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chapter two: only an old door

Goku and Krillin sounded their battle cry, and from within the room came a shout in return. It sounded surprised. That was a good sign, Bulma thought, and she slipped into the room behind them without noticing that the cries had not been followed by the sounds of battle.

She sidled through the door and saw Krillin and Goku stopped dead in front of a large desk. "Goku! Krillin! What are you doing? Did he cast something… on... you?" Her voice trailed off as she took in all the occupants of the room.

In preparation for this trip, Bulma had done much research into liches. She had read countless descriptions, found as many artistic representations as she could across various cultures. She was prepared for anything she found in this keep, from a mouldering, grey-skinned corpse held up by stubborn magic to a terrifyingly majestic skeleton king with eyes of flame and everything in between. What she had not prepared for was a simply dressed boy in black, standing on his own behind the huge wooden desk with a dagger held up in a defensive position.

"Who are you?" spat the stranger. He was, she realised, not a boy - as much a young man as she was a woman, and she hated to be called a girl.

"Who are you?" asked Bulma. "Where's the lich?"

"Lich?" Confusion washed over his face, then a sort of wary comprehension. "Me. I'm the necromancer of this keep. Get out of here and I'll spare your life."

She laughed, and took one hand off her staff. Goku and Krillin kept their eyes trained on their new company. "You? You don't look a necromancer to me, boy. A thief, perhaps. I'll give you that you're dedicated to have made it past the undead and the cursed corridor to start your looting, but it ends here. We've come on a noble mission and we aren't going to halt it to chat with a street urchin who got lucky."

His face twisted into a nasty scowl. He reached into the air with his free hand and made a fist, twisting his wrist as he did so. Under Bulma's feet the stone floor gave way into pebbles and she had to scramble, shrieking, to the side to regain her footing as a pit into nothingness appeared where she had been standing.

"Do not mock me, girl. You know nothing of the power afforded to me by being a - a lich."

He took a few steps as though to come around the side of the desk, and Goku and Krillin moved in time to keep themselves between Bulma and the false lich.

"So you made the ghouls," Krillin said.

The young man smirked. "I did."

"And the skeletons?"

"Yes," he said, but the smirk faltered and it was an obvious lie, in Bulma's opinion. "I made those, too."

"Why?" she asked.

He clearly hadn't been expecting the question and it took him a moment to come up with an answer. "That's just… what we do. Liches are undead and we are compelled to create even more undead to rise up and overtake the living."

Bulma snorted. She had clearly done more reading on the matter of liches than this man.

When his dark eyes settled back on her she thought she saw hatred in them. He twisted his fist again and she felt the world fall out from underneath her. Her staff clattered to the floor as her hands instinctively opened and her arms stretched out, trying to catch herself, but before the earth could swallow her up Krillin's arms were around her and she was clinging to the armour at his neck while Goku threw himself at their opponent.

Goku leapt in while the man was still watching Bulma and slashed him from shoulder to navel, cutting through a black quilted vest like it was nothing, but the wound was shallow and the man dropped his fist and twisted around to drive his dagger into Goku's thigh. Goku cried out and jumped back, keeping his sword in a defensive position as he regained his balance. His opponent breathed heavily and watched Goku closely, sinking into a ready stance with Goku's blood trickling down the dagger's hilt and over his hand.

It seemed like a long moment the two young men stood sizing one another up. Both with wild dark hair and pitch black eyes, Bulma supposed from the brown tails resting at each one's waist that they were of the same peculiar race, although she had heard little about saiyans before this past week and Goku himself seemed to have limited knowledge of his people. From what he did know and she had read, Bulma surmised them to be a race of large, highly physical warriors, not necromancers barely bigger than herself. When he was dead, it would be interesting to try and trace this wizard's past and find where he fit into their society.

Both moved at once, and Bulma's thoughts snapped back from the academic to pure survival. They were moving so fast she had trouble following either blades or bodies. Goku had the advantage in size and reach, both in himself and his weapon, but the other man clearly knew how to use his weaknesses to his own advantage, and there was no clear upper hand for either at this point in the fight.

Krillin pulled her further from the chasm in the floor and let go of her arms. He stood up, testing his injured foot, and beginning a cat-like approach to the hind side of the skirmish. He had his mace at the ready, but it was impossible to be silent in metal armour and Bulma could see the moment where the man's eyes snapped back to take in Krillin's movements. With the dagger held out to fend off Goku, he lifted that free hand again, curling in some of his fingers.

She didn't wait to see if this was the floor trick again or something else. Bulma snatched up her staff and from her seat on the ground yelled a single word of power. One whole side of the room exploded into flames and the man's eyes went wide.

"No!" he cried, and his dagger clattered to the floor. He lifted both arms, hands open, and pulled them towards him. The fire moved his way as though he had reached out and pulled the very air like a piece of cloth. The flames folded in upon themselves as they moved and puffed into nothing more than smoke about Krillin's head.

The man grabbed Krillin by the ear and hurled him to the floor, Goku forgotten as he crossed the floor to a low cot on the fire-damaged side of the room. Bulma realised for the first time that a small figure was lying under the heavy fur draped over the cot and a hard lump rose in her throat as she considered the possibility that she had just burnt a child alive. But there had been no screaming, and what would a necromancer, even such a strange one as this, be doing with a child in their care?

"Are they alive?" Goku was moving towards the cot. His motions were cautious and he kept his sword ready, but his voice was soft and concerned. Bulma, too, stood and moved closer. She could see a little face, soft and maybe younger even than Goku or Krillin, beneath a similar flame of hair as the necromancer's, but the face was still and ashen.

They waited as the man knelt beside the cot, checking the fur and the white face. Abruptly, he turned to look straight at Krillin. "You," he said roughly. "You are a priest, yes?"

Krillin nodded, scrambled back to his feet.

"Very well. I will go peacefully with you on one condition."

It was clear to Bulma that this young man had no control over the strange corridor above, but luckily he had a back way out of his keep. Bulma thought they should execute him, and Krillin agreed, but instead she found herself walking at the back of a chain which started with Krillin, followed by their prisoner carrying his boy wrapped in the fur, then Goku and finally herself. Goku could be surprisingly convincing with the simplest of words.

"When did he die?" Bulma thought she detected a trace of nervousness in Krillin's calm demeanour.

"Five days."

Krillin slowed to walk at the man's elbow, peering down at the body. "He does not look five days dead."

"I have preserved him with cold."

It hadn't been particularly cold in the keep, Bulma thought, and Krillin frowned as though he shared her skepticism, but when he pulled off a glove and reached over to touch two fingers to the boy's forehead he just nodded.

"I can't do anything past seven days," Krillin said.

"That's not enough time to get to a town with an operational temple," Goku added. Everything within a day or two had already been abandoned as the rot spread out from the black keep. "Can you do it in the forest, Krillin?"

Krillin ran a hand over his bald head. Bulma could see him sweating from where she stood. "I can try," he said, "but I don't know if I'll be able to commune adequately to make the request without a temple or proper offerings. It might not be successful."

"What happens if you can't raise him?" she asked.

"Nothing, but if we fail once we won't be able to try again."

The necromancer made a noise like an angry growl.

"It's not as though there are a lot of other options. You already laid waste to everywhere we might have had a better chance. It's now or never for this kid."

There were no arguments, and they walked in silence for some time before Krillin decided they had reached an adequate location. In what had once been an agricultural field but was now lifeless and without any feature beyond the same black mud as everywhere else, Krillin drew out a large circle in the sticky earth with a stick. He punctuated the circle with religious symbols at regular intervals, and from a pouch at his waist he sprinkled some kind of dried offering on each symbol. He nodded to the necromancer.

The man entered the circle and laid down the boy, pulling away the fur to reveal a miniature of himself, in matching black from head to toe. He was far too young to have a son this age so Bulma guessed they must be brothers and felt a pang of sympathy in spite of the man's sins. From a bundle within the furs he placed next to the body a finely-made shortbow and quiver of arrows, a wooden carving Bulma couldn't make out and a worn cloth monkey that rightly belonged to a much younger child. Krillin had said it was easier for the soul to return if the body was surrounded by reminders of life.

Krillin used his stick to smooth over the man's footprints within the circle, then instructed the others to keep an eye out for undead, who might be attracted to the ritual.

He looked up at the purple sky, said a short prayer and stepped into the circle. His feet did not sink into the mud in spite of his heavy armour and he drifted noiselessly into a cross-legged seat by the boy's head. He placed his hands gently at the boy's temples and returned his attention to the sky. Bulma could see his lips moving but not hear the words. She tried to keep her eyes on the twisted woods surrounding the field, but she was fascinated by the ritual happening next to her. She had very little knowledge of divine intervention, this being an entirely different way to influence reality than the arcane magic she studied.

But Krillin's conversation with the gods dragged on, and she found herself bored. A half-dessicated skeleton stumbled in their direction from the closest village, and she prepared her staff but the necromancer reached out with his bare hand, closed a fist and the creature's skull caved in on itself. It dropped, and she wondered how he did it. The only way she knew to cast was to recite the chants recorded in her spellbook. She had read once about a defunct school of wizardry in which the mages would cut out their own tongues as a pledge of dedication, and cast through sigil work and writings, but this man did not seem to use any language at all. She wondered if he had spells tattooed upon his body, perhaps that could work. She studied him, trying to imagine how that would be executed, until he noticed her eyes on him and stared her down.

When she looked back at Krillin his eyes were closed. The purple sky was beginning to swirl with deep blue, a whirlpool forming in the ominous fog, centred over the ritual circle. She and Goku looked up. The blue was more of the ocean than the sky. She wished she could preserve the image. The necromancer looked down and let out a cry.

The boy was sinking into the mud. His feet had already disappeared into bubbling blackness, and his white hands were barely visible. Krillin held his head well out of the mud but the rest of him was sliding slowly down into the earth.

Bulma's hand snapped out and she grabbed the necromancer by the wrist just as he stepped forward to broach the perimeter of the circle.

"You have to let him try," she said. "If the boy is gone, he was already lost to you."

The man snarled at her wordlessly, but he looked down at the circle scratched in the mud and took a step back.

With Goku, they watched as the boy's legs and arms were sucked under and the mud began bubbling up around his waist. Krillin, too, was beginning to sink. The black mud slurped up around his legs, seeping into the joints in his armour, and although he never opened his eyes or stopped his silent chanting, Bulma could see the panic in his face. The sky swirled with increasing intensity and a new wind whipped Bulma's blue hair around her face. Krillin's fingers were digging into the boy's face now, his neck straining as he struggled to pull the small figure's head up, clear of the mud.

"Krillin!" Goku cried as the priest's waist disappeared below the field's surface. One of the boy's shoulders was sucked under. Bulma mentally riffled through her spellbook, trying desperately to find something she could use to help Krillin. The boy was gone, as far as she was concerned; she could do nothing for him. The necromancer was shouting in a rough tongue but most of the sound was lost to the stinging wind that swirled around the edges of the circle.

And then a little hand burst up through the mud and the small face burst to life, gasping and thrashing and crying. The necromancer was in the circle before anyone could say anything, plunging his arms into the mud to the shoulders in order to physically haul the small boy from danger. Together, Goku and Bulma helped Krillin pull his legs free, and the priest stood shakily while the boy lay on the ground panting and looking at the sky. The wind died down to a breeze, then stilled as the swirling hole in the sky closed up and the world was bathed again in murky purple light.

"Vegeta!" the boy sobbed, still kicking as though he were drowning. "Vegeta, help me!"

The man - maybe Vegeta - knelt by the boy and spoke in a voice too low for Bulma to catch. He fished the boy's half-submerged belongings from the mud and pressed them into the boy's chest. Small, shaking hands closed around the bow and the cloth toy.

They waited patiently while the boy cried, none of them in a position to judge how one reacted to having been dead for five days, until eventually Goku pointed out that they should make as much progress as possible before nightfall. The time of day seemed to have no bearing on the activity of the undead, but the absolute darkness of night under a starless, moonless sky did make them more difficult to deal with.

"I'm Tarble," the boy said quietly, sitting up while his protector buckled his quiver to his back for him. "Did you come to save me?"

Bulma looked uncomfortably at the necromancer.

"They came to destroy me," he said.

"Vegeta?"

"You're safe. These people will take you as far as Hjalmar."

Tarble crawled onto his hands and knees, then lifted himself to his feet with effort. "Hjalmar? I thought we were headed south once you…" He looked around at Bulma, Goku and Krillin. "I thought we were headed south."

"You're going to Hjalmar, then north to Gento. I'll give you money so you can hire yourself some protection until you can lose yourself in Mok."

Tarble's eyes were glassy and confused. "I think he's a little bit disoriented," Bulma suggested gently.

Vegeta's neck snapped around so he could tell her very clearly to fuck off. She gasped and took a step back. Finished with the quiver's buckle, he stood and stepped into the space she'd vacated.

"I'm just trying to help. He clearly has no idea what's going on. You're making him even more confused. Let him adjust."

"You don't get to tell me what to do," he spat.

"Actually." She drew herself up to her full height, almost his equal. "Under the terms of our agreement, I do. Krillin saves this kid, you come quietly and do as we say until Hjalmar, where you'll face justice."

"Huh?" Tarble looked back and forth between them. "I don't understand. Vegeta?"

"Let's go," said Goku, stepping up and placing a big hand on Vegeta's shoulder. Vegeta shrugged it off, but Goku replaced it immediately, squeezing slightly on the edge of the wound he'd inflicted in their earlier fight. "Let's all just go."

They made good time in spite of Tarble. Although he'd stumbled uselessly for the first hour or so, once he got used to his legs again he was quick and sure-footed, at the edge of a village even picking off a single ghoul at the front of a small group with an arrow.

"Make them stop," Bulma ordered, as the remaining few stepped over their comrade to plow through a fetid duck pond towards them.

Goku pulled his sword.

"Vegeta," she said, more forcefully. "Make them stop."

He looked at her blankly.

"These are your constructs, are they not? Make them stop."

"Oh." He held up a hand towards them uncertainly and said "stop". They did not stop. He tried again with a word in that language Bulma didn't recognise, then turned back to her and shrugged.

"What kind of a necromancer are you?" she asked, incredulous.

"Vegeta's not a-"

He slapped Tarble around the ear and the smaller brother cringed.

"Don't hit him!" Bulma went to place her hands protectively on Tarble's shoulders, but the boy ducked away from her and hid behind Vegeta.

"Thanks for the assistance," Krillin interrupted.

Bulma spun around to see Krillin and Goku panting over a small pile of defeated ghouls. She blushed with regret at missing another chance to show off. "I was trying to get Vegeta to help but I guess 'come peacefully' doesn't technically include full cooperation. We should have negotiated terms better."

"We should camp," Krillin said. "That ritual took it out of me. I'm in no shape to keep fighting, should it come to that."

"Not here," Vegeta said. "The ghouls congregate closer to the settlements."

"Can't you just put up some kind of anti-ghoul spell or something?" Goku asked. "You can control the undead, right? Just keep them away."

"Why should I help you?" Vegeta replied like a snotty child.

"I wouldn't trust him anyway, Goku." Bulma narrowed her eyes at the man who didn't seem to realise he was their prisoner. "Let's just walk on for an hour. We still have light, such as it is."

Krillin sighed, but trudged forward.

When they did make camp they set up, treated Goku's wounds and ate as a group, but when it was time for sleep they bound Vegeta's and Tarble's hands and feet. Vegeta winced as Goku pulled at his right arm and twinged the injured soldier, but repeated his refusal of any aid. Tarble was clearly confused, but he followed his brother's lead and quietly accepted the treatment.

Bulma was able to successfully negotiate for her own watch this night. Goku was injured and Krillin exhausted, and although they were reluctant to let a paying client take on this duty they didn't have many other options if they were to be in any shape to travel. She took the final shift, choosing to wake up early rather than stay up late, and when Krillin shook her awake she felt good about things. She had snagged some excellent rare books that were well worth the trip, and they had successfully apprehended the necromancer without any loss of life. Her comrades were beginning to respect her and she was finally being trusted with a bit of responsibility.

She sat where she'd slept, on the opposite side of the dead fire from the boys. Krillin returned to his bedroll, together with Goku forming a flank either side of Vegeta and Tarble, who slept back to back on the bare mud. The woods around them were dead, black and twisted and the ground felt wet and unnatural beneath her bedroll, but they would be back in natural forest soon, and this place, too, would begin to heal once the blight of necromancy was lifted from it. Things were coming to rights.

From her pack she retrieved a small leatherbound journal and a stick of willow charcoal. With one eye on the surrounds she began to sketch the face of the ghouls she'd seen, then everything went blank.

When she woke both Krillin and Goku were bent over her, concern writ large across their faces as they asked her overlapping questions about what had happened. She turned her head to look back at the camp.

Vegeta and Tarble were gone.