Today Henry died.

He fell from the acolyte tower. The one over by the gardens. It’s a good 150 ft from where he slipped on the ice and went over the rail. The healers just shook their heads when they got there. Nothing to be done they said. Beyond our care.

—

I tried to wake Henry up in his room today before I remembered he was gone. His body is down in the morgue, being prepared takes 7 days before they can bury him. I can’t think straight, he was never gone before. Why is he gone now?

—

Henry has been gone for a month. I was removed from the enchanting circle today. I couldn’t say the chat right. I kept having intrusive thoughts on how stupid it was that he died. Stupid ice. Stupid tower. They shouldn’t let the rails be so low. The ice should have been melted. I’m going to go talk to the arch-mage right now. Make sure that the right enchantments are placed and maintained. Forever.

—

I have become consumed with Henry. Thoughts of him plague my sleep. I have to talk to him. He could always understand me. We were to grow old side by side. Our families were to intertwine. His daughter was to marry my son. My name was better he said.

I’m not supposed to study the dark works. They said you never got back what you put in. I don’t care. Henry will help me. Henry will come back. Henry…

—

I completed the ritual today. Henry lies next to me as I put a ward here, a token there. At midnight he will arise.

—

The stroke of midnight has just sounded. I watched Henry go from slack and unresponsive to alert and attentive. I rejoiced and said his name. Henry’s head snapped to my voice, but it wasn’t Henry that answered. What answered screamed and leapt from the table. It raked my face tearing an eye out. I…I ran from the room. I slammed the door behind me and now I strain to keep the door closed while Henry attempts to be with me once more.

Good Things Must Come

The room warped and twisted as the fingers of maroon lightning flashed across the stone chamber, vaporizing all that they touch and the air was thick with the stench of death. Thiedreth braced against the unnatural gale, the tip of his mighty blade buried deep in the floor providing salvation against the threat. Tyunnir laughed wildly in the center of the room, whooping with a mirth none of the Kings warriors had ever heard from the sorcerer before. The blood red stone that floated in front of him cast an eerie light as it spun, and beneath it, a crack in the air had begun to form.

Thiedreth called to his team, but none returned his call. They had all been felled in the battle that led to this Chaos, and he now knew he was acting alone. Tyunnir reached out to the crack as it widened, shouting more arcane summons to the land of the dead, and the dead took notice.

A skeletal hand wormed through the crack, which was now at least a foot wide. When it made contact with Tyunnir’s gnarled fingers it began to change, rapidly growing muscle over bone, then skin over that. The crack began ripping the air at an alarming rate allowing more of the skeletal form enter the realm of the living. The light from the unholy portal grew brighter and began to block Thiedreth’s view. He had one chance to end this mess once and for all. In a single move, he wrenched his blade from the floor and flung it in the direction of the necromancer, praying that it would fly true.

A dull thud accompanied the blade reaching its mark. Slowly, the rift began to mend itself, and the light started to fade. When at last his vision cleared, Thiedreth laid his eyes on the scene before him. Tyunnir knelt over the form that had entered from the world beyond. The great blade stuck from his back, rising and falling with each of his increasingly ragged breaths. The form in his arms stirred, then spoke in a weak whisper.

“Tyunnir?”

The sorcerer took a moment to find the air needed to speak. “At last Jiorfa, you’ve returned to me”. He rasped out each word slowly, with a great deal of pain in his voice. “Run from this place before they can gather their wits, my old friend”. A cough rang through the room, wet with blood. “The heroes of this world will never understand what I’ve done here today”.

Thiedreth watched as the sorcerer finally collapsed. The form of the man he had been covering, Jiorfa, sat up, looking over his friend for a moment before locking eyes with the warrior. Tears were streaming down his face. Thiedreth began to stir from his place on the ground, breaking eye contact to look for another weapon, but by the time he looked back up, Jiorfa was gone.

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