“Unbeing dead isn't being alive.”

- E. E. Cummings

Distant voices intruded into her blurry consciousness. Somewhere she still felt the cold, hate-filled psyche of the undead she had called. Frigid and wet snowflakes fell on her face and melted.

“…who are…”

“...do you take me for…”

“...we will all be killed!”

The last shook her from the darkness, and she blinked her eyes.

The first thing she saw was Mireille holding her protectively close with degen drawn and readied. The redhead was kneeling with Alyssa’s upper body propped against her own. Butler One was standing before them with Alea and the two half-elf siblings behind and to the sides. Annabeth was looking like she wanted to be anywhere but here while still hovering near Valens.

The portly teacher was arguing with the thin fire wizard who wore a crude bandage around his chest and looked much worse for wear. There were also two other older magicians she thought she had seen once or twice in school.

It was all too much, and a pounding headache made her regret waking up.

“Alyssa!” Mireille realized that her eyes had opened, and she excitedly shook her friend.

Coughing, Alyssa spat some blood onto the trampled snow before weakly trying to stem Mireille’s enthusiasm. “Please...headache.”

“She is awake!” Some voices from those facing them brought her fully back to consciousness.

Groaning she tried to raise her head only to have it fall weakly back onto Mireille’s lap.

“So, with all due respect, I am a tower-warden, and matters of internal security are my purview. I will see to it that the matter gets the attention it deserves. Anyone hurt by the undead? No? Good. Then we will discuss this again back at the academy where hopefully no one is trying to kill us all!” The last was shouted at the still angry-looking mage standing opposite Alyssa and whom Mireille seemed to be guarding against. That voice...it seemed familiar...she had heard it before.

“Calvin Ambrose, don’t think nepotism on Illimen’s part will help you!”

“I’m sure it won’t.”

Focusing Alyssa turned her head and looked around. Sarah stood at the side caring for an injured student the portly mage that had stood up to the soldiers was holding his injured- and bandaged- side. The thin fire wizard seemed to be the leader of those arguing for action against her and behind her...She strained her neck...stood the man that had helped with her duel; she remembered he had been called Calvin back then. Two younger girls were awkwardly standing beside him looking very out of place in their dirty and homespun clothes.

Asandria gave the impression of a smile as she lowered herself obscuring her vision for a moment everything hazy and grey-tinged when seen through her slightly transparent form.

‘So, you are back again. Impressive.’ Gauging her reaction she nodded, ‘I would have thought that it would take you much longer. Your tolerance for void magic is increasing. I would recommend you focus on the jewel and draw upon the ambient void. If you don’t, it will take you too long to be able to influence this discussion, and then your decisions will be made for or even about you. I suggest you do something about that and quickly.’

A salty metallic taste spread through her mouth and blood dripped from her nose. Mireille was still bleeding even though someone had done some healing, probably Alea, and Alyssa was alarmed to see the pallor on her friend's face even when seen from behind.

Forcing herself to concentrate, she pulled on the stream of energy coming from the jewel, and with a nearly imperceptible deepening of the darkness swirling in the gem, the magic running through her began to fluctuate and rise.

A cold sensation spread and banished the aches she had been feeling while strength returned to her limbs. Struggling she raised herself and rested her hand on Mireille's back for a moment before standing up.

Two of the magicians facing her took a step back looking at her worriedly. The fire mage narrowed his eyes, and she saw his right hand hovering over an ornament in his belt, probably a magical device of some sort.

In the sight offered by her left eye, she saw the wound on his chest bleeding entropic light guiding her to his weaknesses. Shaking her head slightly, she dismissed the thought and grimaced. “Who are you, and what are you talking about?”

“Escaldis Aldrnari.” Came the curt response from the thin magician. “And we were talking about your crime of using necromancy to disturb the souls of the deceased.”

Alyssa’s vision swam for a moment as the frozen rage of the undead she was still connected to intruded into her thoughts. “They don’t mind.”

“What do you mean they don’t mind?! Are you still out of it? You ripped them from the beyond and forced them to do your bidding.”

“I did it to help you! There were so many dead already. If you had been able to, you would have burned them. I called those who were willing and let them aid us. Dead is dead.” She blinked away a falling snowflake, and melting snow and perhaps other liquids ran over her cheeks.

“Necromancy IS a crime, you know.” Calvin, who had been watching them argue, interjected. “I do think there are lots of grey areas that are somewhat accepted but full-on raising the dead is not allowed save under orders of the king, ahem, queen in this case.”

“So we get Lieseleta to say she wanted it, and all is okay?” Mireille perked up at this point.

The fire wizard looked livid at that. “How can you so casually discuss the misuse of royal authority!”

“I think that nothing should be decided in the heat of the moment, much less by us right here,” Calvin said calmly.

“That is the only thing we can agree on, I think.” Escaldis harrumphed.

“If I may.” A female voice sounded, and everyone turned toward the speaker. Zhira, the scout stood between the still-smoldering ruins of some tents while whirling snow fell from above. She had been nearly invisible until she stepped into the firelight. “The surviving soldiers have withdrawn into the woods and are fighting a running battle with the undead pursuing them. If I would want to guess, it’s about half the force they had at the beginning of this evening.”

“Thank you, my dear,” Sarah spoke up and stepped forward, not without taking a last critical look at the student she had been treating. “So we have the opportunity to withdraw without a fight! I recommend we don’t dither. The deed is done, and there is not much we can do about it. Let us grab what supplies we can and get out of here! We should try to return to the fort!”

“I agree.” Calvin raised his hand.

Hesitating, the ones standing beside the fire wizard looked at each other.

“Oh, for Gesserachs sake! Make your decision but hurry up!” Sarah frowned at them.

A brunette mage who had been looking more uncomfortable as the discussion drew on who had been standing behind Escaldis raised her hand. “I agree.”

“This is not a democracy! The law is not decided by the majority!” Escaldis Aldrnari fumed.

“Neither is it decided by you or your friends. And the law is clear on that there are those empowered to judge, neither of which are we at this time.”

No one spoke, and the groups looked at each other while the female magician swallowed and took a step aside, breaking the stalemate.

“Fine.” Escaldis spat. “Let's grab what we can and then depart. But you will regret what you did here. Necromancy on this scale can only mean collusion with Ulsolm and the deathless queen.”

‘Ironic isn’t it?’ Asandria mused. ‘They try to stay out of it and ignore the matter because a fluke of geography makes them the less likely target, and while the soldiers of their southern neighbor are dying, they bicker about law and responsibility. Hopefully, they are more decisive when it comes to their own wellbeing.’

“Are you alright?” Mireille’s face was suddenly very close as she looked her up and down.

“Not really, if I’m honest.” Alyssa stood by force of will and the still-flowing void magic.

“You don’t look alright so…” She sheathed her sword, not without a last look at the other mages, and then unceremoniously grabbed her friend hoisting her up and hugging her to her chest.

“What!” Alyssa gave an unladylike squeak and lost her concentration for a moment, causing the accumulated fatigue to come crashing down, making her black out for a moment.

Sounds were muted and distant, like hearing them from the end of an echoing tunnel.

A small hand fell on her forehead, and Alea stood before her while Cecily focused her lenses on her face. “I dare not use light magic; I fear I would only injure her!”

“Let me, child,” Sarah murmured a spell, and a blue glow grew around her right hand before water manifested in her open palm, dripping on Alyssa’s face. A soothing sensation dimmed the still-pounding headache, and she began to hear clearly again.

“Thank you!” she gasped, her face heated as she became aware of her position.

Meanwhile, with palpable relief at the delayed hostilities, the group split into several parties that searched the camp for still usable supplies.

Some of the students were quietly grieving for their fallen friends, and Sarah organized everyone not able to help to leave the camp in the opposite direction where the Nordmark soldiers had chosen to flee.

The scout, Zhira, remained with the group around Alyssa. Calvin and the two strange girls were accompanying them.

And as the moon Ioreth slowly sank beneath the hilltop, everything became calm and quiet as even the fire was softly smothered by the endlessly falling snow.

In the forest to the southeast

Vanessa used her wind magic to the fullest and, taking some quick strides, jumped along the branches of the upper treetops hurrying south. The pulse of dark magic still echoed through her undead body, strengthening her and making everything seem trivial.

‘No wonder I did not want to leave the cursed house. It’s filled with residues of void magic.’ Grumbling to herself as much as to distract herself from worrying about her friends and thinking about the matter seriously, she increased her speed further.

Taking the most direct way and speeding as she was, she soon- after half an hour or so- saw the silhouette of an old toll fortress rising from the top of a small hill beside the silver ribbon of a rapidly flowing river. Feeling the magic emanating from the structure, she did not doubt that the magic she had felt had its origin within those walls. Taking a careful look around, she saw movement along the banks of the river and inside the forest.

Perching on a high branch inside a great pine tree, she silently observed the undead streaming out of the fortress. Taken on their own, they looked damaged, uncoordinated, and feeble. With the dark spirits floating in and out of the seething mass, it became something else entirely.

‘I have never seen something like this before. It is as if they are still connected to the void, somehow gaining in strength and not losing it.’ Working several spells, she inspected the undead stumbling by underneath her tree. ‘I see no residual tethers. Is there really no one controlling them? Or is it simply hidden too well?’

Focusing, she tensed her legs and leaped for the next tree jumping quickly in succession until she reached the fort's parapet, her form cloaked in drifting mist she had pulled from the air. Several great circles were burned into the stony pavement and still flared with black flames. Above the center, a tear in space shed streamers of void energy visible to the naked eye. An old man was kneeling underneath, grasping something in his hands while his flesh withered and wilted underneath the radiation of the portal.

He was the last living thing, the last thing, period, inside the fortress.

Vanessa looked around cautiously before jumping from the wall and striding up to the guttering flames, if this black energy could be called such. Snow had fallen as she traveled and dusted the shoulders of his robes. She inspected him both with her eyes and her still magically attuned senses. There was not much life left, and the magic he used seemed to blend the arcane and necromancy.

“What did you hope to accomplish with that, that you were even willing to sacrifice your life and possibly more?” Vanessa broke the silence.

With great effort, the old man turned his head, and rheumy eyes marred by cataracts tried but failed to focus in her direction. Lines deep like canyons furrowed his ancient-looking face, “Who…” violent coughing interrupted him, “...who is there?”

With a gesture and a spell, she broke apart the flaring energies before her and then walked up to him. A look above at the still pulsating tear hanging several meters above her head, she sighed. Void magic infused her being, and she felt stronger than ever.

“I’m…you can call me Vanessa.” She grimaced. “I was near when you- it was you wasn’t it?- completed this...mess. What in the heavens were you trying to do!”

“I only wanted her…” he coughed, “to wake up.”

“Now, that does not mean anything to me. Can you end this spell?”

“I’m still not finished. I will sadly not be able to afterward, could you perhaps do me that favor?”

“Why should I let you wreak havoc on this region for even a second longer?”

“If you kill me, it will be that much harder to close the portal.” He gave a hacking cough. “But I can no longer talk to you. Otherwise, all of this will go to waste.” He made a feeble gesture with his head, still clasping an object in his hands.

Concentrating, he no longer paid her any attention as he spoke a series of spells drawing strength from who knows where.

Vanessa inspected the working and determined that it was simply a very specific summoning spell without much power. She believed whatever he was calling wouldn’t be too troublesome.

Then he concluded his last spell, and with a tingling sound, shards of some glass or other fell between his fingers as...something...brushed between them and was gone.

“Thank you for not interrupting me.” The old man's voice was hoarse and weak. “So I will return the favor, you must know…” A stream of grey energy sprang into being and connected the back of the old man with a tower rising above the central barracks building. The energy flared and then vanished, and the flesh of the kneeling man slowly began to decay into dust. A figure in a cowled robe slowly raised his hand, and unseen eyes inspected Vanessa as she tensed, ready to invoke a getaway or a defense.

A clatter reminiscent of dry sticks indicated the fate of the old man, but she did not waver in her attention as the figure hesitated and then gestured before vanishing with a flare of blue energy.

‘He must be nearby. That was nowhere near enough for real teleportation.’ Shot through her head, ‘Not that anyone would risk that without very thorough preparation.’ She frowned and jumped up on the roof of the barracks. No sense in getting cocky and running into a trap. But when she finally reached the top of the tower, she saw fading lines of magical force burned into the slowly accumulating snow and no sign of the magician that had caused it.

‘Damn. Too slow. Perhaps I should have been more reckless after all.’

Turning around without relaxing her vigilance, she rubbed her forehead with a pained expression. As much as she did not want to admit it, necromancy had not been the focus of her studies. Oh, she had studied all the forbidden arts when she was still doing it as a sort of antagonistic hobby and because it genuinely fascinated her, but even as it became vitally important for her, she could only experiment on her own or try to remember old books read years and years before.

And that had not been going too well.

From what she was seeing, the gash in the night sky attracted unquiet spirits nearly shorn of personality from the deeper regions of the void and simply let them...do whatever they wanted. And they still yearned for life and light, not realizing that they themselves snuffed out the flame they so wished for. Not that it would not give them a few moments of satisfaction...and power.

How in Charys name was she supposed to close that rift!?