The Necromancer’s Bride

Meremon stalks toward us and makes an impatient gesture with his fingers. Unbidden, my right hand accepts the cup as it floats to me. I stare at it, startled. I didn’t make my hand move. I don’t really want to take a mouthful of wine either, but I find myself doing that as well as the lich lumbers away. Then I take another sip of my own accord because it’s spiced and sweet and very warming.

Meremon leans forward and takes my left hand in his and I nearly choke on the wine. He turns it palm-up in his two large, cold hands and studies it carefully. Does he recognize his own handiwork? Does he remember me even though I’ve grown two feet and put on flesh and health?

My eyes scour his face as his are directed at my palm. He’s just as I remember him, cold, hard features, a looming figure in robes fitted against his broad body. His nose is long and aquiline and his jaw smooth and angular. I can’t tell his age. Older. Unnaturally somehow, as if the years he’s seen are a great secret.

I’m brought back into myself by his thumb stroking almost lovingly over my palm and my blood heats so much even my frozen feet start to thaw.

Can he feel my temperature rising? Is he remembering his lips there? All of a sudden I’m a child again and watching in terror as he bends over me, and I snatch my hand back.

“You came.” His voice is measured and deep.

Why aren’t you afraid of death, child?

Sorcerer’s slut.

I take a quick step back and say in a shrill, high voice, “There is sickness in the village. Five children. It is the same sickness as before, the one I…that you…” I trail off. Why must he stare at me so? It’s unnerving.

“How long?” he finally asks, and though his voice doesn’t change I’m sure that I detect sudden anger in the set of his jaw.

I don’t want to go out in the cold either, but does he not realize that there are children who will die without his help? “Since they fell ill? Today. This morning.”

He’s eyeing my left hand again I wonder if he’s even listening to me. Something shifts over my shoulder. The lich. It—he—seems to be looking at me expectantly though I don’t know how I know that as he doesn’t have eyes.

Meremon turns away. “Go to bed. Filax will show you.”

My mouth falls open. “But we need to—”

The sorcerer keeps walking and says in his flat, cold voice. “Either go to bed or get out.”

I watch him disappear through a door on the far side of room, and I’m alone with the lich. Not knowing what else to do I follow him out of the hall and up some stairs. He opens a door for me and I see a bed busily making itself. Spiders are being swept out of the corners by a dancing broom and firewood is stacking itself in the grate. The room is cold and musty but once the fire has lit itself and the broom has swept the creepy-crawlies out the door it’s not so bad.

The lich leaves while I’m marveling at the magic fire, and a few minutes later he comes back with a tray of food and more of the hot wine.

“Can you hear me? Are you…alive? Conscious?”

The lich sketches a bow like I’ve seen the troubadours do when they come to the village in summer to perform. This animated corpse has more manners than its master, it seems. I don’t know if the bow means yes or no but he understands me at least. Then he shuffles out, closing the door behind him.

I eat because I’m ravenous and the stew is strangely flavored but good, and then I get into bed in my shift. I’m angry with Meremon for his peremptory dismissal but I suppose there’s nothing to be done tonight when it’s dark out and snowing heavily. We’ll probably set out in the morning. Yes, that will be it. By this time tomorrow Ilsa and the other children will all be well again, Meremon will be gone and the villagers will be so grateful to me.

I close my eyes on that happy thought and fall into an exhausted sleep.

I’m dreaming, lying on a freshly dug grave beneath a dark sky. My skirt is rucked up around my hips and my knees are parted. I’ve taken my drawers off and they’re bunched up in my hand. The cool night air feels good on that place between my legs. It feels good to be exposed to the darkness, too.

I touch myself with my left hand, the hand that bears his mark. The ground shifts beneath me and I smile to myself.

There’s movement between my legs and something brushes against me. Yes. I’ve been waiting for this. Strange fingers stroke my sex as I rub the hard pearl at the apex of my thighs. This feels better than anything I’ve ever felt, and I wonder why I’ve never done this before. The fingers delve deeper and I feel how cold they are, but I like it, feeling those cool thicknesses exploring me. I rub faster, my hips curving upwards and my breath coming faster. I’m close to something but I don’t know what, and I’m racing toward it with everything I have. The fingers are delving into me, stretching my tight flesh, driving me into a state of mindless pleasure.