Ten Pages Removed

Dear Black Wardens,

I’ve done something I wasn’t supposed to.

I should start all my journal entries with that line, actually. Perfect summary of my life story. Which is pretty damn impressive, given that it’s several thousand years of track record being condensed into one sentence. Talk about a nutshell. I am nothing if not consistent.

Except for yesterday, maybe. Yesterday, I killed Varia and Weylyn. Broke into their hideout and assassinated them and all of their followers. Cold blood murder, hands down. Absolute serial killer on the loose, here.

I shouldn’t be making jokes. There’s nothing funny about this.

Problem: Last year, ex-Warden Jin Parker decided to declare war on Necromancer Genim Wood--and by extension, all of necromancy in general. In summary, the little shit started the Second Bone War. Not only does this directly involve me thanks to my status as a necromancer (and not to mention one of Genim’s closest friends), it also directly involves the Black Wardens because Jin used to be one of you. A publicity crisis has emerged.

Solution: The Black Wardens cover up the specifics of the war. Statistics are scrubbed from records by “careless” hands, evidence of battlefields disappear overnight, and the Tower’s public census is strangely a lot shorter than it was the previous year. Within the next one hundred or so years, Jin fades into notoriety--and then disappears from memory entirely. Publicity crisis resolved.

Contingency: If the Black Wardens get involved, won’t their sworn enemy get involved too?

I’ve known the Wardens long enough to know how you operate. Even after you went into hiding last year, you’ve still been keeping tabs on me. A triangle on the receipt for my bar tab in Mithalleana. A mercenary tapping his concealed holster as I cross the border line into Midarin Pass. A meaningful wink from a call girl in Northmanni. Okay, maybe not that last one, but you get my point.

You’ve been watching me. You’ve been watching the war. I may not know where you are, but you know where I am. And you’re making sure I know that.

For the past year, I’ve been keeping track of your changes. The little “adjustments” to weapon orders for Yale’hadil’s military. The casual omission of the war from every issue of Quarternotes. The fact that Yale’hadil’s evacuation was executed almost effortlessly, despite the necrotic bomb going off with no warning and no chance of escape. The fact that you’re smoothing the edges.

Sidenote: that bomb? That was me. No real surprise there. Or is it, ohohohoho? I bet you’re wondering how I blighted a whole forest in a matter of minutes. I never did tell anyone from this century how I became a necromancer. Maybe it’s better that way.

I’d intended for that bomb to end the war, actually. I’d hoped that a blight over Jin’s vampire army would be enough to halt them. I was wrong. If anything, it’s made things worse. That’s an entirely different story, though.

More importantly, thanks for saving all those innocent people. Quid pro quo. I’d say I owe you one, but after yesterday, not so much.

Yesterday. I’m getting to that.

It’s weird. These last few months, I feel like I’m back in BC again. Back when the original Wardens were still around. They operated the way you’re operating now--in secret, completely nonexistent, nothing but a pen mark on a bar tab. A kind of shadow, a trick of the light, something you can only see if you know how to look for it. Always watching with unseen eyes.

You’re back to the Wardens I used to know. And I love it. I think it’s great. Really, I do. I think this is exactly what the Wardens needed.

It’s just that Varia and Weylyn were trying to stop you every step of the way.

I could see the aftereffects in my investigations. The riot in Yale’hadil last year over the “missing” weapon orders. The Quarternotes clone that started and died in Eaglewind, attempting to report solely on the war. The endless protests after the evacuation, the people insisting that the bomb had been a deliberate plant by a “secret organization.” Once again, sorry for that.

Trying to expose you, just like they said they would.

I thought I could just let it go, yeah? I’m not a Warden. This is none of my business. After you guys went into hiding, Varia and Weylyn lost a bunch of their ground--the Pyramids they’d reported on didn’t exist. I thought this problem would solve itself. But now, with a war being led by one of your ex-members, they suddenly had a lot of ammunition to work with. And you don’t have the option of backing out again, because if you do, Jin gets exposed.

Problem: Two ex-Wardens are trying to expose the Wardens.

Solution: Go into hiding.

Contingency: What if you can’t?

What if something is so serious and pressing that you have no choice but to get involved? What if it’s your Gods-given duty? What if you have no choice but to do it because if you don’t, you’ll be going so far against your credo that you won’t be able to call yourself a Warden anymore? I wonder who would keep you safe then. I wonder who would bring justice to those who betrayed your organization.

Not Fenton, certainly. She’s in hiding with the exposers themselves, and according to your records, was shot in the head by your High Commander. Plus, she abhors killing. It would rend her soul.

Not Naseel, the High Commander in question. Are you kidding? She loved Weylyn too much. They were too close of friends. And Varia: a historical icon. She couldn’t do it. Despite all the bravado, she would never.

Not Vulen. He’s retired. And the very suggestion would choke him; hollow out his guts.

Not Lykaios, or any of the other new Wardens. They weren’t close enough to this fire to feel it burn. And now most of them have different problems to face: political intrigues and the like. Their attention is needed elsewhere.

Me. I could. Easy.

Because I knew where they were hiding. Maybe one of you will remember. Before the trial, those couple of years ago, I told Weylyn I wanted to meet with him. Well, not long before the war started, he delivered. Maybe it was an overconfidence thing, I don’t know. In any case, I was escorted down into their secret hideout deep beneath the surface of Musea. He met with me.

We discussed magic, mostly. It was a civil conversation. I avoided mentioning the Wardens. He showed me around the place, bragging about his new recruits and all the security defenses. He was clearly prideful of it all, but I didn’t comment on it; I wasn’t there to talk politics. I had no ill intentions at the time, and did nothing questionable. I was blindfolded when I arrived and when I left.

But I saw the place itself. Teleportation spells can let you return to any location you’ve been to before.

I found out pretty quickly that he’d put a lead barrier in the crust above the hideout. Trying to block the input of outside magic. But if you know your arcana--which Weylyn and I do--you know that rules were made to be broken. A little black magic, a shot of nectomancy here and there, and sure as shit I can get back in there.

Sure as shit.

Yesterday, I did something I wasn’t supposed to.

The teleportation spell--a scroll bought from the Tower--dropped me off near the hideout’s entrance. Its proper exit was a teleportation plinth set into the floor of the room, with a magical cipher on it that only Weylyn could operate. Good security, I’ll give him that.

Now that I was inside, there was no chance of the lead barrier blocking my spells. I knew there would be some silent alarms around the place, though. I scanned the room for magic and immediately found a number of glyphs and runes hidden in the carpet. Noting their position, I murmured a few preparatory spells before floating over the rune traps and onto a safer section of the floor.

The hideout was silent, save for the usual ambient sounds: the hum of distant magic, the creak of a bed, and the susurrus of people breathing. There were more people here than there were last time, over a year ago. I summoned Gatatl, and she crouched on the ground in front of me, flickering eyes waiting for instruction. She had been a sorcerer when she was alive. Like Weylyn. Swallowing, I pressed a finger to my lips. She nodded.

I pointed her to the room where the breathing was quietest--no space here for loose ends. I watched in silence as she padded across the front hall to the door, and slowly stepped inside.

When I heard the stifled dog yelp on the other side of the door, my heart clenched. I immediately felt horrible. I should have done it myself. Personal kills, assassinations… I hadn’t done this kind of thing in years. I half-ran across the carpeted floor to the door.

Yeah, it was Qamutik. I won’t revile you with descriptions of her twisted neck and lolling black tongue. Though I could. Maybe I should. I want you Wardens to remember this, to burn what happened last night into your mind, so that it never has to happen again.

Gatatl dropped Qamutik’s head to the floor with a muffled thunk. I pressed my finger to my lips again, and she nodded again. We headed back into the hall, where I instructed her to wait.

Through the rightmost door was the common area. Bunks were laid out in even rows, at least half of them filled with sleeping initiates. Most of them were canines, presumably Awoken. The others, mostly elves. I didn’t want to look, but I made myself. I studied the faces as I floated through the room, looking for familiar ones. I didn’t know anyone here. The people of import surely had their own rooms.

This felt too easy, but I didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about it in the moment. I just wanted “the moment” to be over.

So I pulled out another scroll. Delayed Blast Fireball. I placed the bead in the center of the room and made my exit, pulling the double doors closed behind me. I directed Gatatl to the other end of the room and then floated away, bucking, my hands over my head.

The explosion splintered the door and sent a gasp of hot wind flying into the main hall. It was followed by a succession of tortured screams and howls and the reek of burnt flesh. One wolf ran to the doorway, his pelt a ballgown of flames, before collapsing dead.

The scream of horror from further down the hall somehow drowned out all other sound. It was Varia, her face hotter than the fire I’d just started. She raised a bow, eyes wide and twisted with disbelieving rage. I lifted my hand and loosed the axe from my fingertips, my powers sending it flinging through the air.

It struck Varia in the shoulder and then retracted back to my hand with violent speed. Her scream, which was somehow still going on, raised in pitch. But she lifted the bow anyway and fired.

I took it in my side. At the same time, Gatatl jumped on her from behind, incisors sawing into her neck. Wincing at the arrow, eyes half-closed, I threw the axe again. When I opened my eyes, my axe was in my hand, and Varia was dead on the floor.

There wasn’t much time to process this before a gout of flame struck me in my side. I staggered and my feet hit the ground, briefly losing altitude from the pain. I stepped over a number of runes on the floor, feeling the magic spark to life beneath my touch. I was hit first by an explosion from the rune in front of me, and then lances of pain seized through my body as the second rune took effect. I was paralyzed, clutching in seizuring pain at the flames on my side.

Weylyn, naturally, had been the one to hit me. He was halfway through a dragon transformation, his nightmarish eyes flaring as his scaled neck twisted from side to side in the narrow passageway. Rage had clearly overwhelmed logic as he’d chosen to transform in this limited space.

His gigantic form was quivering as he entered the room. One claw slammed into the carpet in front of me. His eyes were on Varia’s body, never leaving her, as if willing her to move. He stopped in front of me. She wasn’t going to move, because she was dead. She wasn’t going to move, because I had killed her. He looked at me. He struck me in the face with a clawful of fire.

Gatatl roared and moved to attack him. He cried out a spell and she froze in the air. I, meanwhile, was managing to come out of the paralysis. The burns all over me were beyond severe. I floated to the wall, adjusting my grip on my axe, trying to buy myself a few seconds.

Like that was going to happen. Weylyn plunged a lance of lightning into my back. I screamed until my screams turned into gargled hisses. My blood smeared along the wall as I turned around to face him. As he approached, shoulders writhing, he shifted back into his normal form. The curl to his horns and the lines under his eyes betrayed the age that had reached him over the past year. He returned to normal a few paces away from me and approached with deliberate slowness.

His anger was a palpable force, overwhelming even the presence of his own magic. He stopped with his face inches from mine. I remember this moment very clearly. He was actually going to kill me and I was going to turn into a lich and he didn’t care. That’s how much this whole thing meant to him. Hell, that was how much it meant to me, coming here in the first place. We looked each other in the eyes and we both knew it to be true.

He murmured the words for Inflict Serious Wounds and touched my forehead.

He healed me. Because he didn’t know. He didn’t know that negative energy would heal me. I was so stunned by this stupid, dumb luck that I laughed. Then I put my axe through his neck.

“Taryn,” he said, in a hoarse, shocked whisper. He looked at me in awe, as if he had only just realized the extent of the damage my necromancy had done to me. He had only just realized the infinite horror and danger that he was up against. Or, maybe, as if he had only just realized that I had destroyed him and his organization. He had only just realized that while he had been busy preparing for Naseel, and Fenton, and Vulen, and every other possible killer under the sun, he had failed to develop a contingency plan for the one and only person who actually posed a threat to him. Me.

His head slid backwards off the blade of my axe.

I’d liked Weylyn. Did I mention that? I really liked him. I wanted to be his friend.

I lay there and breathed for a little while, listening to the fire crackle and the flesh sizzle. Then I got up and dismissed Gatatl. I wiped the blood off of my axe and pulled the arrow out of my shoulder. Then I proceeded further into the hideout.

A blur of movement lunged out at me from the juncture of one doorway. I raised my axe, caught off-guard, only to freeze. It was Fenton. Her rapier shook in her hand. Skjoldolfr was at her side, eyes glittering with anxiety. Fenton and I stared at each other. She started crying.

We all put our weapons down, and she cried for a long time. I knelt on the floor next to her and cried too. It took a few minutes because I was beyond dissociative, half-gone from the murders. But when I thought about how Vulen would react if he ever found out about this, it didn’t take much effort to start crying at least as hard as Fenton was.

“I disabled some of his traps,” she said when she was done, eyes half-lidded and voice cracked. “Here and there, over the past two years. Whenever he wouldn’t notice.”

That explained how easy it was. “Thank you,” I said.

“Don’t thank me. You’ve done something evil and I contributed.”

I nodded. There was a pause. “You two are my only witnesses.”

“Is that a threat?”

“Fenton, no,” I said. “Do you think I wanted this? It’s one thing to be a Warden, to be the person being hunted by those you once called friends. But it’s entirely another to watch it happen from the outside, for years, hundreds of years, thousands of years… to watch it shape your friends and shape the future. I couldn’t… I couldn’t sit back and watch that.”

“So you didn’t kill them for the Wardens. You killed them for yourself.”

“I suppose I did,” I said flatly, still at the moment of writing this unsure if I actually meant it.

Fenton stared at me for a while. She said, “Last week, in Mithalleana, I was approached by a kirin who told me to go to specific coordinates in Vale Osso and see a man about a ship. Do you know what a kirin is?”

“No.”

“That’s good,” she said, “seeing as they don’t exist yet.” She held my gaze for a moment before turning it towards the floor. “I think I must have dreamed it. That couldn’t have been real. Weylyn and Varia were good people. But I’ve been so miserable here. I must want any excuse to leave.”

“You don’t need an excuse anymore,” I said quietly.

“What a terrible consolation prize,” she said.

We teleported out together, and she went off on her own. As far as you Wardens are concerned, Fenton is dead, and I suggest we keep it that way.

I went back once she was gone. I Hallowed the entire hideout. I may be a necromancer, but I’m no sadist. I thought about burying them, but I couldn’t see any way in which it wouldn’t be inappropriate, like a sort of backhanded gesture. I did pray, though. I also put an affect of Gentle Repose over the Hallowed area, so the bodies will stay as they are for now. It’s up to all of you to decide what should be done with them.

Then came the particularly difficult magic. I reduced Weylyn’s hideout to a miniaturized demiplane and bottled it in a glass sphere. And yes, it took me a while to figure out how to pull that off, so yes, this whole thing was very premeditated. In case you were trying to come up with an excuse for me.

Not that I need to explain all that, as the sphere’s been included with these pages. All I’ve gotta do is leave this all bundled up in a nice package with your triangle symbol on it. One of you will snatch it up in seconds. I’ve decided that the Wardens should determine what should be done with this sphere, if anything. Put it on one of your decorative shelves, if you still have those. I don’t know.

Problem: Some of your friends are hunting some of your other friends.

Solution: Slaughter one group of them for the greater good of the world.

Contingency: Will you ever even be able to look Vulen in the eyes again? Or anyone else, for that matter?

I’ve killed people before, obviously. A lot of people, actually. You sort of add them up over the thousands of years. It just happens. Wars and traitors and assassins who were hired to kill you because you’re a necromancer. It just happens. But this was different. This was personal.

Fenton was right. Weylyn and Varia were good people. So was Qamutik, and, I’d hazard to bet, every single one of the initiates in that hideout. And now, they aren’t good people. Because they aren’t anything other than dead.

I’m sitting upstairs in Vulen’s house at the Museum right now. I showed up at his doorstep this evening, drunk on Maker’s, asking him if he had somewhere I could spend the night. This isn’t an unusual set of circumstances for us, so he didn’t ask questions. He just helped me bandage my wounds and directed me to a room upstairs. Thank the Pantheon. I don’t know if I’d have had the resolve to lie to him. And the truth would have been too much.

I swear on my own grave, Vulen’s always been there for me. I don’t like to admit that cause I can see the age growing in his eyes, and I know he’s going to be gone soon enough. Even at the end of the world, though, he’d be there for me. He’s what we call a “ride or die” friend. I wish I was in a situation where I could say that I would die for him, as he would for me. There’s a lot of things like that I wish I could say.

I write things down to record them. That’s why I have so many journals. I have very good memory, but I like to keep a record. Proof of what really happened. But I don’t need proof of the horrible thing I did last night. That’s why I’m giving these pages to you. I want you to remember it. I want you to remember it so that you know what your organization is capable of causing. So you know exactly what it is that Vulen decided to resurrect from the Pyramid ruins 60 years ago. So you can keep it from happening again.

Basically, what I’m saying is that I’m resigning. Not from the Black Wardens, of course, because I was never a member in the first place. Whatever you wanna call this relationship of ours. I don’t want any more of it. I’ve freed you. You’re not being hunted anymore. There’s no one trying to expose you to the public. You’re free again.

So do me a favor.

Don’t come out of hiding. Don’t become the political powerhouse that you were on the road towards turning into. Don’t take over all the governments of Musea and puppeteer them through the history of this world. Revise your edicts. Only participate when absolutely necessary. Learn from your failures. Remember the thing that I did yesterday. Remember the people I killed. Don’t let it happen again.

And next time you feel like checking up on me?

How about you don’t.

Taryn Atma

Phanta 13, 363 TC