I hope everyone's holiday went smoothly and was relaxing. Mine was chaotic and ridiculous, so I'm glad to be back to some semblance of normalcy. Hope you enjoy this!

Chapter 32

Rune Mora had lain her coat over the back of her chair with great care so that as she arranged herself in a sitting position, cross legged within the circle she had constructed on the floor, she could sit comfortably. The runes and marks of power surrounding her allowed her to channel her magical energies and efforts effectively, and as she settled into her seated position, she pushed the thick cord of her hair over her shoulder and closed her eyes.

With each breath she settled further into her meditative state; drawing around her core a summoning which she first conceived within her mind, and by sheer will alone drew across the very cells that made up her physical being. Beneath her closed lids and behind her closed mouth, faint murmurings and chants still whispered across her vocal chords as she conjured deep from within the fibers of her body where her magic lay in wait to be cast out, to be used again as its master willed it.

Her normal level of focus and exertion were blessedly lessened by the prevalent magic already present on this day of Samhain. For this was the time of year when the veil between the world of the dead and the living was at its thinnest, making her ability to transpose herself between the realms more fluid and her magic more potent.

Such a feat was not one that she would ever offer up to teach to any of the simple students she took on as a Master; there had been none yet she'd ever taught that had any such similar inclinations to Necromancy, and certainly none that she would deign to take on as her apprentice.

In truth this fact did fill her with a selfish sense of satisfaction; being the sole practicing Necromancer was satisfying with its reverence and prestige. But it came dually with a sense of defeat, and loss. To be the very last in a long line of exceedingly talented and powerful magical practitioners left her with a sense of destitution. Her great talents were mostly hereditary in nature, and her lack of appetite for the form of man had left her long line with no remaining heirs to take up the great mantle when she grew too old to carry it herself any longer.

With each passing year she found that the cold seeped into her joints and made her mornings a little crankier, and the hairs along the middle-part along her head had begun to sparkle and glisten with the occasional silver strand that signified her person moving towards its wiser years.

As time passed, and she continued in her teachings and travels, she earned her wages in gold which she sent back to her home lands and felt jingling in her purse to remind her that, for all her great talents and power, she lived only to serve others. Her life and craft had been given in the employ of lesser folk and for lesser purposes.

But today, on this great day of power, the day was hers. Her power was hers, and her purpose was completely her own.

She gathered within her, like a great and heavy cloak that she donned upon her shoulders, the tingling and heavy feeling of incorporeal magics which flowed through the blood of her veins, and resided within the very fibers of her flesh and bones themselves. She inhaled deeply as she summoned these elements to her, with great ease of both sheer strength of her calling, and the added aid of the day in which she performed this feat, and she felt her very spirit separate from the confines of its mortal prison.

Such a disengagement should cause a person, even one as powerful as she, a great unease at first followed by the sounds of the pieces ripping apart almost unnaturally as she willed herself out of the shell she occupied as a mortal being. Bolstered by the lack of weights that would tie her to the realm of the living, she abandoned her body, taking one final breath within it as she released herself and rose upward and away from her seated form.

As she drifted upward and through the now-present and nebulously viscous veil that hovered above her astral form, she glanced downward once to see her body, though still steadied and her posture strong and straight, it was now without the very essence which filled it and made it herself. Her chest moved only so slightly to indicate that her living functions still continued without her soul there to consciously take control; her body acted automatically to continue its living functions while she departed from it.

Slipping through the cool of the veil that separated the realms of the living from those who were no longer, she felt mostly impassive in her serenity as the remnants of the curtain fell away from her and she stepped out into a grayed plane filled with trees, as though she had stepped directly into a forest.

None of the trees had any leaves, so it was indicative largely of the season the world was currently situated within, and Rune casually stepped into it and began the journey she had sought when she drew the first lines of her circle with the small pebbles she had lined the outer rim with.

The Necromancer, though without her physical form, was not without her feelings and conscious thoughts, and the woman smiled as she enjoyed the lightened feeling within her that her corporeal form had allowed her to relinquish. It felt good to be unburdened and freed in this way, and the effort so nominal in comparison to what she could have endured in her journey to this place.

She calmed herself though, reminding herself the lessons of patience and humility while visiting this realm, revising and reviewing her incantations as her feet traveled over the slightly most, yet completely nondescript and gray earth beneath her feet. The deadlands possessed no colors, nor direction of light; they were amorphously gray toned, and while there was light present, it was not from the sun. There was no day or night here; only existence in a suspended reality that never ended and never changed. The dead had no need for days and nights any longer, and such the realm where they arrived had no designated circadian cycle to adhere to.

She wove through trees through a path she chose blithely and allowed her senses to lead her along. The bark beneath her fingers and she touched once in a while felt softer here, as she was not truly meant to be here, there was nothing she could feel as precisely as an arrived soul, and thus she had no real connection she could make with anything existing within this vast forest.

The sounds around her as each of her feet stepped one in front of the other were muffled, as though the ground were covered in layers of snow, though there was nothing there but the floor of a forest. Each of her footfalls, though little noise was present, was muted.

Time was indeterminate here, and Rune Mora maintained her focus, and wove as her body willed her to through the forest still. There were no little forest noises, such as birds, or streams of water, only a sort of dimmed white noise present around her. It was comforting in a way, and yet if you paused and simply listened, Rune was not positive that the repetitious and haunting silence would not drive a person into a true madness all the same.

Reaching a sort of point where a path seemed to have appeared, Rune found herself being directed more and more by the terrain she now traveled, and accepted that direction as part of her journey. She followed dutifully through this forest path now, within the lands and realms of the dead until finally a bit of a clearing opened up within the dense and wintered forest.

Though there were no leaves upon the various deciduous trees that comprised this wooded realm, somehow dead leaves still fell on occasion from high above, where Runes vision could not see. Either the trees were simply too tall, or their forms simply did not exist anymore; which of these she could not determine.

The area was small, and cloistered, but there in that small area there was an old ring of square stones where there had been a well. It looked aged and abandoned, and there was no bucket or wench with which to draw water from any longer. Upon that ring, there sat an old woman, cloaked in a nondescript cloak, her face hooded from view. Her hair was long, and though light gray, seemed silver and hung lankly from under her covering. Her face obscured mostly from view, her visage was wrinkled and worn from years of life spent living with laughter and tears, as all lives are until death comes for them.

She sat without speaking, and did not move to look to Rune, or to speak to her. In her wizened old hands she gripped the smoothed top of a branch that was much like a cane, and equally as withered and cracked as her hands were. In fact, it looked greatly at a first glance as an extension of her very limbs if one were not to examine it too thoroughly.

As the Necromancer entered the small area a bird which was perched on the shoulder of the old crone, darted its head in her direction. The creature was as black as soot, as black as the night time sky with no starts to guide a person, and its eyes glinted at her as it considered her arrival sharply. It gave a single cawing noise and fluttered its sings greatly as it adjusted itself on the shoulder of the old woman, which it had designated its perch.

The sight of the figure before her caused her to pause her walk and hold her position while the bird scrutinized her in its dark eyes, but the cloaked figure in front of her only moved its palms over the rounded end of the cane. The bird tilted its head at her, and she in turn stared regarded the pair carefully.

The crone's gash of a mouth turned up just slightly at the corners and her voice spoke in a croak without lifting her head. Lost your way, have you? It's been so long since I've had a visitor now, what good luck for me, for it is lonely here for an old woman. The sound of the voice both familiar and terrifying at the same time.

"What great luck indeed old queen. Have you waited for company long?" The Necromancer inquired. Though the figure before her was nondescript and barren of colored tones, the presence of the crow and the wizened old stature spoke clearly enough to the Master. She knew in whose presence she stood now, and she paid the elder being reverence in her salutation. The crone chuckled without mirth.

So respectful. She commented feigning surprise. Perhaps you are clever enough to indulge with an old woman such as myself then, hmm? Rune accepted the compliment without comment. The spectral plane was a place of odd creatures, old powers, and enigmatic spirits. Ones that, without question, knew more about bending their powers in this foreign realm in which she has slipped. One that she was out of her depth in comparatively, given that she was neither a God, a ghost, nor a mystical being.

"And what then, would you will for me, Great One?" For what reason could she have placed herself in Rune's path, if not to engage her? Their encounter alone spoke silently of war to come, and death would surely follow. Those portents boded poorly indeed. The crone leaned a degree further over her cane, yet kept her head dipped as she spoke and her crow gave a hop and a flap of its wings.

Why, but you already know. She said simply, taking Rune off guard and piquing her curiosity. She did not follow the comment, but before she could inquire, the crone leaned further still over her cane and made to stand. The motion was effortless, as though the body before her was in fact, truly not old at all. The cloak straightened as she stood and the bird remained at its vigil as the crone walked slowly toward the Necromancer.

The unexpected approach of the power took Rune Mora by surprise. The corners of the woman's mouth before her twitched in irritation as she neared in a few short steps to come directly in front of Rune's face. The figure was shockingly tall, and beneath the protection of the cloak it seemed as though a greater deal of mass was present that Rune had not noted as the old woman had sat.

The mouth opened in a grimace to reveal the hints of teeth. Teeth that were gray in tone, and though she could not see their edges, she sensed that they were jagged. It filled her then with a sense of dread as she basked in the presence of such power. For as the crone stood before her, power rippled through the fabric of the air surrounding her, as though a large set of fans moved the air in rhythm, caressing her spectral form in invisible cords and vines. The feeling was overwhelming and oppressing in its pressure, even to Rune. As though it could suffocate her.

There have been bread crumbs left for you, yet you have paid them little heed. The crone hissed finally, and the magic around her thickened and tightened. Thought the woman needed no air to breath in this place, she felt tightness enveloping her abdomen and crushing her slowly and methodically as the crones mouth spread wider, in a slow burning menace. The shadow of the hood covering her face obfuscated her features in the shadow so darkly that it was unnatural given the soft glow of light that surrounded. The depth of the blackness was terrifying, for it seemed to have no end to it. Rune found herself stumbling on her feet as the crushing weight surrounding her continued.

"I –I have seen many things," The Necromancer manage to whisper out to the woman as her voice faltered, unable to fight against the awesome and terrible force which gripped her. Was is a show of power? To demonstrate the Necromancers comparable weakness? She couldn't be certain what the machinations of the Old Powers could be, nor did she question. "Theories-" She finally squeezed out as she tried harder to focus herself and to channel her energy into the effort of keeping her spirit alive. "Whispers-"

Bah. Your excuses are mundane. The elder spirit before her spat out dismissively and waved a gnarled hand with chipped and long fingernails and the sensation stopped as quickly as it began. Rune staggered under her release and the return to her equilibrium and the recuperated buoyancy of her astral form. She'd doubled over, but peered upward at the form in front of here, still unable to see anything above the thin mouth and wrinkled chin that appeared from beneath the hood, even at this angle. And here I have called you clever, and yet you have made me a fool. She neared her face to Runes as she spoke now, and the voice grew lower, more terrifying than before. What use are you to me, if you cannot piece together a simple puzzle, child?

At the mention of the word 'puzzle', the elements began to fall into place. Rune shook her head and looked at the ground a moment before steadying herself again and righted her body. She had to rise to the challenge, lest she "Perhaps it is not the puzzle that presents issue, but the game master who has set the rules?" The crone's posture straightened slowly at the retort, as though she were winding backward for an assault.

Instead, the head tipped back, jostling the bird at her shoulder and it hopped on its thin legs as the figure croaked out a dry laugh. There is still fight in you yet, little thing. The woman said then. This place is rife with the stench of decay. There is no liveliness here, no thrill. The face leveled once more and the mirth evaporated from the air surrounding them. It will be great fun indeed when you come to join me one final time.

That meaning was clear enough to Rune, and she began to feel a bit of panic rise within her as the woman continued in her game of cat and mouse with the Necromancer. Rune had power enough to get her here, with relative ease, and skill enough to use her magic within this place. But to assume she could face off to a spirit, and Old God, was foolery at its finest. She stood no chance here, but still she pressed onward.

"If you wish to keep me here, then do it." She said with her strongest tone. A challenge, as it were. "I cannot stop you, and I cannot discern your puzzles as you have designed them. You speak of bread crumbs, yet there have been nothing more than visions and whispers. There is no significance, no obvious reasons." As she spoke the crone regarded her and reached out to cup her chin as she finished speaking. She leaned in to the shorter woman.

There is always significance, child. The elder whispered then. The traces of her previous malice now gone. You must open your eyes. She said softly, and within the depths of the blackness before her, beneath that hood she saw movement. Shapes. People. Dragons. Before her eyes, there in the astral planes of the deadlands, she watched as battlements raged on, and death was everywhere.

Her blue eyes were wide with horror as the shapes before her played out countless futures to come. Some possible, some probable, some definite. They moved quickly enough, and soon the darkness returned and the ambiguity beneath the hood returned. The bird at the crones shoulder crowed and flapped its wings in emphasis of what Rune had just seen, and she staggered with the weight of her newfound knowledge. The crone gripped her shoulder now with a grip like iron, like a vice that could stop the very earth beneath her from circling and further should she reach out to grab it.

So you see child. She said simply, and Rune nodded distractedly. The crone released her, and pulled from under the cloak an item which she held out to the Necromancer, her hand pausing expectantly as it waited for Rune to catch up. Rune accepted the offering and examined it carefully; there in here hand, in the deadland realms, she held a red and purple plum. She cocked her head and regarded the old woman. The color of the item was so clear, so distinct in this place, because there were no colors here, only the gray landscapes and beings within. But here in her hand stood an object colored as brightly as though she had plucked it from the tree herself. This will show you the way, when you are ready.

Rune nodded slowly, and the crone replaced her hand on her shoulder. As the Necromancer regarded the gift handed to her, a smile crept up to the thin mouth that broke the lips apart and reveled a mouth filled with long and sharp teeth all traces of the previous benevolent behavior melted away as it happened, and they opened slowly as the crone leaned in toward Rune's ear, whispering so low that it came out as a hiss.

Such good fortune that you have come here, for I have been lonely indeed, and your recompense will taste sweet upon these old lips.

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Her body had sprawled out from where it had sat and wrecked the circle formed of pebbles that had surrounded her, and the runes and signs of power drawn in charcoal and with salt were smeared from the thrashing of her limbs as her spirit had been slammed back into the shell of her body when it was finally returned. Limbs akimbo and her head turned to the side; her person was situated at an angle most unnatural. This was how he had found her.

Sirius had knocked over and over at the door, expecting his cohort to answer eventually, if only to shoo him away or chide him for disturbing her work or studies. But nothing came. It wasn't until he heard rhythmic scraping along the floor that he welcomed himself unbidden into her chambers to find his fellow master splayed unceremoniously upon the ground. Her breath was shallow and weak, and she was unable to be roused. More disturbingly was the trickles of blood that had made its way out of her ears, nose, and mouth as well.

This boded poorly, and Sirius Black scooped up the limp body of Rune Mora beneath her arms and under her knees. Her person was surprisingly heavier than it looked, he noted as he grunted to his feet trying to take care of her long hair as well.

As swiftly as his feet would carry him with such a burden to transport, Master Black rushed her from her chambers and out into the Keep to call for help.

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There's a little cliffhanger for you. Hehehe. Sorry/not sorry? You'll get more here in the next chapter; I hate to leave things too mysterious for too long.

Samhain is pronounced "saw-vain" and occurs on all hallows eve; October 31st.

The crone in this chapter is a personification based on 'The Morrigan', who are associated primarily with war, and fate. There are a trio of sisters, Macha (land, fertility, kingship, war and horses), Badb (associated with war and death), and Nemain (the spirit-woman or goddess who personifies the frenzied havoc of war), together they were sometimes referred to as 'the Morrigna'. This crone is a version of Badb, as represented by the crow (a form she often assumes as a foreshadowing to a battle, and the extent of carnage to come).

Though she goes unnamed in this chapter, you can assume that Rune is very aware of the mythos behind whom she has encountered, but please forgive that there is a little bastardization on my part, as with the Old Gods there are not one specific worshipped entity for some things that I wish to use in my tale, so while I wish to maintain some similarities to actual Lore, there are some things that I've just 'made up' as well.