Chapter 73

Liching and Witching

Once the acolytes have gone it is soon settled. Friar Julian will accompany me to Downing, and the Archon will send me my dim-witted sunshine yellow nun friend to make the Bright One’s holy water. How nice. I thought about asking them all to come to Dunbarra Keep but decided against it. The wraith castle, its screaming walls and haunted incumbents, might be a little off-putting to the deeply religious. Not to mention that as part of the agreement I must guarantee their safety. I’m not convinced anyone is truly safe in the same castle as the grimoire, but that is a worry for another time.

Little Downing, on the other hand, has been completely rebuilt and fortified. It is fully occupied by living, breathing humans, with just a few of the original draugr villagers. They seem to be getting on well enough. Or if they are not, no one has complained to me about it. While I’m there, it will be convenient to spend some time in my garden. Not that that had any bearing on the decision. All in all, I feel this is a most satisfactory outcome.

I return to my forest unmolested. Friar Julian accompanies me on the road, and he is surprisingly good company, although he talks too much. And by the Whisperer’s unmentionables, the man is nosy. So nosy that I fear that I may lose my patience and chop his nostrils off with the sharp of my axe. The only thing that prevents me is the thought that this would have no effect whatsoever. His nose would just lie in the slush, quivering gently and trying to ferret out secrets that are none of his business.

Friar Julian has clearly never spoken to a lich before, but that is no excuse. I answer as tersely as I can. We do have an interesting discussion about throwing bones, and divination in general. Then he starts asking about my childhood so I threaten him with my axe. He shuts up for the remainder of the trip.

Once again I am followed down the forest road by assorted shy onlookers. The original peasants returning to their homes I assume? They must be mad to make such a bizarre journey in the middle of winter, but I don’t have time to get to the bottom of it. They seemed to have been joined by some of the Barrowmere citizens, or perhaps there were always more of them than I realised. The presence of the Friar seems to have emboldened my admirers, although they still have the sense to keep a respectful distance. Unlike said Friar.

Once back in the village I soon have a crafting room cleared for the clerics to work in. I guessed, correctly, as it turns out, that the Wavewalker cleric would not want to share mine, even after I tidied away the spare body parts. This is fine by me. I enjoy having my own space.

Dimwitted Sister Lorelai soon arrives, resplendent and slightly nervous in her buttercup yellow robes. She refuses to let me watch her prepare the Bright One’s holy water, but I crawl up the wall and observe her through a crack in the rafters anyway. It’s really not that special. The process involves a lot of praying, marigolds and obnoxiously loud singing. I would have heard half of it from the other side of the forest anyway.

Friar Julian is much more open about his process. Creating holy water for the Wavewalker seems to be a community affair involving sea salt, meditation, blood and cloud patterns. I watch with great interest from a safe distance.

It occurs to me that this holy water business is just what the other gods call their witch’s brews. This epiphany opens my mind to all sorts of exciting ideas. It is a good thing too because our first tests do not run according to plan.

Making sure everyone who is alive and wishes to stay that way is well back, I carefully infect a few undead chickens with Janvier’s plague. The undead fowl at once turn aggressive, the strength in their tiny bird bodies intensifying in an alarming fashion. They attack their cages without any heed for their own skins, beady eyes gleaming with hatred.

I hear my sunshine yellow nun gasp in alarm. She and Friar Julian are peering along the passage from behind a barricade of barrels. I am leaving nothing to chance. The first bottle I pick up is the Bright One’s holy water. Taking care not to spill any, I work lose the stopper. My face is bathed in golden radiance that gives me an ear splitting headache. Having no wish to lose more skin to this experiment I dip a long handled brush into the liquid. I flick it at the undead chicken.

Where the water lands the chicken’s flesh steams and burns. A noxious smoke rises from the wounds, burning acrid and pungent. The bird lets out a blood curdling shriek but does not otherwise react. It continues to hurl itself against the cage.

“No joy?” shouts Friar Julian from across the room.

“What’s happening?” demands Sister Lorelei.

“It’s doing something,” I yell back.

I stare down at the pock marked chicken. Thoughtfully I upend the entire bottle over the chicken, making sure not to splash any on myself. The holy water cascades over the creature with monstrous, meat consuming savagery. The scent of burning is revolting. I waft my hand in front of my face until the smoke leaves.

The holy water has melted away all the dead bird’s soft tissue. The cage is now occupied by a small, rabid skeleton. If it wasn’t so annoying I would be impressed. The undead miniature abomination shows no signs of slowing down, throwing itself against the bars and rattling its bones. Demonic clucking issuing from the throat that no longer exists. Oh well.

I move on to my next victim, and get out the bottle of Wavewalker’s holy water. This one lets off a soft, blue radiance, like a starfield of deep ocean phosphorus. When I pull the stopper the room is filled with the scent of brine. It is more pleasant than the golden nonsense but it still hurts my eyes. Gritting my teeth through the headache that pounds at the front of my skull I repeat the process.

It has a similar effect. The chicken’s flesh melted, but it does not burn. No, this time the procedure is slow, grotesque, as if the body is decomposing gently in a pool of water and the effect has been speeded up infinitely. As I watch the chicken’s soft parts turn to goop. This time there is no smoke, only a nasty, noxious mist that smells of rot and seaweed.

“Well?” shouts Sister Lorelei, her voice vibrating with tension. “Did it work?”

I shake my head.

My pet cleric’s faces droop. I find myself in the unfamiliar situation of being not only the most cheerful person in the room, but the most encouraging.

“Be of stout heart,” I say. “I have some ideas. This was just the first, and the most obvious thing to try. If it was going to be that easy, why would I need to be involved at all?”

“True… ” says the Friar, dark beetle-y eyebrows drawing together.

“Give me some time.”

He and Sister Lorelei are both looking at my arm. The one the Archon poured holy water on in her fit of pique. I could cover up the naked expanse of bone but I don’t see why I should. There is an elegance to the torn flesh, to the long ivories of my ulna and radius. I have looped ribbons through the gap. That is my only concession to human sensibilities.

“It won’t grow back,” I say to them, peeling back my lips in what I hope is a fetching smile. She blanches. “At least not until I die and come back. I’m not alive, you see, so my body doesn’t heal itself.”

The good sister makes a noise like she is trying to suppress vomit, so I just flash her another smile and float on by, like the innocent lich I am. Then I withdraw with the holy water to the privacy of my cottage garden.

As I walk through the dark woods I consider my last statement. It is not entirely true, not that the clerics need to know that. While my flesh does not grow back, when I stitch myself together after an injury my body does do something.

I find myself considering my draugr plants, and my beautiful ghost garden. It is high time for experimentation. If potions made from real plants work on the living, why shouldn’t potions made from resurrected plants work on the dead? I want to play, but first I have an undead plague to cure.

The tumbledown ruins of my cottage greet me, a huddled pile of cold stone resting beneath the moonless sky. Even though the cottage of my former life is gone, being here makes me happy. Roland has rigged up a temporary roof so that I might work in peace. It is enough.

Jenkins also approves. My wandering cat appears immediately from the forest to rub around my ankles, shaking the ghost daisies with his enthusiastic purring. I bend down to scratch behind his ears and consider: it is high time I had a word with the Whisperer about Jenkin’s lichdom. I have already started gathering ingredients for his potion. But I want to experiment on an animal I don’t love first. Just in case.

Entering the cottage shell, I manage to scrounge enough dry wood to start a fire. I brought a cauldron with me. Cleaning it out, I place it over the flames with a little water ready to boil. The vials of holy water I place out of harm's reach on a shelf. They bathe the interior in their gentle light. It is annoying so I cover them with a rotting bucket, returning the place to more suitable shadows once more.

Then I pluck up the ghost knife, and head back out into my garden.

The forest is very still. The snow lies heavy, suppressing the sounds of the night. Jenkins pads after me, leaving a trail of pawprints behind him. He jumps up onto the stone wall next to my neglected altar. Sitting upright, he wraps his tail neatly around his toes and settles in to observe me.

A draugr bee buzzes past me, the noise of its passage resonating in my stomach. I smile at it fondly. Like myself, and the wights and the draugr, my undead plants and their symbiotic insect life are immune to the cold. This garden grows to its own rhythm, one that I am still discovering. Perhaps I am the first to cultivate such a place, a marriage of unliving and life. I do not know, but I have never heard of such a thing.

When his highness rampaged through my lands and destroyed Little Downing, most of my garden was left undisturbed. He was in a hurry, and probably a lot of it was obscured beneath thick drifts of snow. It is ironic. Having met an end there once, you would think he would have destroyed it. I suspect the foolish man still underestimates the power of growing things. He does not believe these gentle ghosts could be the heart of my power. It will be his downfall, but I am glad. Gardening is not an activity that can be rushed.

It takes me a while to remove the snow from the flower beds. Once I have, I take a moment to soak in the gentle beauty of the place.

“Well Jenkins,” I say, looking around. “Where should I start?”

Jenkins does not reply.

In the end I decide to just experiment. The plague is contagious. I will have no shortage of test subjects.

I tap one finger against my cheek, surveying the wide variety of ghostly foliage. Now if I wanted to cure a draugr of tapeworms what would I do? I would brew him or her a tea made from the bark of the draugr yew a few yards into the forest. If I wanted to cure Old Jennet of constipation I would feed her ghostly amaranth flowers. Perhaps I should do that anyway.

Humming under my breath I move through the garden, gathering samples beneath the light of the stars. Once my basket is full I return to the cauldron.

My first concoction is a base of Bright One’s water with a sprinkle of grave dirt, a handful of ghost poppies and a single drop of treacle black draugr honey. When the honey hits the liquid the potion bursts into flames. The container immolates in a matter of seconds.

After I have finished putting out the flames, I make a note in my book. This might have a military application. What fun! I try again. Jenkins retreats to the other side of the room and hides under the remains of a chair.

The night passes in a whirl of creativity.

I discover the herbal properties of mundane plants are elevated and intensified by death. They also have some interesting side effects. Kind of like myself, I suppose. Some time after dawn, Sister Lorelei and Friar Julian come to see how I am doing. They admire my garden with wonder in their eyes. Proudly, I show them around.

I do not mention the mulch, and fortunately they do not look too closely at the ground. A witch would see it immediately, but I am not one to complain when fortune hands me a couple of idealistic idiots on a platter.

“What are you working on now?” Sister Lorelei looks at my bubbling cauldron with wide eyes.

“This,” I say, stirring vigorously. “Is a concoction of powered draugr rose petals, simmered in a base of Bright One’s water. Stand back!”

I lift a ladle full of steaming liquid and pour it with great concentration into a glass beaker. It swirls, gold with streaks of vicious scarlet. My chest tightens. Will this be the one?

The glass beaker explodes in a fiery burst.

I look down at my dress, and dig the shattered glass out of my flesh one squelching piece at a time. “It might be better if you wait outside,” I say to Friar Julien and Sister Lorelei. The nun has a nasty cut on her cheek, while Julien is bleeding from a score of small wounds. They beat a hasty retreat.

“Leave it with me,” I shout. “I’m getting close, I can feel it!”

I am missing something.

While I am managing to produce potions with all sorts of interesting effects they need… what do they need? Something with oomph. My eyes fall on my bag. Aha! I extract a small, fully charged and occupied soul crystal. Laying it into a mortar I grind the gem into a fine powder. I prepare a base of one part Wavewalker and one part Bright One holy water. To this I add a pinch of ghost dittany, and a thimble full of ground soul crystal, and a generous handful of draugr mugwort. Singing softly I stir it clockwise, and mutter a brief prayer to the Whisperer.

The liquid swirls in the cauldron throwing up glooping bubbles. It changes colour as I stir, from gold and blue to grey with a hint of metallic sheen. Glaring at it, I consider. Then I add one small ghost mushroom. It smells like loam and rot, with an undercurrent of mint. I like it.

With great ceremony I bottle some, and carry it over to my latest test victim. If this does not work it will be the twenty seventh contagious, undead chicken skeleton I have made. The small feathery abomination glares at me, doing its best to eat its way through the bars. I flick it with the water, splattering the angry corpse.

It lets out a small scream, like a kettle cut off from the boil and starts to shake violently. And then… it just stops. Within seconds the abomination collapses and lies still. I stare at it, suspiciously. It does not move. Just a body on the floor.

I poke it with a stick.

It does not move.

I poke it with my finger.

Nothing. My smile broadens.

“Decipula alma,” I whisper.

The bird’s soul essence flies into me, undamaged and unclaimed.

I have done it. The creature is dead, yes, but it is no longer a plague bearer of death. And most importantly its soul does not belong to Janvier.