Vision

A Story of Segrus the Necromancer

The fountain’s water echoed along the breadth of its walls clearly and deeply in the afternoon sun, a painting of movement and glittering light in all directions. Towering high above, perhaps three men tall or more, the architecture of the fountain’s carved stone contained marvelous detail. The treasure continued with the additional step to enchant this spot so the water’s airy spray burst of a multitude of colors. A constant festival sprang forth—blush colors, and golds, and the soft green of spring grass—which then rained down to be recaptured in the surrounding pool. The spectacle of rainbow water appeared to be a beacon of jollity for the centralized town square. For Segrus, the striking scene calmed him to approaching meditation.

A couple swung their child between them, a parent on each side, moving away from Segrus until they disappeared down a side street. A family outing with the sun so high above was well deserved. He looked in the opposite direction and noticed the small open market they came from.

Only a few simple lean-to tents covered the day’s fresh fruit and crops, and those cramped up against a multiple story building with a bakery on the lowest floor. Plenty of townsfolk hovered for their midday meal or to replenish a household’s produce. Segrus lingered a gaze at them patiently, studying their faces as they turned to laugh and chat. Their voices were too quiet and he resisted invading more than necessary.

The bakery’s building was not unique in the wide cobblestone area. Craftsmanship and planning built each structure to match a general architectural scheme. Segrus imagined how proud the citizens must be of these efforts. Smoothed pale white plaster filled the spaces between strong wood supports. Most of the buildings included carefully tended panes of smoked glass. He reasoned the town magistrate used funds to keep this area specially clean.

Casting his attention from one building to the next, Segrus studied whomever happened upon the square. Two men left the local tavern with the wares written on their face. A group swept down together the few steps straight from a large, steepled office of authority. Their discussion ended casually before they drifted in different directions. A worker stopped to help a woman shoulder a load of fabric in the direction of a shop. Segrus surmised they were fond friends who crossed paths often. Young maids pressed lightly against the glass of an apothecary, their curiosity matching what his was at their age. An unimpassioned man sat down nearby Segrus, oblivious to Segrus’ solemn form. Suddenly, the man groaned and started with alarm.

The world’s motion froze with that alarm. Each square of the city and its people, this scene of lapsed serenity, swayed in place. Segrus reached to the dagger at his belt and ended the undead corpse he animated with disgust. The vision of a dead world, ghosts of remembrance, passed away.

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Each remembrance was different. Segrus the Necromancer had seen individual shades wander sullenly through the darkness, seemingly unaware of their illusion and alone. Scenes of groups replayed as a memorial beyond time. The wellspring of dead memory ascended in chorus from where they sprouted in the land. This city was no different, with phantoms who played out their existence without noise or end in the empty streets of long forgotten disaster. Only the necromancer stood as eternal witness.

Each building formed the bones of the necropolis, but the dead sunk into the earth and left sparse to nothing for Segrus to work with. His search took him from one building to the next until he ended at the large fountain.

In the dirt of the dried, motionless fountain, the tiled bottom was still intact. Exposure had weathered its antique patterns of interlocking turquoise circles on deep blue, containing symbols Segrus recalled from the tattered wall hangings within what he took to be the magistrate’s office. Weather was not all which marred the craftsmanship. A gash of dirt held the unmistakable mound of a body.

Carefully, Segrus had uncovered what remained of this poor, unimpassioned man. The mound served as a cocoon and shield from an unknown enemy, although it had ultimately failed to protect. Death spread out from the body in all directions, supporting a narrow cavity within the dirt. Segrus guessed the younger man harbored an undeveloped talent in natural sorcery to hide away. A lost soul who did not understand these thorns would not be stopped. They tore from within, and then sprouted without.

However, the young man’s action formed a coffin and allowed Segrus to see this fatal remembrance at this fountain-turned-sepulcher. Decay was stayed long enough.

Some great evil had been done here. He fell behind in following the menace which caused young and old to be indiscriminate victims. The previous victim had experienced terrible violence, a single woman who served as a village’s weaver twenty moon cycles ago. The wild growth that splayed limbs on opposite sides of the cottage was grotesque beyond simple wrath. Danger grew deeper than the fountain’s shadow when even a city becomes a grave.

Segrus scowled at the prospect of losing the lead again. Strange happenstance allowed him a look into the lives of these people, but the loss disrespected his position. Necromancy needed no supply of death and the beyond hungered the same regardless. And he sensed a foulness in the accelerating evil, a power swelled up in itself which bullied his judgment.

His voice spilled out into the emptiness of the lifeless square as he grasped the beginning of an outburst, “Who would be so bold to desecrate life in this way? What gain do you expect when your life will be forfeit? Do you plan to live forever?”

Deliberate demise of a person breached his function and upturned precious sanctity. His face hardened to piercing focus, with his brow furrowed above a stone-fixed look toward the world before him.

“Humanity suffers not its own debasement,” Segrus uttered gruffly, “for that path is carved by fire and its gate is locked on the inside by those who suffer hell. Judgment will be revived.”

The course of purpose laid in the vision before. A betrayer existed among those spirits when memory was fresh, and by alchemy or sorcery achieved the fruit of labor. They waited to see the thorns rive all. Segrus slipped the long dagger back into the leather belt near his hip with its latest deed complete. Only empty buildings watched Segrus the Necromancer leave.