in proper clothes) writing about such profane business, like seeing a child readying to perform an autopsy.
As Alice had promised, there were many books about, and few of them seemed to be in English. Many looked to be linguistic crossbreeds, to the point where the author could not constrain themselves to a single tongue, even when composing the spine. They were dusty and worn, as anyone expects of piles of old books, but there was something genuinely unsettling about seeing the work of so many deviants and murderers piled up, sorted, and catalogued. Some hung open, and Gilbert was torn between the desire to shut them and revulsion at the thought of touching them at all.
The interview dragged on into the night. After some hours it became clear to the men that Gilbert was not going to pounce on Alice and devour her. They became restless and wearied of the uncanny talk. Eventually most of them retired back to the barracks. The sorcery circle, at any rate, seemed to be enough of a cage that they could leave the room without worry.
Gilbert had expected that the process would begin with strange symbols and signs and horrifying magics, but it turned out that her investigation was every bit as mind-numbing as his morbid imprisonment. She asked him many questions about what his health was like before he died, how old he was, and if he had ever dabbled in any sort of witchcraft. The conversation impressed upon him what a completely mundane and uninteresting fellow he was, aside from his being unusually tall and deceased.
At length she left him alone and turned her attention to the book. She busied herself making tracings and copies of certain material that she found interesting. Once in a long while she would consult one of the other books in the room to find the meaning of obscure words or ideas. Gilbert had nothing to do during this time. He eventually requested a chair be brought into his circle so that he wouldn’t feel so much like he was loitering. He felt like a man whose physician had abandoned him in the middle of the examination in order to finish medical school.
“So what have we learned?” Gilbert asked after an hour of listening to rain splatter against the windows and Alice’s pen scratch against the paper.
She stretched and rubbed her neck, “Little. The bulk of this book - the book we found in your tomb - is a simple translation of an already-familiar book. I have another copy on the shelf behind you, although the handwriting in this one is superior and the diagrams are more carefully reproduced. Then here,” she put a finger in the book, indicating a spot slightly past the halfway point, “it stops being a reproduction and matures into a work of its own. The author - who is likely Lord Mordaunt, but not for certain - has begun exploring different ways to use, extract, and store vigor. You said that your friend admitted to being capable of performing a revivification on a dog. That’s this page.” She held up the book and showed him a wheel of symbols drawn around a skull, which he assumed belonged to a dog. “Your friend’s perception of it was incomplete. The full experiment is to slay a dog, capture the vigor, and then use the vigor to revive the dog as an abomination. It’s an exercise, to test the magic before trying it on more costly subjects.”
“But to what end? What’s all this nasty business for?” Gilbert asked.
“The aim of Lord Mordaunt was, I’m sure, to become a lich, an unliving wizard. I’m sure you’ve noticed the advantage of being dead?”
“I don’t know that I would call anything I’ve experienced an advantage.”
“Well, you’ve been stabbed several times without harm. Getting stabbed with swords is a wizard’s chief fear. Particularly swords owned by the church.”
He thought back to the night he was captured, and how she had thrown fire at him. “That reminds me. How is it that a member of the Witch Watch is both a sorceress and a wizard?”
“Do not
As Alice had promised, there were many books about, and few of them seemed to be in English. Many looked to be linguistic crossbreeds, to the point where the author could not constrain themselves to a single tongue, even when composing the spine. They were dusty and worn, as anyone expects of piles of old books, but there was something genuinely unsettling about seeing the work of so many deviants and murderers piled up, sorted, and catalogued. Some hung open, and Gilbert was torn between the desire to shut them and revulsion at the thought of touching them at all.
The interview dragged on into the night. After some hours it became clear to the men that Gilbert was not going to pounce on Alice and devour her. They became restless and wearied of the uncanny talk. Eventually most of them retired back to the barracks. The sorcery circle, at any rate, seemed to be enough of a cage that they could leave the room without worry.
Gilbert had expected that the process would begin with strange symbols and signs and horrifying magics, but it turned out that her investigation was every bit as mind-numbing as his morbid imprisonment. She asked him many questions about what his health was like before he died, how old he was, and if he had ever dabbled in any sort of witchcraft. The conversation impressed upon him what a completely mundane and uninteresting fellow he was, aside from his being unusually tall and deceased.
At length she left him alone and turned her attention to the book. She busied herself making tracings and copies of certain material that she found interesting. Once in a long while she would consult one of the other books in the room to find the meaning of obscure words or ideas. Gilbert had nothing to do during this time. He eventually requested a chair be brought into his circle so that he wouldn’t feel so much like he was loitering. He felt like a man whose physician had abandoned him in the middle of the examination in order to finish medical school.
“So what have we learned?” Gilbert asked after an hour of listening to rain splatter against the windows and Alice’s pen scratch against the paper.
She stretched and rubbed her neck, “Little. The bulk of this book - the book we found in your tomb - is a simple translation of an already-familiar book. I have another copy on the shelf behind you, although the handwriting in this one is superior and the diagrams are more carefully reproduced. Then here,” she put a finger in the book, indicating a spot slightly past the halfway point, “it stops being a reproduction and matures into a work of its own. The author - who is likely Lord Mordaunt, but not for certain - has begun exploring different ways to use, extract, and store vigor. You said that your friend admitted to being capable of performing a revivification on a dog. That’s this page.” She held up the book and showed him a wheel of symbols drawn around a skull, which he assumed belonged to a dog. “Your friend’s perception of it was incomplete. The full experiment is to slay a dog, capture the vigor, and then use the vigor to revive the dog as an abomination. It’s an exercise, to test the magic before trying it on more costly subjects.”
“But to what end? What’s all this nasty business for?” Gilbert asked.
“The aim of Lord Mordaunt was, I’m sure, to become a lich, an unliving wizard. I’m sure you’ve noticed the advantage of being dead?”
“I don’t know that I would call anything I’ve experienced an advantage.”
“Well, you’ve been stabbed several times without harm. Getting stabbed with swords is a wizard’s chief fear. Particularly swords owned by the church.”
He thought back to the night he was captured, and how she had thrown fire at him. “That reminds me. How is it that a member of the Witch Watch is both a sorceress and a wizard?”
“Do not
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