Chapter 72. Visiting Falar
“Why did he say the skeletons are being sent away?” Grit said, glancing back at Hector, floating down with his cart. A trail of smoke followed him down from the spot he had pushed himself off the platform.
“Hmm,” I said, looking down at the massive throng of skeletons. They shifted aside, letting Hector land in the middle of them.
“Do you think it has something to do with what happened on the mountain?” Grit asked. “They broke free.”
“I know,” I said. Falar had made sure every skeleton lying around got reanimated. They had run out bones. The undead skeletons and zombies had broken loose from their control on the mountain. The other skeletons and the dead tiger hadn’t been undead. They had risen by themselves. “It’s not our problem. Even Jextor said so.”
“But?” Grit asked.
“But Jextor is an idiot and I can smell the same stench that got us on the mountain. We can at least ask Falar about it. Make sure he knows.”
“Yes!” Grit shouted, pumping her fist.
I sighed. “Let’s just go see if he’s in.”
Grit knocked on the door. She waited, lips pressed thin and eyes wide.
“Relax, you’ll crush the journal,” I said.
Falar opened the door, squinting down at Grit and me. Grit made a small squeak and took a step back. He wrinkled his nose at us. “You two? This interruption better have a—.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I said. “We were at the library and found a thing. And I want to ask you something.”
“Hmph,” he said. “Well, stop wasting time. Mind the stillness and don’t breathe too deeply. Don’t channel anything.”
Grit threw me a wide-eyed stare. Falar wheeled around and walked back into his study. “And close the door behind you!”
I pushed Grit inside. The journal crunched in her hand, squeezed into a tight roll.
Falar had walked to sit at his desk and squinted at something black bubbling in a large bowl. The room was dark, only the bowl glowed with dirty purple light that was almost as black as the darkness surrounding it.
I shut the door and it got even darker. “It’s pitch black.”
Grit grabbed my hand and pulled me forward. I took careful steps behind her, but she seemed to know where she was going. “There’s a chair on your right,” she said, placing my hand on its backrest.
“Why are you sitting here in the dark? Trying to look ominous?”
“Light is for amateurs with bad memory or not enough skill to see in the dark,“ Falar said. “Magical light would disrupt the experiment, fire would be even worse. What are you holding, girl?”
“It’s the Journal of Artifact Research, latest number! Lecturer!” Grit said, all too loud in the darkness.
“Did they publish my rebuke?” Falar said, head snapping up. His eyes glistened like black marbles against the dark, somehow even darker.
“Well, no, they said they’re going to run it separately.”
“Those greedy hacks,” Falar said. “They know it’s going to sell like spades before a burial. No matter, is this why you came? I expect the journal to hold nothing interesting. You’re here because of the Conspice, I assume?”
“Yeah,” I said. “But also for other stuff. You’re getting all the skeletons up and sending them away. Are you really preparing that the thing on the mountain is going to attack the school?”
“Well, now,” Falar said, turning his marble-eyes to me and steepling his fingers before his face. “What if we are, student?”
I sat still for a moment. I could more hear than see Grit lick her lips beside me, the sound a slightest of smack, audible in the total silence of the room.
“Didn’t think further than that?” Falar said. “Impulsive, but clever. Luck might not be a suitable explanation, as you’re still alive after everything you’ve done.” He waved a hand over the bowl and it lit up brighter purple. It reeked of Null, the pressure pushing my eyes toward the back of my skull and making my teeth feel like they would pop out of my mouth at the same time. The black ichor swirled up from the bowl and drained into Falar’s hand, disappearing below his nails and the cracks in his pallid skin.
“Gross,” I said.
“Cool,” Grit said.
“Silence,” Falar said. “My focus has been disrupted and I will continue this another time.” He lifted his hand over his head and drew a few simple runes into the air. An orb of light came to life above his fingers and floated up to hover above his head. I shaded my eyes from the harsh light.
“What were you doing, lecturer?” Grit asked, leaning forward toward the bowl.
I expected Falar to groan, or roll his eyes, but he didn’t. He flicked the bowl with his finger, making it ring a long metallic note. “Good for someone to show interest in the work we do for a change.” He placed his hand on the bowl to stop it from ringing, then tapped his chin with a finger. “Hmm, you managed yourself acceptably on our excursion and in the skeleton workshop. I might need a research attendant.”
“Don’t you da—!“ I said.
Grit kicked me in the shin. Her heel cracked on my bone and I shrieked.
“Excellent. Do it again,” Falar said as I gasped and squirmed in my chair.
“Um, I’d rather not, Lecturer,” Grit said, looking down at her hands on her lap.
“Worth a shot,” Falar said. “Now! To discuss the issue you came to me for. We are preparing. The school has been stockpiling materials for a while, but there is now the distinct possibility it has turned from an asset into a liability.”
“I didn’t really expect you to start telling us all about it,” I said while rubbing my shin and grimacing. Grit wore the same velvet slippers that everyone did, but she had managed to put a lot of force into the kick. Served me right for trying to get between a girl and her lecturer.
“And why not?” Falar said, leaning back in his chair. The sharp light shining from above made his face look even more like a skull than it usually did. “Students of this school aren’t babies to be held in the bosoms of their mothers. Facing death is what we do. If you wish to participate, who am I to stop you? You will grow powerful from the experience or perish. Both almost equally useful results for me.”
“Is that what the rest of the school thinks?” I asked.
“Bah, what does that matter? They lack the drive to teach.”
“Lecturer,” Grit said carefully. “We understand what you’re telling us, but why are you doing it? I mean, what can we do?”
“See!” Falar said, waving his hand at Grit, like he was presenting her to me. “That is the relevant question. You both have seen what we’re up against. Something powerful, growing more powerful as we speak.” He started lifting fingers as he kept listing. “It haunts the mountains north of here. It haunts you. It’s dark and ancient, dead but not completely so, undead but not completely so.” He clenched his spread fingers into a fist, rotating it in the air. “There’s magic at play here that is unknown to us,” he said, looking at us from below his brows. His eyes were two black holes, cast in shadow by the orb of light.
“Is every necromancer as dramatic as you?” I asked.
“Most are much worse, truth be told,” Falar said, holding the pose for a moment, fist raised high. He sighed and opened his fingers. “I’m only trying to impress to you the scale of what we’re facing.”
“Old, weird, powerful,” I said. “We get it.”
“Lina!” Grit hissed.
“Fine, fine,” I said. Maybe I was taking it too far, but I was afraid that all his theatrics would push Grit over the edge and she would lunge over the desk to mount him. “She asked you what we can do. I don’t need to be held on anyone’s bosom, but I don’t know what to do about being haunted. Tell me how, and I’ll help if it means getting the thing off my back.”
Grit nodded next to me, fists clenched on her lap and face tense.
Falar was quiet for a while, watching us in silence. “I see,” he said. “You’re serious, even when you have so very little idea of what it means. Very well. I will take you and use you.”
My eyes flickered to Grit. I wouldn’t hesitate to kick her in the shin too if needed.
“We’re preparing another ritual. Less of an extemporaneous fling with the dark than last time. I will handle the wards. Jextor will be our point, flung into the deep. We will know the thing for what it is, learn how to shackle or destroy it.”
I nodded. Shackling it sounded exactly like something he would attempt. “What if it ends up shackling you? It tried to do it to me.”
“And you resisted it. Do you think yourself more hard-headed than our Chancellor? I have tried to make him speak softly for a decade and his volume only keeps increasing. I’ve kept track,” Falar said, taking a big breath and letting it out slowly like he needed to calm himself before continuing. “And yet, you might be useful.” He tapped his forefingers together, squinting at me. “Yes, you might. I’ll send you in with him. Your pathological independence will balance his equally uncontainable boisterousness. And even in the worst case, I’ll only get rid of you both at the same time.”