Chapter 11. The Soul Binder

rri of House Nocturnum rose with a ghostly silence from her seat beside the bed of her charge.  It was not her normal line of work, but she had been in need of the money and now that she was here, she had offered to stay the course.  There was a certain pride in a job well done and she liked the attention.  The first necromancer had been a rank amateur.  There was more to soul binding than blood letting. 

It helped that her particular charge was easy on the eyes.  Mesmers managed to look good even when they were hacked to pieces, this one being no exception.  Her main attraction, however, was the drama that swirled around him.  Erri was more than a little attracted to a good story and she had quietly sat back and pulled this one together from the little clues her patrons left behind.

There was the small pale blonde woman called Teleri who was obviously the main paramour of the dying man.  Her abundant grief had only been interrupted by her equally expansive rage that she flung easily at a tall gangling man she called Murdi.  Both of them were rangers clad in weathered leathers and the dirt of rough living.  Murdi’s ragged hair was bound up in a long brown tail that gave him an animal mystique.  His hatred for Teleri’s lover had at first caused Erri to think he might be competing for the woman’s love but it soon became obvious that he was an elder brother and sought to protect her.

Passions had cooled over the long vigil.  Friends and associates had come and gone.  Now they were all largely silent, waiting for death.  Waiting for permission to go on living without Pendaran beside them.

Erri was sensitive to the patterns she read from across the veil.  When a soul left the body, as this man’s had, every hour that passed barred the way back.  What remained of him now was fit only for a minion.  Nevertheless, she did not dispraise them of their hope.  Eventually, necromancer or not, most people figured it out and it was simply cruel to tell them something they were not ready to accept.

And so she had worked her high ceremony, spreading a circle of salt around the bed and refreshing it every time one of the man’s friends, or enemies, unwittingly scuffed it to linger at his bedside.  She attended to the little shrine to Grenth that lurked just outside the circle at the foot of the bed, facing west toward the setting sun, Grenth’s domain, and adjusted the obsidian mirror that fooled his collector servants.  They were here, she sensed them, but the soul mirror stone kept them entranced and the salt kept them at bay.  They were drawn to death and she had bound their mindless essence to minions thousands of times.  Her job now largely consisted of keeping them away until the man’s friends were ready to let him go.

Thus she was surprised when Pendaran’s body jerked sharply and a parched moan of pain erupted from his throat.  Fascinating.  A soul rarely made it back after nearly three days and he was going to pay for it with unbelievable pain.  Now the real work was about to begin and she rose quickly to light the candles near the head of his bed, their aroma meant to guide him back and ward away the collectors.  She drew back the blankets to expose his pale chest and the reeking infected wounds with their crude tracery of sutures.  With infinite care she sliced her wrist and drew the binding runes upon his breast, chanting softly.

"Hold him in the flesh.  Hold him though he will fight against the pain and seek to depart.  Come, Pendaran Caradec, embrace the flesh once more though it will ache to the core of your being.  That is what it is to be alive.  Rejoice in it."

His cries grew frantic and she gestured to the one called Murdi to hold him down while she worked.  There was little time and he had been gone so long that the slightest error would spell death.

“Kiss him,” she said to the forlorn figure of his lover, “Give him breath.”

Often Erri had to perform the kiss, but a lover’s kiss was far more binding, and judging by the way the siblings fought the last thing Erri needed was to get embroiled in a lover’s quarrel.  Awkwardly, the woman stroked the man’s stricken face, seeking his eyes and then, lowering her face, gathered him into a trembling kiss and passed her breath into him.  His flailing body grew still for a moment, but when her lips parted he began to sob in agony.

Revel returned, drawn to the commotion.  The monk said nothing as she went to Erri’s side and began chanting furiously, the azure glow of Dwayna’s blessings flowing into the tormented figure.  Pendaran’s pain was vivid, almost palpable, but his wounds began to close at last.  Provided he could endure the suffering, he would survive.