Find Your Rest
A Story of Segrus the Necromancer
He held his eyes shut forcibly, deliberately. The light came in from all directions and he rejected it outright. It met him as an intruder from the pocket of darkness which bore him down beyond his nightmares and into the depths of Sol. Drowned among the dead in their place, the wide grave of bodies, the pit of eternity—Sol. The mouth of that bottomless hole clung to him to swallow whole the shreds of his stomach. Endless it devoured to satisfy both starvation and utter gluttony. Some part of the space behind his eyes was determined to be sunk.
Yet the force of will pursued him even as deep as Sol, and cared not for his position. It found him beneath the sloth of apathy, beneath his resistance to change, and further beneath the weight of what transpired. His purpose drove him upward until he opened his eyes and met himself face to face. Segrus was revived in the world again on his back, and returned to his own real internal determination.
Wood and glass windows with a view of clouds made up his full view. The ceiling seemed slanted on all sides towards a middle point of the room. Without rising he spotted metal pipe at the center, and spent time gazing at its texture separated from his conscious thoughts. Neither treeline nor building could be seen through the window, which confused him enough to attempt moving.
Segrus’ body felt heavy with dull pain, although his head remained aggravated the most. Carefully he pressed his hand onto his chest and its wretchedness became immediately unappreciated. Segrus pulled his thoughts together and guessed he has been rested in this room between a day and a week. He struggled against his body until he achieved sitting up.
A glance around the large room gave Segrus many clues to who made it their home. The spacious size allowed several tables and shelves to be utilized for carrying an expansive personal collection of books. Although he recognized many of the subjects contained in their titles, those volumes he could see were unfamiliar. Stories of fancy and histories of people appeared to be a favorite due to how many were scattered half read. Their pages were laid open on the table for the next time their owner paused, picked it up in sudden interest, and carried it to that day’s comfort spot.
Pages half filled with writing covered the tables in the voids between books, and writing utensils waited for attention by their ink wells. He went to reach for a page, but his whole body ached in resistance. Whenever his host returned, his chance to ask would come.
The rest of the room contained supplies for living. Wood sat next to a stove whose pipe extended into the ceiling to release smoke. Rough sacks and simple boxes were grouped in one spot and made Segrus assume they held food within. There was one other place to rest besides the cot that supported him, a bed disturbed of its bedding. He could not imagine more than one person used it due to its size.
After he stared at the contents of the room long enough, Segrus finally turned to gain bearing of what the outside looked like. It satisfied his confusion to see the tops of trees somewhat below the building, the tallest in line with a railing around a deck. High above the ground and solitary in its height, this lookout tower gave vantage over the surrounding area. The trees were similar to those where he had fallen upon the golem, which comforted him a little. Although he could not locate the golem’s place from here he was not ascertain he wanted it in close proximity.
When the discomfort of his head could be suffered no longer, Segrus laid back down and slept dreamless.
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When Segrus woke again it was close to dawn, and another person was busy making themselves known. The man filled the wood stove set in the middle of the room calmly from a small pile of cut pieces Segrus presumed were brought in from outside. He wore the shirt of a solder of the kingdom of Dorn, one of the larger kingdoms of the southern nations, but his breeches was not matching for that uniform. Lean hardiness made up his overall form. Segrus pondered if the soldier, or lookout, grew into that lank look or came here with it.
If the man knew Segrus watched, he gave no indication of it through his actions. He continued piling wood until it was finished and then turned to attend to something on a table next to the bed across the room. For a few moments Segrus watched blankly until he noticed a new object in the room: an axe standing up and leaned familiarly against the table. It had a thin, curved axe blade, one meant for battle, with chips in its edge from striking sword or armor. Yet fighting against a rising sensation of danger was the simultaneous signs of wear on the handle. The smoothness of repeated used to chop wood came from a rough hand slipping across its surface. Segrus then chose to speak.
“Sir...what do you call yourself?” Segrus wanted to speak further, but he found both the exertion bothered both his chest and his head more than he wanted.
“Galten, if you’re want’in to call me anything at all.” Galten was not looking when he responded, distracted by the table in front of him. He continued without pause, “If’n you’re needing anything more than hard bread and whatever I k’in catch these days, you’ll have to wait a season or more for my replacement.”
Segrus decided not to respond as he was contented to see Galten carry conversation for them. Galten’s voice was not deep nor rough, and carried a boyish turn to its accent. While Segrus wondered at the total length of time of his savior’s military station, Galten finally turned and began speaking again.
“I carried yer slack up with you, and I’ve been think’in I know the spot where’n I found you. There’s not much around, and I can’t leave to take you. Lucky I even went out as far as I did that day,” Galten commented, as he showed his younger face and golden hair. “But I’d put here on a map where to go if’in you’re interested to go back. You’ll have to go once yer rested ‘nough, either way.”
Once he finished, there was silence between them. Segrus lounged, fully awake, and watched. Galten explored his shelves for the aforementioned bread and added clear water to serve them both. Hunger had built itself over any trepidation Segrus could feel on the situation and he ate as ravenously as he dared.
By the time the sun stopped shining directly into the windows of the lookout tower and rose over the roof, Segrus and Galten spoke further. Segrus explained where his purpose and where he intended to travel.
“So...what happened to you? Out there I mean,” Galten asked, and motioned with his head towards outside.
Segrus grimaced at the memory. It came unbidden the chaos sky and the rock of horror beneath him. In his sitting posture, he swayed under a strong feeling of dizziness. He gave thought to the things he could say about the golem. About an expansive monster which used human souls as part of its existence. How he could express being ripped from this world. Many words to explain the truth came and went through his mind.
“I cannot say,” Segrus said simply.
His pause lasted through nighttime, despite the persuasive face Galten wore through their meager dinner. They slept, and Segrus fought through nightmares. They worked on the daily tasks of maintaining the tower, and Segrus gave what he could while he steadily regained energy. They talked about Dorn and what Segrus did for a living, but Segrus persisted in holding his inner thoughts to himself. He was not trying to protect Galten or withhold information from the military he served. Segrus sought not to be stubborn in empty emotion, or opposed from uncertain fear.
Segrus needed rest. He needed to grasp what he lost from being turned inside out by the void of his understanding. He wrote upon the pages left out by Galten and created the words to describe as a child might form words. Eventually, Segrus named what he was forced witness to: Adædon—the shaded realm which preyed upon the earth as a plague pirate, to pillage and spoil human life.
They grew friendly in the short time Segrus stayed. Segrus traveled back to where the golem existed, and was not shocked to find nothing more than a small pile of boulders half-buried in the soil. He would prepare to face the horror when it visited upon him again.
