Page 14 of The Lich's Leverage

“Just promise me, if it happens and you can’t find a way out, you will go to the infirmary. There will be a broken window you can climb out of.”

I nodded, my breathing growing more shallow and rapid. Thoughts of my friends ran through my head.

“Let me help?”

“Okay.”

It still felt wrong, letting someone help me like this. But life was so much easier and less exhausting without anxiety. I felt him reach inside me. It was like being too full for a moment and then deflating. My whole body emptied and my mind suddenly shut up. I was calm again.

“Thank you.”

“I meant what I said. As often as you like. If it sets your mind at ease it helps me too.”

It did make me feel better and it frightened me a bit that he seemed to know me so well already. I felt tears prick at my eyes. This could be so wonderful. Was I going to have to make the choice between giving it up or betraying my own morals?

“Love?”

“I just need to know. What you did and why.”

I couldn’t hold the tears back anymore. They fell freely down my face and onto our joined hands. I felt like I was going to break into a million pieces.

“I had a friend. Darina. We met as children. She was my best friend. We vowed to be best friends forever and do anything for each other. Kids’ stuff, I suppose. We played, adventured. Nearly got ourselves killed a dozen times over fancying ourselves hunters and explorers. We grew up together. Then when she was of age, her family married her off to a man from a different village. It wasn’t what she wanted. But times were different then.”

I could see the pain in his eyes and squeezed his hand.

“We kept in touch, and her letters became more and more filled with fear. This man had turned out to be a mage. And he was not a good person. She had children by then and they all witnessed his rage and the evil he committed. She could not escape, he would just find her and turn all that evil on her and the children. But eventually he began to turn on them anyway. She ran out of desperation. It was even worse than she had feared. He vowed to kill her, their children she had taken, and to wipe out her family line entirely. Her parents, siblings, nieces and nephews. He started to make good on his word.”

“Dear gods.”

“So I found the necessary rites and turned myself into something that could defeat him. An undead mage. One he couldn’t stop or kill. I placed my soul into her family locket and buried it far away. Then I hunted him down and killed him.”

“You gave up your own human life to protect her and her family.”

“Yes. I don’t regret that.”

“And the person you….”

I couldn’t bring myself to say the words.

“Killed to become a lich?”

I nodded, my throat feeling thick.

“A sick man. He had a plague, I think. I like to tell myself I did him a kindness, but I’m not sure he thought of it that way. People will retain the hope of life even when it is impossible.”

“But it was a trolley problem. One to save many.”

“Yes. But it didn’t end there.”

He looked tired despite having just fed on my anxiety.

“How do you mean?”

“The mage had other children, and they took up his cause. I hadn’t known about them. Once they were old enough they tried to continue what he started. I have spent most of the past century defending Darina and her descendants. A few years ago I finally killed the last of the mages’ own descendants and put an end to the vow for good.”

“You must be relieved.”

“Yes, in most ways. But also it had been my purpose and what drove me. What kept me sane in the face of losing my own life. Now I must reckon with all that has happened and try to live with the memories of what I’ve seen and done. I had to hurt people to survive. At some point along the way I learned to take without killing, but it didn’t happen immediately. I have been trying to balance the cost of lives taken to lives saved for a long time.”

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