Your Cold Breath

A Story of Segrus the Necromancer

The door of the cabin was burst open violently, and the figure at the door seemed shocked at the force. Harsh winter wind lapped at his dark cloak and swept past him to hungrily claw at the warmth contained within in the exposed room. Bad weather had calmed considerably in the surrounding woods, yet terribly bleak snow and ice was picked up the east wind to be scattered with the storm’s strength. Even at the threshold of a warm cabin, Segrus felt the shiver of cold descending on him.

A sharp crackle of wood splitting in the heat of the place’s fire awakened him to action. Segrus rapidly grasped for the stocky door from his position at the threshold. He struggled to close it against his winter foe, but managed to make it reach its latch before too much leaked out into the night. The cold could still be felt through the wooden door though, so strong the reach of its fingers, yet Segrus leaned against it anyway in slight guilt of conscious.

He was unaccustomed to entering what was clearly someone’s home with so little respect to its boundary. The cabin’s space was personalized carefully—even in a brief look Segrus saw trinkets on shelves and on the fireplace’s mantle—but it also contained the traces of recent activity. A used plate rested on a small table, fitted for no more than four people. One of three chairs, near enough to the hearth to feel the warmth, looked askew by its relation to the other three. They each were weighted by enough treated pelts to be extra comfortable.

Segrus waited against the door for his host to appear from one of the two doors of the room.

She appeared from the door at his right and carried a cup with two hands. Both eyes of hushed amber peered at him intently, and in their corners he could see the faint beginnings of wrinkles. There was no rush in her footsteps to enter the room from where she came. Nor did retreat seem imminent in the posture of her lean form.

“Excuse my intr-…” Segrus began apologetically, as he nodded towards her.

“Don’t start,” she stated firmly. There was no volume or alarm in what she said, and neither any melody. “You’re here already, and if you open the door one more time I shall be upset. Remove your cloak and those boots right there so I can get a look at you.”

He did as she asked with little ceremony. His frozen hands were too stiff to be so ginger. Under his square, black mantle he wore a jacket of shaggy wool he bargained for earlier in his journey to the now wintered lands of Graus. It had protected him enough to not perish, although by midday it had not stopped the misery of being cold.

The woman’s eyes were not interested in his clothes she could now see, but in the long dagger at his waist. It faced her where it was lodged into his belt through a loop and the steel gave a dull gleam in the light. When he looked her lips were pursed, but she stood still.

“If it would make you more comfortable, I can leave it here with my boots,” Segrus suggested. He grapped the rough hilt to indicate what he spoke about.

She returned her look back to his eyes before slouching. “It would do neither of us good for you to harm me with it, and I have nothing in this place to gain by taking.” Her voice paused to take a drink from her cup.

“The warmth of the fire is all I have,” she finished.

Whether she was too naive to understand how the world pined for evil or too indifferent to express it, Segrus was unable to discern. The only other option was one he chose not to concern himself with for now. Once he completed her task, he hesitated only a moment before he moved closer to the fire to an undisturbed chair. She joined him soon after in the chair opposite the one he took.

The warmth relaxed him and he could think more clearly on his surroundings. Trinkets above the fireplace he saw from the door were the carved implements of a modest religion he recognized. They held no special power of their own, but those who practiced utilized them as a physical reminder of their promises.

“Does the Ammaus season end soon?” Segrus asked suddenly as he spoke his mind. There was no specific clothes for those who believed in Ynnes, so the woman’s unassuming deep blue dress tied at the waist with a sash was not indicative of belief. He still felt the desire to be reminded of each implement’s significance.

“It serves little purpose to me any longer sir.” She shifted herself on the chair to gaze more directly at him. “Do you know much of its adherence? Surely you didn’t open my door in its belief.”

“I know…very little…” Segrus said, trailing his voice once he realized they had not introduced one another. He looked between her and the fire before he offered, “I am known by Segrus. I meant to say so earlier.”

“If we are to be met, then I am Ewayne. So you are you speaking of quarrel with Ynnes?”

“You are mistaken, I have no quarrel with Ynnes or any god,” he rejected.

She expressed a slight smile, but continued to press him with questions. “What do you believe, if anything?”

Segrus was silent a moment, although from the corner of his eye he could tell Ewayne was looking at him. But he had fallen into the memories of his youth, the few he still retained. A towering ziggurat whose shrine his parents offered to. He remembered beauty and reverence. As a child it seemed to stretch upwards forever, and the devoted there whispered the words they were taught. These faded memories moved within him in its own pleasant way.

“I believe that there is more than I can see,” he answered cryptically.

Ewayne did not respond to this directly. Her face seemed as expressionless as before and her body was still. The eyes of amber were traitor to something deeper though, a thoughtful aspect within its glimmer.

In the time they sat, she finished whatever she drank. With its contents depleted, she rose and dismissed herself for the night. She mentioned he was welcome to stay until morning, and then he would have to leave. Over time he fell asleep as he watched the fire die down.

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Segrus woke alarmed. Something in the room brought him fully out of warm rest and accelerated his lungs until they drew more air. His feet were on the ground a moment later to rise from the chair to his feet. Knees bent at the ready to race at the danger once his eyes located it.

The cabin was still shut. Stillness reigned with each window latched tightly. Segrus tried to sense any draft or motion through his senses, yet the place was empty of threat.

He had slept through to daylight, though Ewayne had not emerged from her room. Segrus wondered at her absence, but his eyes soon found an answer: the fireplace held a clue to a long-time search. There were no logs prepared for the fire, and what was burned was twisted and unnatural. Branches which had once bore thorns by what remained of sharp points on the hearth.

Segrus turned his back to the embers and proceeded with caution.

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