Death After Death PLUS 257-259

Ch. 257 - Dark Secrets

In the week that followed, as they slowly made their way back to Schwarzenbruck, but in all that time, Simon’s mind was never far from the things he read in the slender tome he’d stolen away. Whether he was helping to push their cart up a hill or helping to mediate the fair way to divide their loot, he couldn’t stop thinking about zombies. In particular, he couldn’t stop thinking about the way that Vaustin’s methodology had evolved so quickly over only a few years, according to his writings. 

The book didn’t say how he’d discovered the words Eszloum Dnarth. That would forever remain a mystery unless Simon returned to the man’s corpse when all this was done and raised his soul for a little sit-down. 

He was undecided on that front. He very well might do that once he’d resolved things with this journey. Still, that spell had been the key that unlocked all sorts of forbidden knowledge. 

After that, he visited places far and wide where evil men were reputed to be buried and then robbed their graves of a bone or two. Apparently, that was all it took to form a magic link. After that, he could use a summoning circle that wasn’t so different from a demonic circle, decorated with the words of soul connection and the name of his target, and he could draw them forth from the world after and spend a few minutes talking to them. 

Simon’s first use of the spell wasn’t even on a necromancer but on a prospector who’d died under mysterious circumstances before he could exploit a claim he’d bragged about. It really had been money that had set everything else in motion, and that disgusted Simon as much as anything. The limitless pursuit of dark knowledge he could understand, even if he couldn’t accept, but money? It was a waste. 

According to Vaustin’s records, the dead seemed to be in pain, though he didn’t really care. He would use that pain as leverage to get them to tell him their secrets, and often, they would comply. That was how he first learned to raise the dead with the words of death to life, Gelthic Meiren. 

The first version was simple, and apparently, he didn’t even have full control over what he’d created. There was also no evidence that he understood what it had cost him at first or that he had any idea that the lesser or greater modifiers existed. 

After a few experiments and a visit to another grave, he modified the spell to “Dnarth Gelthic Meiren,” or commanded death to life. This had given him complete control over his zombies and allowed for early work on the mine, but he made little progress until additional experimentation led to “Aufvarum Dnarth Gelthic Meiren.” That was essentially the same spell but given contagious properties. 

By that point, Vaustian had wasted decades of his life. Despite looking a little older than Simon, he’d apparently only been twenty when all this had started, and with no access to draining the lives of others directly, he’d switch to human sacrifice to power his spells. 

In the final version, the magic was carved into the flesh of a living victim, and then, when they bled out, it activated. That was gruesome enough, but the fact that it had been intentionally created to repeat itself on all future victims was what was truly evil.

Simon thought about how the drive to efficiency is what often brought out the worst in men, even after they arrived at their destination, and he helped the local blacksmith set up a small gravity-powered mint. It was ironic, of course, since he was about to help the same sort as that the necromancer he’d just killed had, but then, his was going to involve fire, weight, and gravity. No one’s soul was getting sucked out. 

He hadn’t even forced everyone to go along with it. It had been the solution he proposed, and eventually, everyone agreed. All of the survivors got a full share, the dead men’s heirs got two shares, and the lords that had chartered the mission in the first place got ten. 

Simon wasn’t pleased with that particular idea, but he didn’t care too much and had accepted the compromise that the Thane of Schwarzenbruck get shares equal to the lords of Brin since it was an independent city-state. That had spread the wealth nicely. 

At this point, no matter what happened, they were going to cause some massive inflation somewhere. They had three hundred pounds of gold. Even if they split it fifty ways, that was more wealth than anyone needed. 

When the city’s Lord, Thane Hrovgard, heard the news, his first instinct had been to declare a large tax to confiscate the wealth. He apparently thought he deserved more than about a sixth of the massive haul, even after he’d had no hand in the expedition or their triumph. However, after a shouting match that almost came to bloodshed, he’d seen reason when Simon had offered to show him where the mine was so he could use the funds he’d received to hire the men needed to dig up even more. 

It was a neat solution that wrapped itself up so nicely in a bow that townspeople had held a celebration, but Simon hadn’t attended. Instead, he helped the blacksmith convert an old cracked anvil into a hundred-and-fifty-pound drop hammer and developed the gearing for it to be raised. Then, while the construction was taking place, he carved the dies. That was the only part of the whole thing he used magic on.

As much as Simon would have loved to carve such a thing by hand, he lacked the tools or skills for etching, and it was far easier to simply take the illustrations he’d made and force the metal ripple into those shapes by burning a month of his life. 

One side showed the large stone bridge for which the town was made, and the other showed the prick that ruled over it. It wasn’t the best likeness, but then, the arrogant son of a bitch wasn’t the best person, and as much as Simon loved beautiful art, he might have just done that on purpose. 

Still, a couple of weeks later, when they started turning half-ounce chunks of gold into lustrous coins, no one complained. It was a minor miracle, really. Every minute or so, the hammer was released, and it fell, crushing the gold into shape. Then, a pair of men spent another minute winching the thing back to the top of the arms before repeating the process. 

Once they started, the hammer rose and fell in a constant rhythm that could be heard throughout the city. It worked day and night, and in only a few days, all the coins were completed. Refining the metal further had reduced the quantity of gold by a third, but Simon had warned everyone to expect that, and the complaints weren’t too fierce. 

Really, Simon appreciated the feedback more than the treasure itself; gold was ephemeral, and he’d lose it at the end of every life. Recognition for a job well done was much more precious to him. Sir Branaugh said, “Truly, this might be the finest coin in the region. Certainly finer than any of those I’ve seen from Brin.”

The man offered to bring him back to the capital and make some introductions for him at the treasury. “I don’t know what you’re doing in this backwater, but the King could use men like you.”

Simon shook his head, though, and declined the offer. Instead, he helped the Thane set up an expedition with men and mules, and then spent another week of his life escorting them to the spot. It was the least he could do, considering he felt a little guilty about entombing those zombies forever, with no chance to free themselves from their cursed existence. 

He spent that first day helping them set up camp and keeping a keen eye out for more of the walking dead. After that, in a stroll around the area where the necromancer's ragtag shack had been, he noticed the ruined remains of Vaustin. They weren't right where he left them. They'd been dragged down a slope by scavengers, but there was no mistaking the rags of the robes he wore. Simon inspected the body, then helped himself to the man’s skeletal hand in case he wanted to talk to him later. 

Simon didn’t stay long enough to help them reopen the collapsed passage, but he did give everyone a long lecture on the best ways to kill a zombie before he left. He was also very clear about the fate of those who were bitten. “If one bites you or claws you, you will die. Maybe not right then, but in a few hours or a day, you will be done for. Worse, you will rise back up and try to inflict the same fate on your friends and colleagues. So, if that happens to someone, you must strike them down without mercy.”

You know it’s entirely possible this could happen all over again, his brain tried to tell him as he rode south for the third time in a month. It could happen, and all of this would have been for naught…

Simon couldn’t refute that, but he did find it incredibly unlikely. Still, as much as he dismissed it, it nagged at him all day, and even when he made a small campfire once he reached the main road, so near the site of the previous massacre, he couldn’t escape it. 

He tried. He thought about how nice it would be to go back to Hepollyon and see everyone again except for Zoa. He thought about checking in on Freya and Brena to make sure they were going to turn out okay. He even thought about hunting down Kell and killing him just so he couldn’t find a way to fuck all of this up. 

All of those thoughts vanished when a stranger came out of the darkness, though. He walked with slow, crunching steps that betrayed his presence long before the firelight revealed him, but that was intentional. Simon was sure of that when he saw the man come out of the dark with his hands raised. It wasn’t until he heard the words “Gervuul Uuvellum” that he sprang to his feet. 

Greater nullification… that can only be the Unspoken or… Simon’s second option was proven right, as his doppelgänger walked out of the shadows without a care in the world. 

“Relax, Simon,” the man said, appearing amused. “I come in peace, and the word should keep magic away for an hour or so so we can talk about something. You did good work here, but there’s one—”

Simon didn’t wait for him to finish. Instead, he leaped across the fire and used his momentum to feed into a wide swing. He wasn’t sure what good killing this prick would do and if his evil twin would come back the same way that he could, but at this moment, he wanted this guy dead. He was an anathema to everything Simon was trying to accomplish, and he was appearing with frightening regularity these days.

That can’t be by chance, he told himself as the other Simon parried his blow with a sword that seemed to be the duplicate of the one he wielded. 

He thought about following that up with a shoulder check since he didn’t have a shield, but before he did that, his doppelgänger kicked out, tripping him up to buy himself some breathing room. That’s a pretty common move of mine, he realized as he followed up with a feint to try to test him. 

“Listen, Simon, I didn’t come here to fight,” his evil twin said, not even bothering to parry a blow that he knew was never meant to land. “If I wanted to assassinate you, I would have used distant lightning or worse. Maybe even some of that black stuff you got to try out so recently.”

That memory made Simon hesitant for a handful of heartbeats as he remembered how badly the black lightning burned. That gave evil Simon just enough time to lash out with a series of blows. Fortunately, those were just as easy for him to read as his had been for his doppelgänger. 

Simon tried to switch it up. He made unconventional counters that were clumsier for the fact that they were rarely used, but they did little better. They traded blows and words for several minutes, but even after all that, nothing came of it. That was when he realized the point he was making. 

It really is pointless, isn’t it? He asked himself. I’m going to have to think of something entirely unpredictable the next time I run into this monster. 

“Fine,” Simon sighed, backing away as his chest heaved. “You want to talk? Let’s talk.”

Ch. 258 - The Greater Good

When Simon finally stopped attacking and withdrew a few steps, his opponent sheathed his sword and sat down cross-legged across from the fire from him. He did likewise, but he did not sheathe his weapon. Instead, he left it on his lap and glared at the other man. 

“Well?” he said after a moment, “I thought you wanted to talk.”

The other Simon smirked. “You don’t seem to be in a talking mood.”

“Sorry, I’m not usually in the mood to chat with monsters,” Simon spat.

“That’s not true at all,” the doppelgänger laughed. “You just had a really nice talk with our friend, the necromancer, as I recall. In fact, if he hadn’t moved to kill you, I seem to remember that you would have been happy to talk with him for another five or ten minutes. You’re happy to talk when you think you’ll get something out of it.”

The words burned because of how true they were, but Simon quickly countered, “Well, if that’s true, then maybe you have nothing to teach me.”

“Maybe I don’t,” other Simon laughed. “We do love to learn things the hard way, don’t we.”

Simon was silent at that. He was torn between countering that they weren’t the same person and asking how it was possible that they were. Truly, he didn’t know which one was the worse outcome. 

While he sat there scowling and speechless, his evil twin started to speak again. “Regardless, I came only to ask you a question. First, though, I wanted to apologize for not being able to spare you that ugly time with Freya. I truly would have if there was a way.”

“It wasn’t so bad,” Simon lied. “After a hundred years in the dark, what’s another sixty.”

“Well, you showed real restraint when you were freed, and if it makes you feel any better, she certainly got what was coming to her.” the doppelgänger said with a shrug. 

“I don’t give a shit what happened to Freya. She made her choices, and I hope she rots in hell,” he answered, trying and failing to keep the anger completely out of his voice.

“She probably will,” his evil twin agreed, “When the Murani finish dissecting her, of course. They won’t let her die for a long time. Not until they learn her secrets. In that way, she ended up rather like you did, though her cage is a bit nicer than a rotting, bricked-in casket.” 

“She has no secrets to give,” Simon answered. “Even if that’s true, she has nothing to teach them.”

“And maybe someday the men that put her to those terrible questions will believe that,” the other Simon nodded, “But for now, all they can think of is how dearly they would love to have her powers. Perhaps one day, if they conquer Gravenstone, they’ll put it together, but you set them back a very long way on that front.”

“I don’t want to talk about that life,” Simon said, uncomfortable at the feelings of joy and sadness that swirled through him as he thought about his tormentor suffering. “I doubt you taunting me is the reason you came here. You’ve done that already.”

“More than once,” his doppelgänger agreed with a nod. “No, I came here to ask you a question. You want to do the greatest good for the greatest number of people, correct?”

“Always,” Simon answered, seizing the opportunity to give a clear answer. “The right thing has nothing to do with the right historical outcome, no matter what Helades says.”

“I’m so relieved to hear you say that,” the doppelgänger said with a smile wide enough to make Simon feel like he’d fallen into some sort of trap. “If she had her way, this whole region would be wiped away, for the greater good, of course.”

“Are you talking about the war?” Simon asked. “Is that the point of these levels? She wants Ionia and Brin to lose and—”

“She wants just what she’s told us she wants,” the other Simon interrupted. “I don’t think she’s ever outright lied to us, though it feels that way sometimes. Her version of peace is just… well, I don’t think that either of us would like it.”

“Do you know what she has planned then?” Simon asked, leaning forward as he was drawn into the conversation despite himself. “Do you know what’s on the last level?”

“Last level?” his doppelgänger laughed. “My dear Simon, you haven’t even made it halfway yet, and you already want to skip to the end? You’ve got some work to do before all that. Besides, that’s not the question we’ve been brought together tonight to discuss.”

“What is it you want to know?” Simon asked with a sigh.

“You know about the various Murani offensives. You’ve seen at least two yourself now over the decades, and—” the doppelgänger started.

“But they seem different,” Simon said. “Much different than the wars in the past that I’ve read about. We’ve… you’ve done something to change that, haven’t you?”

“That’s not the question either,” his evil twin said, “Though you were certainly involved with any changes that might have affected the things you described. But that's—”

“I’ve never had a level that dealt with them anywhere,” Simon countered firmly. 

“Oh? So, you know exactly where the vine-choked city and the giant spider are now? You know exactly what the ripple effects were when you hid that treasure on level two? Tell me more about exactly how the future would have played out without your input.”

“Are you saying that getting rid of the demon seed caused the wars to—” Simon asked, but his doppelgänger cut him off. 

“I think I’ve already shown you that no matter how much information I give you on what’s about to happen, it doesn’t help,” the doppelgänger sighed. “So now I want to know something. What would you do to stop the invasion from coming or even delay it? You know what it does to Ionia… even a strong Ionia where Ionar doesn’t fall—”

“Where you don’t burn it down!” Simon interrupted. 

“Even a strong Ionia doesn’t hold without your direct intervention,” his doppelgänger continued. “Not unless you buy it more time to prepare.”

“Of course,” Simon said. “Why do you think I’m here. I’m trying to help the nations of the region grow stronger so that when the fighting comes, they can—”

As he spoke, his doppelgänger reached across the dying fire to hand Simon a slip of folded parchment. Inside was a crudely drawn map. The southern part was marked Bahmed Pass and scattered through the mountains around it, and just to the north of it were three x’s.

“What’s this?” Simon asked. 

“What do you think it is?” his doppelgänger countered. 

“I think it's some bit of mischief,” Simon said, trying to decide if he should just throw it into the fire. “It's something you want me to change to make everything worse.”

“Something like that,” the doppelgänger agreed. “You just said you’d always do the right thing and that you’d do anything to stop, or at least delay the war. Now we get to see which one you choose.”

“I— What do you mean?” Simon asked. Confused. “They’re the same thing. I stopped the zombies and got more funds so that Schwarzenbruck could defend itself. They’ll be in much better shape to—”

“True. In this case, those goals were precisely aligned,” his evil twin agreed. “But what about when they diverge?”

“But they can’t diverge. The right thing to do is—” Simon paused as he suddenly realized what the other him was getting at. “Those x’s… they’re zombies, aren’t they.”

“Well, them and whoever’s still left at the fort,” the doppelgänger said with a thin smile. In the weeks you were playing peacemaker and coin minter, one of the stragglers made it up to the fort and bit a few people before it was put down. They spread from there, and in time, well… You know what happens next.”

“Well, that’s bullshit!” Simon said, rising. “If there really are zombies moving north, then we’ve… Then I’ve got to take them out.”

“You’re welcome to,” his doppelgänger agreed, rising much slower before stretching. “I’ve got things to do anyway. I should be going soon. It’s just… the only reason that invasion came so soon in your last life was because of how thoroughly you scrubbed the area. If you kill those three little x’s, then you’ll start that same cycle all over again and plunge the entire area into war in a few years instead of a few decades.”

“But if I don’t—” Simon started. 

“If you don’t, then tens of thousands will suffer and die until the northern peoples get the problem under control. It’s true,” his doppelgänger agreed as he turned away and started walking off into the night. 

Simon was stunned by the revelation, and he stood there, squirming against the revelation, trying to figure out which way was up. His grip tightened on his sword, and for a moment, he considered trying to fight his evil twin a second time but decided against it. Instead, he called out, “What is it I’m supposed to do?”

“That’s easy!” the Simon-shaped silhouette called back. “Just do the right thing!”

Then, he was gone, and Simon was left there twisting in the wind. He had his sword in his hand but no one to strike with it. His doppelgänger certainly didn’t deserve it. Maybe he did for other things, but not for this. This wasn’t something that Simon could reasonably blame on him. It was a problem of his own making. He hadn’t been thorough enough while he was worrying about the necromancer’s grimoire and trying to keep everyone from killing each other over a pile of gold, and now it was catching up to him. 

“But if I had killed them all, then I would have just unlocked another wave of suffering later…” he said softly to himself as his mind chased itself in circles. After what had happened with Freya, and helping the girls escape, he knew that he should just give up on trying to save everyone. It truly wasn’t his problem. 

All I need to do is make sure I commit no evil, and finish the pit, he tried to tell himself but those words rang hollow. It was what Helades wanted him to do, and worse, it was what his doppelgänger wanted him to do, and while he had a hard time accepting the former, he found accepting the later impossible. 

Simon eventually laid down in his bedroll, but he didn’t sleep. Instead, he just kept going back and forth in an attempt to find a third option, but there was no alternative. If he didn’t intervene, tens of thousands would suffer and die from a spreading wave of undeath, and the course of history would be irrevocably changed, and if he did, then tens of thousands would suffer and die as the arc of history led to a war. 

But there will always be war, he told himself. If that’s the case… if the war is inevitable, then isn’t it the right thing to do to stop the zombies? He’d certainly thought so a few years ago. That was the reason he’d come here. Despite the Oracle's attempt to show him that there was some good in letting the miniature zombie apocalypse play out, he’d come up here to stop it anyway. That had done some evil, too. The civil wars of Brin were likely to continue longer than they would have before. 

“A war from the north might unify them at least,” he said softly, desperately trying to give himself permission to decide one way or the other. 

“Someone always decides who lives and who dies,” he told himself in the early sleepless hours of the morning when he finally got up and packed his things by the light of the setting moon. “Does it really have to be me?”

It was a terrible riddle, and he was sure his doppelgänger meant to show him for a hypocrite. He was supposed to admit that the lives he was protecting down here were greater than the lives of the people to the north, past the mountains and the deserts. He was supposed to let them suffer so that his friends and their descendants could flourish. Simon couldn’t do that, though. To do that, even by inaction, would be to admit that Helades was right about the whole thing. 

Ch. 259 - A Second Conversation

As Simon rode north that morning, he told himself, “This life was supposed to be about solving levels, or at least seeing how things played out without too much interference, Simon. What happened to that?”

He couldn’t give himself a satisfactory answer. He truly wanted to return to the caldera city as he planned. 

Instead, he wondered how he would have felt about the whole thing if his doppelgänger had never told him about this. If he’d lived long enough or gone far enough into the future, he would have figured it out, of course. Would he feel bad about it, though, in the same way he felt bad about not being there for Gregor some lives and letting him get crippled or worse?

It’s not like I can be everywhere at once, he thought with a sigh. 

As he rode north to check on the fort he’d visited the previous month, he tried to imagine what a life like that would look like. If he could figure out every terrible thing was happening above a certain threshold, could he ride around the world and end them all like some sort of superhero? He could layer the events on his map by giving them all a date as well as a location and then zip from monster to injustice, changing it over time as the future changed because of his actions. 

Even the barest outlines of the idea were hopefully confusing, though, and truthfully, it sounded exhausting. “I’d just be inventing a Pit inside the Pit,” he sighed. “I’d be adding a hundred levels to each level, with no real insight into what those changes would cause.”

Ultimately, his morals told him that something like that was the solution, but his intellect told him it was impossible, or very nearly so. If he walked the world for so long that eventually he knew everything that would ever happen and why, he really would be some God. He would have been tempted to say that was the Oracle’s true nature, at least in part, if he hadn’t seen the world briefly through her eyes. 

There’s more to her than that, though, Simon reminded himself. If I could learn how to see the way she does or move the way the dragon did, then I…

Those were fine aspirations, but they were unrealistic. The glimpse of his own aura and the way that things connected certainly hinted that there were powers he could master that went far beyond the words of power, but it seemed unlikely he’d ever equal either of those beings. 

With soul magic, it might be possible to steal that knowledge, his mind told him, but he shut that down immediately. That was the very last thing he was going to do. 

His tempestuous thoughts continued to roil and swirl on the topic for the entirety of his ride north. Deep down, he’d been hoping that his Doppelgänger was just lying to him about the whole thing, but when he saw the gate of the fort part way open and a lightly squirming body on the flagpole, he knew that he’d been telling the truth. The zombies had come this far, which almost certainly meant they’d gone even farther. 

Simon went through the fort, crushing skulls of the maimed bodies that still squirmed and looking for evidence. As he went, it wasn’t hard to see the way all of this had played out in his mind. 

A few soldiers, not aware of the danger, had opened the door for a man scratching ineffectually at the wood, and the biting had started. A few minutes later, there wasn’t one zombie, but several, and even after that first one had been put down where it still lay in the courtyard, violence climbed the slender battlements and ran through the buildings. 

From the amount of blood in the bedrooms, he could only assume this happened at night and that no one had been prepared for the ferocity of it all. That surprised Simon. He’d come to think of the Murani forces as being filled with mages, but maybe that was something that hadn’t happened yet. At the end of the walk, Simon was satisfied with the fact that he understood what had happened and that the threat was real. The question was what he was going to do about it.

He considered that as he gathered the corpses into a pile in the stables. The animals had long since fled, but it was full of hay and feed and would be the best location for a bonfire. He had no plans to break his back, digging so many graves, but he had no desire to leave so many corpses around either. Who knew what sort of evidence a mage would be able to get from them with a little effort. 

“I do not want Murani wielding zombies in their next attack,” he muttered to himself. “Demons were bad enough.”

It was that thought that reminded him about the necromancer’s hand in the saddlebags of his horse. “I could always ask him,” Simon thought aloud. “Maybe there’s an off switch for these abominations. That would be useful.”

Simon didn’t think it was likely, but as a delaying tactic for him to decide what he was going to do about everything else, it was just about right. He had no intention of messing with his own soul, but using the necromancer that had caused so much harm in all of this? That was just about right. 

He closed and locked the gate first, then cooked himself dinner from the fort’s provisions. While he ate, he reviewed the relevant passages in Vaustin’s journal, but there were no surprises. When he was done, he used a charred branch to draw the circle, along with the words of power, the name of the summoned, and all the requisite connecting symbols. Then, when all was in readiness, he sat there, unsure of how to proceed. 

Simon wasn’t sure if he had to speak the words of power himself, but as he set the man’s hand in the center of the ring, that proved to be unnecessary. Before he could say anything at all, the marks that he’d made began to glow now that they had something to anchor their magic to. Does that mean that spirit is both power source and summoned subject? Simon wondered as he watched the faintest shape of the man he’d met once before slowly fade into view. 

He looked much like he had in life, only he was more wretched and emaciated now. Before Simon could ask a question, the man let out a piteous wail. “Nooooooooo!” He moaned. “Release me…”

That made Simon smile, but only a little. He wasn’t one to take pleasure in someone else’s torments, but for someone who’d not only done exactly this to others but who had murdered over a hundred people just to mine gold… well, it seemed just about right. 

“Tell me your name, spirit,” Simon said as a test. 

“You know my name!” it wailed. “I am Vaustin, and you murdered me…”

“I didn’t,” Simon clarified. “But I wish I had. I have three questions for you. Answer them, and you may return to whatever pit you crawled out of.”

“Nooooo, that is much too many… I will answer nothing for you!” the ghost answered. 

It had stabilized a bit more now, and Simon could make out many of the man’s features. It was prowling the circle now, like a nervous cat, looking for some way to escape. Simon hadn’t considered that escape was possible when he’d drawn the thing, but for now, it didn’t seem to be a problem. The man could press against the boundaries, but he couldn’t escape any more than demons could. 

“You suffer because your soul evaporates to power your own prison,” Simon declared, reasonably sure it was true. “You will answer me, or I will leave you here until you are nothing but dust. Now tell me where you learned this spell!”

The shade flinched from the force of Simon’s words. He doubted there was any true compulsion effect, though, in retrospect, he probably could have added one. At least for now, he didn’t seem to need one. “My… Ahhhh, it hurts…my master… Winthrop… he was an alchemist. When he told me about his hidden books, I turned him in to the authorities, but only after I stole his secrets for myself.”

“And did you find what you were looking for?” Simon asked. 

“I wanted the words to turn lead into gold!” the spirit screamed, in agony as much as pain. “I didn’t want to consort with the dead! It’s his fault I ended up this way!”

“It’s no one's fault but your own,” Simon answered. “You were the one that learned to raise the dead. You were the one that—”

“No! I only did what I had to do!” Vaustin’s ghost yelled in its strange, echoey voice. “This isn’t how it was supposed to end!”

“But it’s how it did,” Simon answered. “Now, tell me more about that terrible spell. Is there any way to stop it or cancel it?”

“I… What can done cannot be undone!” the spirit shouted. “Perhaps if you had the original body, but it is long since destroyed! My curse of unlife will spread forever now, in all directions.”

“It’s all but extinguished already,” Simon said with a shake of his head. “I just need to—”

“Impossible!” the spirit shouted. “It will spread forever. No one can stop it!”

Simon ignored the spirit and continued. “The last thing I want to know is what happens after you die.”

“What happens? What Happens?!” it screeched, in panic and confusion. “I drift between life and death, running from the devils that seek to drag me to hell! That is what happens. There is no peace when you die. That is all that any of the men I have ever summoned have said to me! No, let me free before they find me!” 

That didn’t match up with Simon’s experiences at all, but then he hadn’t been an evil mass-murdering son of a bitch. So, it was unlikely they’d have the same sort of death, even with Helades magic involved. 

I wasn’t awful, he reminded himself. I was just pathetic. 

Simon considered asking the ghost more questions, but his suffering seemed real, and he wasn’t a sadist. Rather than continue on, he scratched out the word Eszloum, and the man began to dissipate almost immediately. It took Simon longer to decide which part of the spell should be struck out than it did for the ghost to vanish. 

After Simon dismissed the spirit and that strange cyan glow had faded, he reflected on the moment. “If I used magic to destroy my own soul, would I stay stuck in the Pit, or would I finally be allowed to stay dead?” 

It was an interesting thought, but it no longer mattered. He’d come a long way from the person he’d been at the start, and he no longer wanted to die. Sometimes, he wasn’t even sure he wanted to solve the Pit. He just wanted to save everyone, even if that was an impossibility.