The Old Kingdom, Autumn of the 43rd year of the rule of Queen Ellimere:

Nyrael, the 57th Abhorsen, was not an especially happy young woman. Less than a week ago, she had received the news that her mother had been found locked in her bedroom, her throat slashed open and a knife clutched in hand. It had hardly been surprising, really. Her mother had never quite been the same since that day thirteen years ago when her father had walked into death and never returned. The final nail in the coffin had been her brother's death a little more than six months ago.

Diriel had not been an exceedingly notable Abhorsen in the eyes of the people, or anyone else rally. To be fair, nearly anyone would have looked rather shabby following the last three before him. Sabriel restored the kingdom from a 200 year interregnum. Lirael Golden Hand saved the world from an apocalyptically powerful free magic construct. His father, Taniel, almost single handedly halted the invading armies of a powerful necromancer/ barbarian warlord. That he had done this in the same battle that had taken his mother, Lireal's, life didn't make it any less impressive.

The most notable thing Direal ever did ended in his death, and was a failure. He spent the twelve and a half years of his time in office putting down dead in a mildly unsatisfactory manner. In fact, during his time as Abhorsen, more Charter Stones were broken than had been seen since the interregnum. Fully aware of this, Diriel had spent the majority of his spare time drinking, sleeping with any woman that would have him, and ignoring his younger sister and the Abhorsen-in-Waiting. Thankfully, he was sober when he received the message that a small village along the Western coast had been attacked by an alarmingly large force of dead. He left right away. The account of what happened after that was given by the only surviving villager, who succumbed to a fever several days after telling it.

At the time that message was sent, the exact number of dead wasn't known. The original estimate was sadly off by a large margin. Diriel landed his paperwing on the island where the surviving villagers were cowering a little before midday and promptly declared that they would go to shore and escape when the sun was highest. The villagers, led by Diriel, sailed back to the shore. They were only half a league of so away from the town when a dense, free magic fog overtook them. Diriel had told the villagers to go ahead, that he would bind the dead and kill the necromancer. A short while after that, they saw several bright flashes and heard a single human scream before the fog was silent and still. Half an hour after that they were overtaken and devoured by the dead. The young woman who told the story had escaped by leaping into the ocean. She was dragged out of the water by a village down the coast and managed to tell her story before collapsing. As was mentioned above, she never woke up. The exact fate of Diriel himself wasn't discovered until several weeks afterward, when Nyrael found his body stripped naked and lashed to a broken charter stone.

Nyrael's first two months as Abhorsen were consumed with hunting down and binding all of the dead from that incident, and she still hadn't found the necromancer. The next month and a half after that was spent doing everything that she hadn't had time for during the previous two months. After all this, she had had very little patience for her still grieving mother, who continually insisted that her brother had died "a hero's death".

"No," she had said after weeks of it. "He died an idiot's death. He was a stupid, womanizing drunk. He was careless, and because of that an entire village died and a charter stone was broken. Shut up about him!"

Naturally, this did little to help her mother's state of mind. Nyrael channeled her guilt over her contribution to her mother's suicide by lashing out at everyone around her even more than she usually did. As a result of this, the two soldiers who she was currently traveling with were being unusually quiet.

Nyrael raised a hand to stop them. "Wait," she said.

"Have you sensed something, Abhorsen?" Jogg, the elder of the two asked.

"No. I just like the scenery here," she snapped. "Of course I sense something. It's faint, but there's something. Come on, I want this over and done with as soon as possible."

"Well, we're not exactly having the time of our lives either," muttered Tam, the other soldier. Fortunately, only Jogg heard him. He shot Tam a half amused warning glance.

While the kingdom at large was cautiously optimistic about finally having a "proper" Abhorsen again, the guards and others who worked closely with her were somewhat less so. They considered Nyrael an arrogant, waspish brat. It was small wonder, they thought, that her brother had avoided contact with her whenever he could. At the very least though, she did look the part.

She raven black hair, falling slightly past her shoulders when it was loose. For the most part, she kept it tied back out of her face. Her skin had been bleached of what little colour it had had years ago. Nyrael was quite pretty, if not what you would call beautiful; her face was a little thin for that. Her looks also weren't helped by the fact that she rarely had a pleasant expression on her face.

They climbed up a steep, densely forested incline in silence. Nyrael was in the lead, with Tam following her and Jogg in the back. All the while they climbed, Nyrael could feel herself getting nearer to whatever it was she had sensed to begin with, although it was still somewhat distant. She shoved her way through the bushes that lined the top of the hill and froze. There, lying on the ground was a man. He was asleep next to the remains of a small fire, his ragged cloak wrapped tightly around him. He looked to be of average size, with dark brown hair and a rather prominent nose. He was also pale. Unnaturally so.

Raising a finger to her lips to indicate silence, she carefully eased her way towards the sleeping figure. Tam and Jogg followed. All three of them froze as the man rolled over slightly in his sleep. His cloak fell away, revealing the bandolier and bells strapped to his chest. Nyrael slowly drew her sword. Behind her, the two guards did the same. The three of them slowly crept towards the necromancer, swords ready to strike. Overhead, a hawk let out a piecing shriek as it dived for a rabbit. The necromancer opened an eye groggily.

The first thing he noticed was a pair of feet. He looked up to see who they belonged to. Seeing Nyrael, he sprung backwards with more agility than a man who had just woken up should have had. He dove out of the way a moment later to avoid being impaled on Tam's sword. He scrambled to his feet and hastily drew his sword. Backing up into a tree, he looked around at his attackers. Three on one. And one of those three was the Abhorsen, however inexperienced she might be. Fairer fights had been fought.

She spoke. "You are outnumbered. For committing acts of necromancy, I will take you dead or alive. Make your choice. It's all the same to me." As she was talking, her hand went to her bandolier and drew out the smallest bell, Ranna.

The necromancer could feel his heart pounding in his chest. This was the worst possible wake up he could have gotten. He could see one of the soldiers weaving a charter mark. Wonderful. Add a charter mage to that earlier match up.

He cleared his throat. "Dead or alive? Really. And if I choose to come quietly, won't I die just the same?"

Her expression didn't change. "I told you, I don't care what happens to you. Die now or later. You have that much freedom, necromancer."

"Well, thanks for that much the-" His sarcastic response was cut short as a burst of golden fire flared from Jogg's hand. The necromancer cried out a word of command, and threw himself to the ground. The air became filled with the heavy, sickening sent of free magic. Something invisible slammed into the burst of fire, causing it to explode in a shower of golden sparks. The invisible force continued on and slammed into Jogg's right side, sending him flying in that direction to slam his back against a rock. He didn't get up again.

The Abhorsen rang Ranna and the air was filled with a high, soothing melody. The necromancer willed himself to stay awake, but it wasn't easy to resist a call with that much power behind it.

He was still half distracted by Ranna when the Tam ran at him with his sword raised. The necromancer managed to parry with his own sword, but barely. As he grappled with the guard, he spat out a word that caused his sword to blaze with a brilliant yellow light. The younger man let out a gasp from the sudden proximity to Free Magic. Exploiting this weakness, the necromancer shoved him away and drove his sword forward, trying to stab the swordsman through the heart. The blazing length of iron was stopped by another blade that seemed to strike from out of nowhere. The charter marks down its length seemed flashed defiantly against the unnatural radiance of the necromancer's sword. The Abhorsen pulled her sword back, and aimed a stab at his stomach. He got his sword in the way just in time, but suffered a shallow cut down his side. It stung horribly, far more than an ordinary blade would have hurt him. It felt like applying salve to a wound, a testament to the level of corruption a magically extended lifetime of wielding Free Magic caused.

The necromancer gave up ground as Nyrael pushed him farther and farther back. She had been trained how to use a sword from the age of five. He was largely self taught, and had likely only survived this long against her because of his superior strength and reach.

"STOP!" It wasn't a mere shout. The necromancer put all his will behind it. It scorched his throat and palate with the force of is passage, coming out in a much deeper and more commanding tone than he would normally have been capable of.

The effect on Nyrael was immediate. The command had had more strength behind it than she'd assumed the necromancer had possessed, and quite caught her off guard. The command hit her in mid-stroke. The sudden halt sent a shock through her sword arm. She had the uncomfortable notion that the muscle there would likely be sore for the next few days. She strained against the bonds with all of her might, a task made harder by the sheer presence of Free Magic. It was an unholy, hot metal reek that filled the air all around her. A minute of this passed, without the expected killing stroke.

The necromancer was frozen too, but from shock rather than magic. Something dead was coming. Something big, and it was coming fast. Keeping a wary eye on the captive Abhorsen, he stood stock still. If he listened carefully, he could hear the faint pounding of heavy feet.

The necromancer moved to the far side of the hill, where the ground dropped off at an almost ninety degree angle. It was late afternoon, and the sky was heavily overcast. The dead would have very little trouble in these conditions. He spotted it in the distance, but gaining ground at an alarming speed. It looked like a mass of green flame from this distance, but the necromancer knew what it would look like up close. A massive figure made from clay and blood, wreathed in green flame, hounding whoever its master willed it to. He cast a glance back at the Abhorsen, who was beginning to break free of his spell. The question was, who was it meant for? Him or her?

Tam staggered to his feet from where he'd lain on the ground vomiting. He could still barely stand, and his head swam. But he knew his duty. Lurching forward like someone obscenely drunk, he half lunged, half fell in the necromancer's direction. The necromancer moved aside, and Tam was sent sprawling back onto the ground.

"I don't have time for this you idiot," he said. "There's a mordicant coming."

Nyrael heard this as she finally broke free of his command. Suddenly, she could sense it. This was the thing that had lead here there in the first place. It had seemed small and unimportant before, but that was only because of how far away it had been. Rushing over to the hillside where the necromancer stood, she raised her sword to his throat.

"Is that yours?" She demanded.

"No," he said.

"You're lying!"

"Believe me or don't believe me. If you want to kill me, go ahead. I'd honestly prefer a quick death by sword over what that thing would do to me."

She glared at him as he stood there with an infuriatingly calm look on his face. "Don't give me that. You're a necromancer. You expect me to believe that you'd be willing to just stand there and have your throat slit?"

He smiled in amusement, a slightly bitter expression that only involved the right half of his mouth. "But you haven't killed me, have you, Abhorsen? You might want to take out your bells. Unless of course, you think you can bind that mordicant just with that sword."

Before she could wipe the smile off of that smug bastard's face, the mordicant let out an inhuman howl, much closer than Nyrael would have thought possible. She shoved her sword back into its sheathe. "Watch him," she told Tam, who was getting to his feet again, "if he tries anything, stab him." She drew Saraneth carefully in her right hand.

The mordicant had reached the slope now and begun to claw its way up. It crested the incline in a final push of its powerful legs. Nyrael rung Saraneth and bent all her will into dominating the mordicant. It paused in its approach, but continued forward.

"She's not ready for this," the necromancer said absently to Tam. "That's just my professional opinion."

"Shut up," the soldier hissed at him.

"I didn't mean anything by it. There is an Abhorsen-in-waiting of some kind, isn't there? I assume there must be someone in the royal family who could do the job."

Tam gritted his teeth. He could see that he was right. The deep, commanding tones of the bell were definitely slowing the mordicant down, but it was still advancing. In a few moments, it would be close enough to kill her.

The necromancer sighed slightly, and considered his options. He couldn't bind a mordicant on his own. Simply waiting for the Abhorsen to be killed wasn't an option. Unfortunately, he doubted that anything he tried to do wouldn't be considered a threat by the young man guarding him. So he just stood there, watching as the thing inched closer and closer to where she stood. The girl was terrified. Sweat was rolling down her face, and she was biting her lip alarmingly hard. She knew it she wasn't strong enough for this too.

Tam saw the mordicant finally come close enough to its prey. It raised one blazing paw, and prepared to strike. He reacted as a guard of the old kingdom was supposed to. He ran at the mordcant, sword raised to stab it in the forearm. With one flick of its wrist, the mordicant struck Tam in the head hard enough to send him flying.

No! Nyrael redoubled her efforts, but to no more effect than before. Tam would die in vain. She closed her eyes, and waited for the inevitable. It was then that the necromancer chose to act. He spoke several words of command. White Steam gushed out of his mouth as he spoke, twin points of pain burned behind his eyes.

The mordicant screamed a horrible, unnatural scream as it was caught in a small pillar of half molten, yellow flame. Nyrael saw the flash even through her closed eyes. A wave of heat washed over her carrying with it the familiar, sickening Free Magic scent. It took a few seconds before she could see past the spots dancing in front of her vision. The mordicant's body was broken. It was now just a smoldering pile of river clay and dried blood. As she watched, a formless, inky black shape struggled to escape.

"Now would be a very good time to do your job, Abhorsen," The necromancer said from behind her. She scowled; he was right. She hated that. Nyrael carefully replaced Saraneth on her bandolier and took out Kibeth in its place. She rung Kibeth, filling the air with an upbeat march. The remnants of the mordicant squirmed around as best I could while squealing to try and disrupt the bell's sound. Neither tactic worked, and the spirit disappeared back into death. Once that was done, she let out a weary sigh and put the bell away. Nyrael redrew her sword and turned to face the necromancer.

"Why did you just do that?"

He shrugged slightly. "I wasn't likely to get an opportunity to do anything like after it killed you, was I? My reasons were completely selfish, no need to question that."

"Why didn't you hit both of us then?"

He stared at her blankly. "What?"

"You could've hit me and the mordicant at the same time. Or am I wrong?"

He continued to stare blankly. "I didn't think of that," he muttered. "Don't think I would've even if I had though. It's always a shame to let an idiot's death go to waste." The necromancer made a lazy kicking gesture at Tam, who was lying very still on the ground. "He is dead, isn't he?"

"They both are."

"So, what happens next? Do we fight? You might want to perform the death right on those two before anything. Wouldn't want their spirits enslaved if you died." He gave another half smile.

She glared at him. "Do you really think I'm going to let my guard down for that -" she broke off in mid sentence, her eyes growing wide.

The necromancer sighed. "Something else brought over from Death?"

"What are you doing here?" she demanded.

"Sleeping. Then three heavily armed individuals attacked me. I have nothing to do with the mordicant or whatever you're sensing now. I have a decent idea who is though."

Nyrael's eyes narrowed. She didn't like this. It was like having a conversation with a viper. An unpredictable viper. "Why would you tell me that, even if it was true?"

The necromancer snorted. "If you're thinking that I wouldn't betray another necromancer, you really are new to all this. We aren't exactly a loyal group. Besides. She wants me dead."

"So was this mordicant meant for you then?"

"Nah. I'm a much better sorcerer than I am a necromancer. If it were meant for me, it would have been something less vulnerable to Free Magic. Some Greater Dead thing probably."

"Then what makes you think it's the same necromancer?"

He smiled again. "She's the only one I know of who's mad enough to try and kill the Abhorsen. Of course, there's a good reason for that. She already got one."

"My brother, you mean?" She believed him. She didn't know why, but she did. The though of her brother's killer should have made her angry. Rightfully, Nyreal knew she should be consumed with thoughts of rage and vengeance. She simply… wasn't.

"What you just sensed, those'll just be hands," he said quietly. "They're distractions. She knows she's got nothing Dead you can't just kill again, so to speak. She'll have something nastier to send after you soon as she feels them disappear." Nyreal just glared at him silently for a moment, before replying.

"What are you suggesting then?"

The necromancer's smile widened. "I'm suggesting that you go in the other direction. You're young and inexperienced; you've got a lot of power, yeah, but you wouldn't last long against someone who really knows what they're doing." He looked at her strangely. "Were you even properly trained? That was some pretty shoddy bellwork back there."

Her hand tightened on the hilt of her sword. It was true; her brother hadn't bothered to teach her anything. All she knew was straight from the Book of the Dead or from her own exceedingly limited experience. "You aren't in much of a position to be handing out insults," she reminded him, putting a threatening edge to her voice.

"Insults?" He managed to look shocked. "Oh dear me, no. I'm merely stating the facts: That if you go that way, you will in all likelihood die. Which would be a rather selfish thing for you to do. The Kingdom does need you, after all." He tilted his head to the side innocently. "In fact, I might even consider it my duty as a good citizen to come along and make sure nothing hurts you."

Oh, that was what the viper was after. Nyreal's expression became a half-disgusted sneer. "You want me to protect you," she said, more than a hint of surprise in her voice. This man simply didn't seem to comprehend that she was fully obligated to kill him. She ignored the little voice that asked why she hadn't already.

He paused momentarily. "Well, I suppose you could say that. But what I'm proposing is a… temporary truce of sorts. I don't fight you, you don't fight me, until we're well and clear of this mess. Two sets of bells are better than one when they aren't working against each other. If we don't work together, I really don't see either of us leaving this place unscathed. Or alive."

"Why would I ever trust you?" She demanded.

"You can trust me to save myself," he pointed out. "And for the moment, you're the best chance I've got for that. And I'm yours. I actually know who it is you're dealing with, too, which is more than you can say. So. Do we have an understanding?" That smile was still there, still every bit as present as it had been before.

Nyreal hesitated, before finally nodding her head. Reluctantly, in a way that made it clear how much she didn't want to do it. "Fine then. But if I even suspect that you're going to turn on me, I will kill you myself."

He nodded pleasantly. "I have a feeling you won't regret this, Abhorsen," he said. Nyreal only grunted in reply.