Arc 7: Toll || Chapter 1: Revelation
It’s often said that knowledge is power. The Magi are considered the most powerful individuals in the world, only a step down from angels and demigods, because they know things the rest of us mere mortals can barely fathom.
I meant to take that lesson to heart, but I’d underestimated how useless most of it is. Or how damned expensive it can be.
Winter struck the coastlands early and hard, bringing bitterly cold winds and covering the countryside in snow. I sat in my tower office, which was more of a study lately, pouring over a manuscript I’d been waiting on for months. The ship that brought it from the continent had been delayed by the foul weather around Urn’s coasts.
The scribe who’d translated it had done an awful job, so I was fixing his mistakes more than really absorbing the contents. It irritated me considering how much I’d paid out of the budget the court provided and how long I’d waited for it. Lisette’s lessons were paying off, but I still felt slow and apish in my efforts. My calloused fingers, so sure when they grasped a weapon, felt clumsy with the delicate quill.
And as I transcribed, I tried to absorb the manuscript’s information.
As discussed in the previous volume of this collection, Razmus of Kell theorized that the hunger which afflicts ghouls — or ghûls, as he calls them — is more akin to a disease than a curse. This implies that the affliction can be safeguarded against, even cured, and yet no means has ever been discovered in all the various cultures and iterations of these creatures across known lands. They appear to exhibit many similarities to other forms of undead, including similar weaknesses, which seems to imply that there is indeed no cure. After all, while reanimation can occur through natural or necromantic means the body is not truly alive and there has never been a recorded case of the dead truly returning to life.
In conclusion, a ghoul is no different to a dyghoul, wight, or vampire — a corpse with a soul tethered to the flesh, different only in the fact that it can forestall decay through cannibalism and in the means of its creation. Yet, in many cases ghouls are formed from individuals who have indeed neither died nor display any of the typical signs of undead save for their ravenous hunger. It has been theorized that—
Useless. All useless. I couldn’t do anything with any of this. I put the quill down and rubbed at my temple, trying to massage away a growing headache.
Mournful winds howled outside the tower’s new glass window. Even with the fire crackling in the hearth, the chamber was cold. I paused to twist the knob on the alchemical light on my desk — a new model with far too many extraneous pieces — and squinted at the page.
What warned me I couldn’t say. The muted wind outside ebbed, and the ensuing silence seemed somehow too loud.
I turned the page, paused a beat, then glanced around at the room. There were more ghosts than ever, some of them having become permanent residents in the tower, and perhaps the stilling of their ever shifting shadows drew my attention.
There’d been an assassination attempt just a few weeks back. Emma and Hendry were still investigating, and we were all on guard.