Child of the Ghosts by Jonathan Moeller

into death. Yet still he lived. He breathed, walked alive under the sun. He had conquered death, by his own skill and power.
    He had become immortal. 
    His smile thinned.
    Almost immortal.
    For he could still be killed. His spirit was anchored to his body of flesh and bone. His mastery of necromancy conquered aging, kept disease at bay…yet he still could be slain. A foe of sufficient power, of sufficient skill, could kill him. 
    Or a lesser foe could simply get lucky. There was such a thing as mischance. 
    And Maglarion had enemies. Rival sorcerers, for one. And the Ghosts, the Emperor’s pet spies and assassins. They had hunted him for centuries, and he had littered his path with their dead. But sooner or later, some enemy would get lucky, and Maglarion would die.
    Unless, of course, he found the path of true immortality. A way to transcend the flesh itself, forever. 
    And here, in Aretia, he had found the way at last.
    Maglarion stopped, took a moment to savor the energy of death crackling around him. He didn’t need it, not yet. But he would, very soon. 
    How ironic that the secret to everlasting life lay in such a vast quantity of death. 
    Chuckling to himself, he continued up the path to the ruined villa. No doubt the aspiring necromancers desired a new lesson. Well, he would give it to them. Laeria Amalas’s little daughter still had some blood in her. Maglarion could wring some more use out of her, until he fed her death into his growing bloodcrystal. 
    Ikhana waited for him in the ruined villa, a darker shadow among the crumbled walls.
    “Ikhana, my dear,” said Maglarion, leaning upon his cane. “So good to see you this night.” 
    Her expression, as usual, did not change, but her fingers strayed to the black dagger at her belt. 
    He had first met her…two hundred years ago, was it? She had once been an ambitious young assassin of the Kindred. She thought to seduce him, to lure him to her bed and cut his throat as he slumbered. 
    Instead, he had enslaved her.
    The black dagger had been one of Maglarion’s early creations. It allowed Ikhana to steal the life force of her victims, to heal her wounds, to make her younger and stronger. But as it happened, stolen life force was more addictive than any liquor, any drug…and the dagger only functioned at Maglarion’s command.
    Ikhana had not tried to rebel against him for almost a century now. 
    He wondered if it even occurred to her to try any more. 
    “The guards,” said Ikhana. “They are missing from their posts.”
    “Perhaps they went to town, to tumble a few fishermen’s wives,” said Maglarion. 
    “No,” said Ikhana, voice flat. “I commanded them to stand guard. They would not disobey me.”
    That was true. Ikhana had that effect on people. Maglarion found her most useful for inspiring loyalty in his various hirelings. He closed his right eye, his eye of flesh, and looked through his left eye. Again he saw the energy of death simmering around him, fresh and potent.
    A great many people had died here. Recently.
    “There,” said Maglarion, opening his right eye once more. “And there. You’ll find them both behind that wall.”
    Ikhana stalked to the ruined wall, black dagger in hand. Maglarion followed, his cane scraping against the rocky ground. He saw two Istarish slavers lying sprawled against the earth, their bodies concealed by the wall. 
    Their throats had been cut.
    Expertly.
    Maglarion had cut a lot of throats in his time, and he knew skill when he saw it. 
    He supposed his lair must have been attacked during his absence.
    Had he been here, things would have gone rather…differently. 
    “We have been betrayed,” hissed Ikhana. Her face remained expressionless, but rage burned in her voice, and the black dagger glittered like a serpent’s fang in her grasp. “The slavers have sold us to the Ghosts. Or one of your useless students panicked, and went to the Ghosts in exchange for clemency.” 
    Maglarion shrugged.