Chương 248: Chapter 269: The Part Where He Kills Me

I have just gotten my first look at Marquis Septimus "Uncle Septy" Ebonder's stats. He's an unromanceable NPC with no connection to the game itself, so all it gave me was what the Strength threshold to defeat him is, and the amount of damage I would take if I lost a fight against him. And basically he's a one-man army, but he's also a schlubby, unkempt-looking fellow with bags under his eyes.

Wearing Ebonder black and white almost gives him a tuxedo look, and if he got the right haircut I could see him for Gomez Addams. Then it was time for their Graces the dukes to make their show. The Aumerje, Eyellon and Pinkings were the only ones at this stage, because Drailim Skyback was hosting, Freckentop does not have a duke per se, and neither Greifir nor my parents travel to Hearstcliff for any reason. And then finally we can break position and start moving around.

I was lucky in that I found a good spot to watch from, so I don't have a crick in my neck.

"Rabert, could you be a dear and get me a plate before everyone tears the catering station apart? Just a little of everything, if you would."

"Of course, Princess." He bowed and moved off with a sort of stately confidence. It looked good on him. And he understood that I was ditching him to have a private conversation. I moved to Septimus first, even though I really didn't want to. I've only just noticed him and I am deeply intimidated in a way I rarely am. Even with my cheating methods and black holes, I don't think I could take this guy even if I got the drop on him. But I really want to get to him before his family has a chance to coalesce around him.

My sorcery nudged people, giving them a touch at the shoulder or elbow. For months we've been practicing this maneuver- every Sixthday I chat with some of my relatives and they're always delighted by the idea. So now, at my signal, every Harigold between me and the Marquis Ebonder has made a subtle move or stance that clears a path between me and him. I use my 'dignified glide' ability to arrive at his side with a haste that is probably unseemly and a bit overdone.

"Princess," he said with a bleary weary smile. Then his gaze sharpens when he takes in my scarf.

"That's a very tacky shawl, Princess Harigold." I tried not to quail visibly.

"It is really very very important that I speak with you directly, my lord," I said, flexing the air around us for privacy, just in case. He flicked his eyes to me.

"You know what that means?"

"I do, my lord." Okay, he's either going to murder me right now, or grant me my interview. He sighed sadly.

"Fuck. Fine. Give me a - no, never mind. We do this right now. With me, Princess." He turned with a strangely graceful move and headed for one of the drawing rooms at the side of the grand hall. He glanced at two people and gestured, and things were prepared in front of him. The two valets moved to the room, opened the doors, and held them for us, standing by with the doors held open so that we were in plain sight of the whole party.

He gestured me to sit down, while he threw himself down into an overstuffed armchair. He sat silently, and I was about to start the conversation when a door opened and a caterer came in with a snifter and a carafe of brandy, and a small tray of snacks that looked like gluten-free versions of the main tables. He waited until the server had closed the door behind them before he started talking.

"Do that thing," he said, waving his hand back and forth in the air. I sealed us in a soundproof bubble, and he nodded in approval.

"Good. Talk."

"Countess Larianne has been informing you on my situation," I said. Not a question, just setting the stage.

"Yeah," he said, slouching and pouring his drink.

"The girl who's been de-souled," I said.

"I got into her mind. Enough to see memories. Enough to see who removed her soul, and how." I lifted the shawl off my arms, gave it a meaningful shake, and vanished it away. He groaned like I was giving him a stomachache.

"Gods, of course it's that fucking thing. You did right not to show that to Lianne. Now, you-""I'm sorry," I said, and I'm genuinely hesitant to interrupt him.

"But- what is it?" His eyes flashed suspiciously. I don't want him suspicious of me. Not a necromancer patriarch with a Strength of 30 who does 50 HP in damage.

"I thought you had already seen that," he said. Did his fingers just twitch? Is he working mana?

"I saw it from her perspective," I pointed out.

"The victim. He didn't explain what he was doing to her. I saw a patch of skin like that, bright gold with the patterned scales, and horns. And it was glowing bright gold. A bright light that made everything it fell on look gold as well. I've seen that before. Beyond the Wall." The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. He tilted his head just a little to the side.

"Oh, did Lianne take you on her trampoline?"

"The runic circle that allows anyone within it to fly? Yes she did. And we could see the horizon from there, past the Wall." Septimus took a long drink of his brandy. No sipping for this fella.

"Ah," he said, smacking his lips.

"Well, I should be glad that my sister's little Lianne has such smart friends, but it's hard."

"Well, I could soften the blow by reminding you that your niece's smart friend might help you track down the lich that's experimenting with almost-living hosts?" I tried to smile encouragingly. He set the brandy snifter down with a clank on the glass-topped table. No coaster.

"Wouldn't that be you, Princess? Experimenting with the living host?"

"First of all, I think he sent her to me to goad me into trying to help her," I said.

"But I don't think I'm a lich. I've never really left my body, never moved from one to another, and I'm very much alive. Not undead at all." The fact that I have died and am not dead right now is not quite the same thing as being undead. I am not undead, that is true and honest. And really that's the part that's really important. Liches are undead. Yes I died, yes I got better, yes I have an untethered essence. But that's only like three of the ingredients. Elements of resemblance.

Just because he's square and he swings doesn't mean your dad is a door. But right now, in this context, in this company, talking to someone who definitely knows a hundred times more about liches and necromancy than I do? Maybe quibbling and splitting hairs is not the right move. Prevaricating technical definitions is great for when I know more about a subject than whoever I'm talking to, but not the other way around. I let myself slouch a little.

"I think that at most I'm a potential lich. Not really one. Not necessarily going to ever be one. But, someone has opened the first couple doors for me, whether I wanted it or not."

"Potential lich. That's rich," he said. He did not look like he was smiling or laughing.

"You understand why this issue of living liches is such a huge priority for me, yes?" I gave my first best guess.

"Because unlike preserved corpses they can blend into humanity and hide in plain sight?"

"It's not a bad reason," he said, "but not the reason. It's the numbers. A regular lich might hold a body for fifty years, or a hundred or more. And they can take their corpses from anywhere. Grave-robbing is uncouth but a person dead of natural causes is not really a high ethical priority. But a living body means an extinguished soul. Like Belisa Roadaway. And that's a death. And if a lich wants to stay in the prime of life, that's an unnatural and horrifying death at their hands every five to ten years.

If they're less picky, maybe only every thirty to fifty years." He started slow and measured, but he was getting in his feelings now.

"And that's a human cost, a living cost, the only kind that matters That's the numbers, is the number of people turned into things. If I gave you the benefit of the doubt and took you at your word, a potential lich, and let's assume you resist the temptation and you let yourself grow old and die in your own body and never use necromancy to preserve yourself. Ethical. Clean. Natural. Very much the opposite of the hypothetical living lich that is grooming Belisa Roadaway." I nodded.

He was getting really intense, building the tension up.

"Now, if it's this other lich, Meaty or whatever, then he's a total bastard and we should kill him with extreme prejudice. But, Princess, this is not a clear-cut story where you're the ethical vegetarian white-witch potential lich and he's the mean murderous bad guy undead lich. Because, from any point of view that is not trying to save your ass, both of you are working together on this experiment." His eyes were gimlet drills, sharp and unyielding.

"I was trying to save her!" I blurted out. I was standing up now. When did I stand up?

"She was hurting and she needed something and she reached for me! I'm the only one she reached for! And maybe it's just the soul thing, but I thought-" I cut off. Deep breaths. Do not scream at the necromancer king who can kill you instantly.

"I thought there was still a girl that I could save." He leaned forward, and I could feel his full attention on me for the first time. It felt like a pressure on my heart. Well. This is it. I went too far. This is the part where he kills me. But it was not the part where he kills me.

"Good," he said.

"She's dead. We can't help that. But the dead should always have a friend, princess. Maybe you understand that. Now, you've given me a lot to think about, and in a couple more weeks we can-""Hold on," I said.

"Belisa Roadaway."

"Yes?"

"My lord, what is my name?" He was baffled.

"What? You're the princess right? The Harigold girl."

"Right. You don't even call your niece by her proper name. Meadwhite is just Meaty, even though I'm certain you definitely know the name of that house. Trampoline... but Belisa Roadaway gets her name. A friend to the dead. My lord, who is Belisa to you?" And now he's frowning. Why did I do this. Why am I poking the bear. He was going to send me away and send me a message in a couple of weeks. And now I'm prolonging this extremely dangerous conversation. Not just prolonging, escalating. With personal questions.

Why am I pushing him right now? Am I crazy?

"I'm going to tell you," he said. The most even and serious and focused I've heard him yet.

"Because this time I owe you an explanation. I usually don't. In this case, I will deliver what is owed. The papers you stole from Kudder and gave to Belisa. Those proved the link between her family and mine. My family's secrets were the secret she was suffering under. Her family felt that pressure on our behalf. They were bearing our debts. And you fixed that for them. You took our debt from them. For that they owe you, and I owe you. The debt you earned when you freed the Roadaway family.

And I am pretty sure that is exactly why Meatneck stole her from your school and dragged her down to Tumnassed to-" I held up a hand, interrupting. Like a crazy person. But what is luck for, except for pushing?

"He didn't take her that far. She was back in classes within the week. Whatever he did, he did in Hearstcliff."

"Really."

"Yes, my lord."

"That golden pelt, the scales and the barbs and the light. In Hearstcliff."

"Yes, my lord." His arm cranked up like it was on springs. Septimus Ebonder tipped his head back and drank the whole snifter down, then stood up abruptly and tossed the glass to the side. It shattered in the corner.

"Come with me, Princess. We need to pull your school apart."

"Wait," I told him. Too hasty to be deferential.

"There's a better way."