Chương 106: Chapter 94 - He’s in

++Some people are easier to make use of than others. ++ - From the writings of Isabel Vornholt, 'The Great Lich'. 1, 891 A. E. Agrian hadn't been back from his mission for long, and it felt like less time still. Felt like every second was crawling by, stretching out into a long, angry minute. He resisted the urge to drink. His father had always warned him about that, his mother more so.

Though drinking socially and publicly was a normal, gentlemanly thing, overindulgence was the sort of behaviour people expected from the rank-and-file. Indeed, his father would add, half the purpose for the officer class in the first place was to herd those thuggish inebriates at the enemy, where otherwise they would simply roll around in their own filth. Agrian wasn't so sure about that anymore, he'd seen plenty of lower class men performing just fine when cut off from orders by this point.

Even Fiq, his own immediate superior before he joined Huit's task force, was a sterling example of that. But that didn't mean he was about to let himself turn into a drunkard, over-indulgence did have a ruinous effect on someone's mind and intellect. That much he knew. Unfortunately, besides drinking away his sorrows, he didn't really have anything else to spend his time on. Other than the sorrows themselves. Agrian felt this sort of itch, a nagging really.

A twist in his gut as he thought back to his mission today, to the people he'd maimed or killed, and to Huit's account of necromancy. He'd been happy to slaughter heathens if it meant keeping the world safe, and she certainly seemed to think it still did, but finding out about all the exaggerations he'd grown up with was… harrowing. There was another thought creeping into him, too. A dangerous one. A thought he scarcely dared admit even to himself.

If his educators had lied about necromancers in so many ways, what other, crucial ones had they lied about? What was the evidence necromancy needed stamping out at all? He banished that fast. Agrian ended up standing and pacing, muttering to himself, cursing. He felt itchy and hot, his skin clammy despite the night around him and the frigid desert winds. He felt like there was something buried deep in his brain trying to claw its way free. He felt unsure.

And for the first time in his life, he didn't wish he had some older figure to turn to. What would father say now? Some idiocy about savages and peacekeeping, probably without even understanding the question. Mother would just give a half-formed platitude supporting whatever her husband did, all that intelligence and not one scrap of it ever used to do thinking of her own sort. Funnily enough, amid all the conflict, Agrian's thoughts drifted to Isabel. Not right, wanting his little sister's input.

He was a man of twenty, not right at all. And yet Isabel was… what, independent? Clever? Strong? Yes, obviously, all those things. But most importantly, she was fucking weird. Agrian had never really appreciated that before, but he did now. Because when you started questioning the whole world's sense of normalcy, weirdness became one of the greatest virtues. Then again, Isabel's brand wasn't exactly the social revolutionary sort. Gods, Agrian's head hurt. His head hurt and his guts hurt and he was pissed off.

Why was this unclear? The Gods had a reason for outlawing necromancy, he knew that. So what was it? Why wouldn't they share it? They had two of their damned Demigods in this very city—albeit one of the traitor—and yet he was killing people on false pretenses, why? The more he thought about it, the more hopeless the whole thing felt. Agrian would never find truth, greater minds than his must've noticed these discrepancies before and apparently the problem had not yet been resolved.

His thoughts were interrupted by a knock upon his door. Agrian considered ignoring it, but he needed something to focus on other than the inside of his own head right now so he reluctantly trudged over, opened the door and found himself face to face with his sister.

"Isabel," he smiled instantly. How could he have thought she would make this worse? If there was anyone who— —"I need you to kill a large number of native people for me," she said immediately. Agrian's face fell and he took a surprised step back, which she naturally decided was an invitation to slither into his apartment.

"What?!" he snapped. Isabel looked at him, blinking with what seemed like genuine surprise.

"I had assumed that would make you eager to help," she noted. So it had been another manipulation, of course. Because every other word out of her mouth was.

"What do you want, really?" Agrian growled. He was already tired of this conversation, and tired of his sister too.

"You're not here to actually tell me about your…thing, are you?" This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience. Even with his doubts beating around the inside of his skull like ricocheting bullets, Agrian wasn't about to say it out loud. Isabel still stiffened at the very reference.

"That is none of your concern."

"You're an idiot," he told her flatly.

"Take that back," Isabel scowled.

"No, you're an idiot, and since you won't tell me anything I won't bother to explain what's idiotic about you either."

"You are a bigger idiot than I am, you once tried to warm yourself up in winter by casting a shield around yourself and sitting in a fireplace."

"And you spent your first…uh, cycle, punching yourself in the abdomen as if that would stop the pain." They stood there, glaring at each other. Agrian suddenly got the feeling of having mentally regressed about ten years. He sighed.

"Just…Isabel, tell me, please?" He could see she wasn't moving an inch, and decided to try another sort of appeal.

"I've spent my whole life hearing about… that thing, from other people. From Garamon scholars and our teachers, priests, the works. Do you want to give up your chance to give me your impression of it?" Isabel struck most people as pragmatic and logical, which wasn't wrong, but wasn't entirely right either. She was as emotional as anyone Agrian had ever met, it's just that her emotions were channeled through an ego the size of the solar system.

Narcissism like that was almost hard to see, it was just so big that it just blended into the background, like trying to see a whole continent while standing atop it. That didn't make her impossible to deal with, quite the opposite. Agrian himself was starting to figure out the trick to it. You just had to frame everything around Isabel. If you wanted her to do something, turn it into an opportunity for her. Wanted her to tell you something, phrase it as a chance to correct someone else.

Everything in Isabel's life was about Isabel. Agrian realised then that there was a considerable chance, perhaps a near-certainty, that his little sister was a bit of a bad person. But love was too blunt and heavy a thing to care about trivialities like that.

"Sit down," Isabel suggested. No, not suggested. Told. Agrian had to stop euphemizing everything she did, in his own head at least.

"I'd rather stand," he replied.

"You might fall over," she warned him. He just rolled his eyes.

"Don't be so dramatic," he scoffed. Isabel sighed irritably.

"Very well. I am a master necromancer, am capable of reanimating hundreds or more corpses at once, and have begun studying the necromantic rites of Orapathaqi to further enhance my powers. I believe this will one day make me the most powerful magician in Garamon's recorded history." Agrian fell over. He didn't pass out, at least, but his legs stopped obeying him as his mind started to spin.

"How…how long?" he croaked. His own voice sounded distant, but Isabel's seemed as clear as ever. Like she was speaking right into his ear. She had not, of course, moved an inch. Not over a little thing like her brother collapsing.

"I have been studying it for several years," she told him. A lie? Agrian didn't bother trying to find out, he knew her tells but she knew he knew them. Neither of them ever got far trying to read each other directly.

"You can't become a master in several years," Agrian snapped.

"Nobody can." Isabel just arched an eyebrow, and he swore.

"But of course, that rule doesn't apply to the great Isabel Vornholt, because no magical rules apply to her," he continued.

"She just does things sometimes, and leaves everybody else to rewrite the textbooks in her wake."

"Petulence did not suit you when you were a child," Isabel told him.

"It suits you even less now. And I did not come here to hear it."

"You came to explain yourself," Agrian growled. Then he paused.

"What? Oh you're surprised. You didn't come here to explain yourself, what the fuck do you want?" He was angry all over again, now. Too angry for words, and by the time he'd calmed down and found the words, Isabel would be gone and acting like nothing had happened.

"We're going to talk about this more later," he added, trying to inject some manly wrath into the sentence. It came off more as boyish tantruming.

"Okay. I need you to kill people for me, anyway, as I said." Agrian had almost forgotten how she opened this up. He sighed again.

"Why?"

"Because Nesariyah has been captured, and is possibly being raped or tortured as we speak." All thoughts of anger disappeared in an instant, broken down like a ship crushed to splinters before ocean waves bigger than its captain had reckoned on. That was another effect Isabel tended to inspire.

"How?" Agrian asked.

"When? What—what's the plan?" his mind was racing, but lately it'd started working better rather than worse when that happened. Isabel's mind worked well under stress, too. Except for her it came naturally.

"We are going to rescue her, obviously," she sighed. Sighed like the whole thing was terribly inconvenient.

"But we will need help to do that, the rebels are…" her lip curled.

"Strong." Agrian remembered that young girl who'd been so close to Isabel's power, and could not help but agree.

"Huit, then?" he asked.

"We're going to her?" Isabel shook her head.

"No. That would be like taking a sledgehammer to use in surgery, she would ruin everything and probably kill both of us while she was at it. We need a unit that answers only to us, which means this needs to be off-record." And unofficial, Agrian noted. On account of how neither of them actually had the authority to put together a unit for anything, let alone a serious offensive.

"You've come to me, that's one person," Agrian thought aloud.

"But who…oh. Oh, fuck, really?" Isabel looked even more reluctant than he felt.

Bagran had been just seated and ready to relax, with a bottle of Garamon wine open and several local fancies set out on a plate beside himself, when the knock came upon his door. Anger was his immediate reaction, as any other man would relate to. This was his damned leisure time. Bad enough to be serving under a woman, that whore Huit ought to have known better than to disturb him on his off-hours.

But when Bagran got to his feet and yanked the door open, the rage left him as he found Isabel standing on the other side.

"I need you to kill a large number of native people for me," she said.

"Done," Bagran smiled.

"Where are they?"