Necromancer?

Terry blinked rapidly while Denys Farano stared her down. So he did know. Either he'd seen the corpses she'd raised from the corner of his eye, or Gemella had spilled the beans. Damn it. She'd already thought she'd heard the girl talk about skeletons, but a part of her had been in denial.

"I'm not responsible for any of this," she defended herself quickly, determined to get rid of any suspicion while she still had the chance. "For the curse. I can't... I can't even control those monsters."

"Calm down," said the innkeeper. "I'm not some peasant with a pitchfork and a hot temper. If you cast this curse, you wouldn't accompany a lord on a quest to break it. Besides... It would be rather stupid to forget to make yourself immune to your own curse, no?"

Terry had to admit the man had a point. She sighed in relief, thankful her head would remain attached to her body a while longer. Farano was a sensible man; good luck for her. It did not, however, stop her from worrying about whatever it was he'd need help with. Would she even be able to be of any use in her tired state?

"I can try to help you if you need it," she began slowly. "But I'm..." Positively exhausted. "A bit tired. If you're looking for a magical solution to a problem you have, it remains to be seen how much I can actually do for you right now."

She remained vague on purpose, unwilling to tell a stranger, no matter how friendly, just how out of it she was. Farano didn't strike her as a bad man, just a father and innkeeper trying to survive, but as long as he believed her capable of summoning spirits and undead creatures to kick his ass, he wouldn't try anything funny. If there was one thing to avoid, it was showing weakness to people you hardly knew.

"I don't know how complex what I'd have you do is, Miss Kalister," Denys said, gaze still serious. Then he looked away, making for the staircase to the first floor. "Come, both of you. I'll show you what I'm talking about."

Denys Farano climbed his staircase and Terry figured she'd follow. Not before sharing a glance with Audren, though, who, in turn, glanced at the sword he carried. It wasn't difficult to figure out what he was thinking. If this goes wrong, we can handle him.

Terry hoped it wouldn't come to that. It would be cruel to rob a child, one who'd fled from a war, lost her mother and witnessed the apocalypse, of the one parent she still had. She trailed after the innkeeper, watching his back, perfectly vulnerable to an attack if she or Audren intended to strike. Not necessarily smart on Farano's part. But maybe, she thought to herself, he trusted them not to betray him.

That, in Terry's opinion, was impressive.

She and Audren followed the innkeeper through the candle-lit hall of the first floor, past rooms reserved for his guests. Behind some closed doors, she heard quiet conversations; behind others, a dead, empty silence reigned. Some were, in fact, open, and Terry saw Farano wave at a woman reading a book in one of the rooms.

"How many guests do you have?" Audren asked softly, giving the woman his own sheepish wave.

"Six left, not counting you two, my daughter and myself," the innkeeper answered. "We have just enough food and drink for now. If we need more, I'll send Gem to gather what she can."

Terry thought about the men they'd locked in the mayor's storage room, but decided against telling Farano about that incident. A young girl couldn't be sent to face off against bandits; best to let her scour abandoned stores at her leisure, which would be less dangerous for her. With the thought of the bandits in the back of her mind, the mage wondered how it was possible the end of the world could bring out such different sides of humanity. There were those men in the mayor's residence, brutal and selfish, who'd slaughtered innocents to ensure their own survival. And then there was this man, looking out for his guests and his daughter, willing to allow strangers into his space and help them.

What side had Credi seen when he'd decided to curse humanity? The bandits' side, of course. Hardly surprising in Santon, home of depravity and corruption. But things had been looking up there, hadn't they? Why would Credi curse humanity now when he'd been optimistic due to Limnaia of House Acestor becoming Countess of Santonshire and promising to make her realm a better place?

They were missing something, she was sure, but she didn't get much time to dwell on it. Denys Farano had halted in front of a room and opened the door. Terry and Audren followed him, stepping inside. The room was larger than she'd expected it to be. The innkeeper's own room, perhaps? It was a shadowy place, no candles burning and the curtains drawn closed, but Terry could make out a vague shape lying by the end of the bed.

An animal. A bloodhound.

"That's Maks," Denys Farano explained, indicating the animal, a sad expression on his face. "Our dog. A stray Gem found not long after we arrived here. She begged me to keep it. And I, well... It was a surprisingly gentle beast, and my wife had died not long before, so I couldn't bring myself to say no."

Terry studied the animal to the best of her ability and frowned. It looked... Unhealthy. Alive, but in a bad shape. It lay with its eyes closed, sleeping, but shivered as if terribly cold. Strange lumps had formed underneath its skin and sores marred its thin body. And the smell... it wasn't as bad as the Cursed, but Terry still got the idea the dog was decomposing where she stood.

"He's sick," Audren observed.

The innkeeper nodded. "Yes. It started before the Free City fell, but it's only getting worse now. I've been thinking of putting him down, to end his pain and suffering. But, hm... there aren't many ways to do that in here without making a mess. Not to mention that it would undoubtedly hurt him, which... Gods, I don't think I could live with myself if I killed him. Maybe before the civil war, but now..."

He must've encountered a necromancer before, for Terry instantly knew the spell he was looking for. "You want the Quietus Spell," she stated. "A painless death for your pet."

"Yes." The innkeeper wrung his hands together. "If you can."

To be fair, the request wasn't nearly as bad as Terry had expected. If he'd asked her to resurrect the corpses of some of his former guests, she would have declined politely. But this spell... This spell was different. Not violent like a resurrection. Not something that required a lot of energy.

"I can."

She approached the dog slowly, though she doubted it would lash out in the state it was in, and knelt down by its side. Stroking its weary head gently, she began to mutter the spell; a lengthy one, notoriously difficult to remember, but Terry took her craft seriously. Unlike raising the dead, this spell was gentle, soothing, like a song to put you to sleep. She felt its warmth in her soul, the softness of the magic as it eased the sick dog into its final moments, and thought it was unfair how nobody understood death magic quite like its practitioners.

Dark and evil, that was all people saw. Rot and violence of the kind she'd experienced while raising corpses earlier that day. But death could also be gentle and humane, could be used for good, to ease unbearable suffering. It was what had drawn her to the art in the first place. And especially the Quietus Spell wasn't easy to use for nefarious purposes; in fact, if she'd wanted to perform it on a human, she'd need permission from the person in question, the local physician and the authorities, which came with mountains of paperwork she'd been trained to handle at the Institute. If any branch of magic was well-regulated, it was necromancy.

The dog's breathing, which had been slow to begin with, stopped not long after she finished reciting the spell. The shivering and pain had ended, the animal finally had rest. Terry saw its death confirmed when the mark appeared: her full name, permanently branded into Maks's forehead. Necromantic spells had been stitched cleverly. If a coroner examined the body of someone who'd died by this spell or someone found it disposed of, they'd see the name and identify the mage who'd used it. It wouldn't be hard to determine if the spell had been performed legally afterwards, and if that wasn't the case, the culprit's name would be known immediately.

A good precaution, Terry thought, albeit a crooked one. A skilled elemental mage could use his magic to burn whoever they saw fit to a crisp. Entirely unchecked. In her opinion, that was hardly fair. But necromancy has to kept in check, of course, she knew, because it's dark and scary and people are full of prejudice, fearing what they don't understand.

She rose again, facing the lord and the innkeeper, who'd been watching her in silence. She didn't try to read their expressions, not interested in knowing what they thought of what had just transpired. What they thought of her. She simply said: "It's done. Your dog will never be in pain again."

Farano nodded solemnly. "Thank you."

"You said this would make our journey easier," Audren reminded the man. "Would you care to explain how? I feel I'm not understanding something here."

"Right." The innkeeper glanced at his deceased pet, gloom in his eyes. "Like I said, it's not a particularly pleasant idea and it relies on a mere theory. You can decide for yourself whether you want to work with it. There is... A guest of mine. A man from Chekshaw who fled to the Free City after his home fell and ended up at my inn. He'd survived the journey here and told me about his encounters with the Cursed. One of the things he claimed was that he'd sustained a wound while on the run, a bloody gash in his arm. Said the Cursed seemed to come for him faster and in larger numbers after that. It was a miracle he made it here alive."

"That could mean they mostly rely on smell to pick out their victims," Terry concluded. "The smell of human blood, most likely."

"Yes. And if that's true, they leave Gem alone because nymph blood runs through her veins, even though she sounds and looks just like a regular human." The innkeeper's eyes rested on his dog once more. "You've put him out of his misery gently and ridded me of his mouth to feed. When you leave, I'll allow you to take him. Perhaps... If you coat yourself in his blood on your way to Nymphenwald, it might confuse the Cursed. Might make them leave you alone."

Oh, yuck.

Terry blinked, not bothering to try and keep the disgust off her face. Audren didn't seem interested in that either; his features had contorted in horror, as if someone had ordered him to eat a rat off the floor. Their apprehension did not, however, mean the idea was bad. Unpleasant, as Denys Farano had stated, but useful. On the scales of life and death, it could be the tipping point in favour of life.

"Well," Terry told the lord, "I hate to say it, but I think it's worth trying."

Audren swallowed hard, but nodded.

"I suppose it beats being devoured alive."