking, we couldn’t be sure the assassin hadn’t contaminated her clothing. It was a relatively common technique of delayed poisoning. The wax and oil would rest inside clothing and would require sweat to activate. Hours, days, or even weeks later, the victim would simply collapse and die with none the wiser. My mother preferred theft to assassinations, but she had done plenty of the latter as well and made me aware of the technique. Alcohol was a neutralizing agent for the wax, so it was a relatively safe and useful tool. We would have to soak her clothing and douse her things with clear spirits before she could wear them again.

The Baron quickly took charge of the situation, demanding some of his men to stand guard outside of Snowy’s suite while he sent Marcus for parchment, quill, and an ink set. While the older man was making a ruckus, I remained stationary over the corpse. Watching to see if it would react further. I knew that it would de-animate if the body was dismembered or suffered severe wounds, but I would take no chances with this corpse. Thinking, speaking, undead were the stuff of legends. They were horror stories designed to convince children to do their duty and report any intact corpse they found.

Yet, this one spoke. It was surprised and upset by the blade in its chest and the Noble’s Bane that disrupted the magic animating it.

Watching the corpse, I tried to see below the surface to where the mana slowed and pooled. I couldn’t be sure, but it looked like there was still mana trickling in, gently entering the form in a thin stream. Most of the mana simply sat unresponsive and knotted, but some always flowed inside the body entering and exiting.

A thin sigh of escaping air passed through the corpse's lips, either the natural settling of a corpse or air being expelled from a weakened undead.

“Baron!” I shouted, my eyes never leaving the monster in front of me.

“What?” the Baron said, his voice conveying his annoyance at being interrupted in the middle of penning his missive.

“This thing might still be…uh…animated, but weakened,” I said while resisting the urge to look at the Baron as I continued my vigil.

“What!?” came the shout from the older man and the sound of rustling movements as he stood with his portable writing desk, the noise urging me to look away from the corpse.

Stepping on the corpse with one foot to keep some sense of its position, I glanced at the Baron then back.

“I think it moved, and I’m not sure, but mana seems to be moving through it sluggishly. It might recover once the poison breaks down,” I said.

Keeping the blade pointed at the creature’s neck, I listened as the Baron ordered his men to retrieve chains and an iron chest.

It took hours for his men to return. Hours, where I stood over a corpse that I was more and more convinced, was recovering. When they finally returned with a cramped metal chest and large iron chains, most of the night had passed. The servants caused a ruckus as they tramped through the streets and forced awake a merchant to purchase one of his chests and many long lengths of chain. There was some awkwardness when the men tried to gingerly wrap the corpse in the bindings. Still, once they started, it was soon wrapped tightly with loops passing around and layering over the corpse, leaving it a tightly wrapped bundle of iron. The last of the chain was set with a lock, and the entire bundle was forced into the chest. Some slack was left in the chains from the protruding blade left in the corpse. The loops of iron passed above, below, left, and right of the embedded weapon, but we were taking no chance on removing it. Even if the creature had strength and speed, it couldn’t bring it to bear without leverage.

Only when the corpse was encased in the locked box was I able to relax, eyes red and tired, muscles shaking from standing ready to attack for hours on end.

“Why did we capture that thing?” I asked the Baron, only now bothering to ask what the plan was for the creature. I had questioned his choice before during my long watch, but I wasn’t willing to focus on anything but the creature. It had easily been the deadliest thing I had ever fought, and I had no wish to fight it on an equal basis.

“It was a Mage. But more, it’s undead and sentient. The King will have questions, and it’ll be leverage against the Mage’s Guild. If they are creating assassins with undead suicide spells, that is a horror they will want to hide,” the Baron said with a vicious grin. I could almost see the older noble imagining the political maneuvers he could make with this lever. I was not looking forward to burning his plans to the ground, but they had to happen.

“I don’t think it was a suicide spell,” I said while rubbing my tired eyes.

Grunting, the Baron dropped into a chair, his grunt somehow conveying the need for more information. For a few minutes, I imagined the possible life I could have had if I had rejected the Baron’s request. It would have taken most of my savings, but I might have been able to set myself up again in another place. But, I wouldn’t be with Snowy, I wouldn’t understand magic, and I wouldn’t have a friend in my mercurial little apprentice either. With a sigh, I banished the what if’s and turned my mind back to what was.

“I think that Mages have custom Skills for regeneration to fight aging. That’s why it healed through our fight. Combine that with a mental Skill, and anytime a Mage dies, it turns into a thinking undead,” I said, then continued, “That would mean the undead keep their Skills as well! That’s where aberrants come from. All it would take is someone with a Skill that makes them stronger, or faster, or some other passive Skill. I’m guessing, but it’s likely that it's only when they have a passive mental Skill that they become a thinking undead and can use the active effects of their Skills.”

I said more than I had planned, my musings running away with me, the idea unfolding like the blooming of a sick flower as I worked through how the magic would work. None of that had been vital or a secret that he wouldn’t be able to work out, given time to consider. I noticed, though, that the Baron was now eyeing both me and the metal chest with a concerned look, considering how this changed things.

“Are you telling me that most of the Mage’s Guild - many of them high Nobles and leaders of their Houses - are undying, unaging, abominations, with magical spells the equivalent of siege weaponry?” The Baron asked, then paused as he stared at me blankly before continuing. “The Mages, working over generations to consolidate financial and political power in the kingdom, are also undead monsters?” the Baron asked. His voice dropped into an uncomprehending horror at the picture unfolding in front of him.

I nodded. My focus still on the chest, trying not to picture myself as a similar abomination. Viscerally, I recoiled at the thought of undeath, even if it didn’t come with mindlessness and flesh-eating. The dead were to be burned, the souls freed to be reborn or discorporate, their bodies nourishing the earth. Still, I had no interest in dying, and I was already working on how I could modify my Skills to be as resilient and long-lived as a Mage. A regeneration Skill was needed, but so was a Skill for strength, speed, and something like social adroitness. The last would likely see more value than any of the others but was less attractive to my mind. Still, that was a weakness of mine, and my mother always insisted on strengthening those first if possible.

Shaking my head, I ran my mind over a thought I had been considering for most of the night. Why the Mages had a vendetta against the Skill Trainers. I thought that there might be other reasons for their actions other than just removing the competition. I was confident that competition was reason enough, but Skill Trainers often trained passive Skills. This would increase the risk of aberrant undead, concentrating the risk of an undead horde. It was common knowledge that the more intact corpses you had in one location, the quicker they would reanimate. A single aberrant could kill multiple people before it could be taken down, creating a wave of reanimations and starting a cascade of death. Whole villages had been turned into undead at the untimely death of a single young blacksmith or other stout and strong body. How much worse if the person had multiple hidden passive Skills? What if those passives were combat-related? Even trade skills could lend themselves to horrific problems if those Skills had unique passives. My father would be innately strong, fast, and dangerous. But Mason, with his passive hiding Skills, would become an unending terror! The idea of an undead that went unnoticed to kill randomly left me near shivering in fright.

I couldn’t condone the Mages, but I could see why they would want to remove any chance the Skill Trainers would spread Skills or risk exposing their acts.

Shaking my head again to bring my mind back from wandering, I locked gazes with the Baron and said, “Not all of them. But most? Probably.”

My deadpan, casual answer seemed to horrify the Baron as much as my response. I wasn’t as calm or as cavalier as I appeared. I was simply exhausted - mentally, physically, and emotionally exhausted.

Before the Baron could respond, a thump came from the chest. Tightening my hand on my liberated blade, we both waited with bated breath, then calmed when no other noise came from the trunk.

Dropping the enchanted blade beside the chest, I turned to the Baron and said, “When you deliver that to the King, let him know that the Skill Trainers will have this information as well. We may be a resource for him in the future, but he should consider the Skill Trainers in his plotting. They will presumably be willing to work with the King, but I’m not involved at that level.”

The Baron nodded at my words, seemingly as disturbed and exhausted as I was. Leaving Abby’s sitting room, I slipped into Snowy’s suite and kicked off my shoes in the visiting room. Tip-toeing into Snowy’s bedroom, I paused when I noticed Abby curled up next to Snowy on her oversized bed. My poor apprentice was curled into a ball, covers kicked off, and her head half hanging off her pillow. Seeing that my place had been usurped, I sighed and backed out of the room. Snagging my shoes, I passed into my own room and stripped to fall into my bed. Before I drifted off to sleep, I could hear the sounds of early morning birds chirping. I couldn’t help scrunching my eyes up at the growing light and grumbling in frustration at the long night, but my exhaustion pulled me into sleep.