Page 16 of Envious Of Fire
To Owe a Debt to Death.
—·—
The first thing to know about Mance is, he’s the fucking worst.
Raya steps over a crack in the floor with disgust, footsteps echoing all around the cramped, musky underground hall from her spike heels. “Tell me ‘Mance’ isn’t his real name.”
Most of the…practitioners of preternatural arts, we’ll call them…never use their birth names.
“Why don’t we call him what he is? Necromancer, isn’t it?”
He despises labels unless they suit him in conversation.Also, that term is outdated, as well as deeply controversial to other practitioners of more…respectable arts, we’ll say…who believe the term is—
“Why are we going through all this trouble at all? Cannot our ever-so-talented Lord of Vegasyn simply create an illusion of this dead mortal Brock to convince the humans he’s alive?”
Alas, even Markadian’s gift has its limits.An illusion of a person that is both convincing and sustainable is not possible.One tiny error, and the whole illusion falls apart.Also, Markadian is lazy.
“You could have just led with the lazy bit.”
When Tristan and Raya turn the corner, the hall opens to a corridor with large tanks, pipes, and electrical conduits along the walls. The two continue onward as quickly as they can manage.
“Are we nearly there, Tristan? I didn’t realize we would be skittering like sewer rats through this revolting maze of tunnelsno one has touched in years. My heels are becomingsticky.”
Commuting through the underbelly of Las Vegas is a necessary evil. Tristan then proceeds with his warnings.When we meet him, you must resist your urge to talk back to him, even though you will deeply desire to.He is quite temperamental and easily annoyed.
“I need a beer.”
We will be back before sunrise, my queen, and will go up to my tower together to empty all the cans you wish until dawn.
“I regret each and every one of your errands.”
And I thank you for joining me nonetheless.By the way, do keep your hands visible at all times.He is not very trusting, either.
“Does he have a single redeemable quality?”
Yes. He is immeasurably lecherous with terrible taste in fashion.
“You are insufferable, Tristan.”
Also, I heard he killed his parents in cold blood, then resurrected them to do his bidding, all at the ripe age of sixteen.Of course, these are mere rumors, and I don’t know how much weight they hold…
“Everyone knows true resurrection doesn’t exist,” groans Raya with a loathsome sigh. “Like time travel and anti-aging cream, it’s fiction. Are you sure this Mance is not a fraud?”
One cannot be too sure of anything in these trying times.
“And remind me why we cannot tell Lord Markadian about this? Shouldn’t he know what we’re doing?”
Before Tristan can answer, his foot taps into something.
A wineglass. It tips over, spills red.
Tristan stops, flings his arm to the side at once, holding back Raya. She frowns at him. “What’re you—?”
I suspect I just…activated something.
The spilled wine creeps slowly down the hall like one longfinger, then two, then one again, a thin red stream. Tristan and Raya remain absolutely still, watching. The stream of wine ends at the base of a white unlit candle neither of them noticed was there, sitting in the hall with no seeming purpose in the world.
The candle lights up at once.
