A Ritual of Bone Read online

  ‘I’m sorry master,’ said the apprentice quietly.

  ‘No need,’ Eldrick replied while still scribbling with a large quill.

  ‘It felt different before, Master, when it worked.’ The master stopped writing and looked at him. The apprentice went on, ‘The darkness, it closed in about us, there was a definite energy, a feeling, but not again since. Only…’ He trailed off.

  ‘Speak, boy. Only what?’

  The apprentice hesitated, ‘Well, perhaps it was just me, but I thought I felt it out in the ruin. The night I fell.’

  The master looked at him for a long moment before he spoke, ‘Interesting. Perhaps a manifestation of fear. A reaction of your mind to the darkness on either occasion, but indeed interesting. I shall make a record of your observation.’ The master began writing again.

  Eldrick nodded and said, ‘Indeed, my boy, but never fear. This attempt merely confirmed my suspicion. We will attempt it again shortly, and this time, well, we will see.’

  ***

  The slim crescent of a waning moon now hung low in the darkening sky as another ritual again neared conclusion. As Eldrick droned and chanted, a darkness seemed to shroud around them. All was pitch black and dark beyond the swirling smoke and fire. A terrible chill descended upon the stone ring as the master chanted the verses of rite. The strange words echoed and seemed to whisper on the breeze. The apprentice felt the power and the presence, that same terrible chill.

  The swirling smoke seemed to form terrible faces, surely a trick of light and mind. The apprentice took a sharp breath as the master’s voice, almost shouting, repeated the final phrase. His skin prickled as his hair stood up on end, his heart pounded in his chest, it was happening.

  A skeletal hand jerked up. It began to rise from its slab like a terrible puppet on invisible strings. The apprentice froze, he could not move, his eyes transfixed upon the rising skeleton. Master Eldrick cackled in triumph. ‘Behold,’ he shouted. ‘Ancient one, you have been summoned.’ Its skull slowly swung to regard Eldrick. Ghostly whispers filled the air around them, the voices of many. The skeleton held there a few moments. Then it collapsed with a crunch, bones clattering to the ground. Some shattered to dust on impact. Everyone stood silent eyes on the lifeless bones. An eerie silence descended upon the scene and the air once again became still. The chill passed and the warmth from the torches slowly returned.

  Master Eldrick stood, arms still raised. Logan laughed nervously then said, ‘Well, Eld’ we did it, again, and it was incredible. Incredible.’ He walked to a rock and sat down, shaking his head in disbelief.

  ‘The moon…’ muttered the apprentice to himself.

  Eldrick seemed distant but slowly lowered his arms. His eyes tired, he looked about at their faces, and then made his way to the table. Eldrick leant next to the apprentice, his breathing was heavy. The apprentice went to speak, but no words came. He was awestruck. Eldrick clasped the apprentice’s shoulder and smiled weakly.

  ‘Just one more task now, my friends,’ said Eldrick. Logan threw the old master an inquisitive look. Eldrick did not respond but instead made his way to speak with Truda and sent her off, still bewildered, through the ruins. On what errand the apprentice did not know.

  ‘What are you up to now, old friend?’ Logan enquired but Eldrick waved his question aside and busied himself in his grimoire and the little journal once more, muttering under his breath.

  Truda returned pushing a barrow and as she drew nearer, the apprentice could see, to his horror the grey cold eyes of a bloody cadaver and what appeared to be some other gruesome remnants of Master Eldrick’s anatomical studies. As Truda lifted the dead man onto the altar the apprentice saw the man seemed to have been cut in two and had no legs, just a gory torso, its lower half bound in blood-soaked bandage. The apprentice stared at the corpse unable to avert his eyes for long before a repulsive and morbid urge brought his gaze back.

  ‘Eld! What is this?’ demanded Logan as Truda brought forth what appeared to be a severed head, its blank eyes staring off into the smoke. She lifted it by its hair and placed it alongside the torso on the bone adorned altar.

  ‘It is part of my study regarding the ritual, Logan,’ replied Eldrick casually.

  ‘You are intending to attempt the ritual on that?’ said Logan, appalled as he pointed to the remains occupying the altar.

  ‘Exactly,’ replied Eldrick.

  ‘But Eld, we cannot, we should not attempt this,’ insisted Logan.

  Eldrick grunted and waved a dismissing hand at him.

  Logan persisted, ‘The Bone Ritual is done, it is finished,’ he paused, ‘and upon witnessing it again, I have no doubt it is a mystery of awesome power. It is undeniable. Yet, it is wholly unnatural and…and the very essence of nightmares. This is a fell thing you are toying with, Eldrick. We should not.’

  Truda had paused but Master Eldrick waved her on to continue. Master Logan again objected but Eldrick cut in angrily, ‘It needs to be tried. I must know.’ Eldrick calmed himself and continued, ‘I intend to try my variation of the ritual. Using the secret arts of the Bone Ritual I hope to summon a spirit back to its former vessel in much the same manner and revive someone long dead.’

  Logan shook his head in disbelief.

  ‘Do you not see, Logan? It would be a great discovery, greater even than the Bone Ritual. This is the power to cheat the gods of death themselves. Imagine the people we could save with this, all that we could learn through this.’

  Logan looked troubled, and then spoke, ‘Old Night or whatever god commands these spirits, will not appreciate you stealing the souls back to this world. What wrath will you bring upon us?’

  Eldrick laughed. ‘You do not know that, Logan. And what gods? Truly, if they even exist, I have seen little evidence in all my studies and it is something I have studied in depth.’

  Logan did not reply, his was brow furrowed in thought.

  ‘Do you not at least think it should be tried?’ exclaimed Eldrick in frustration at what he saw as his colleague’s lack of vision. ‘If we don’t, it is only a matter of time before someone uses my work to try it. I will not have people say I didn’t explore every possibility.’

  Logan’s eyes moved to the grim altar his apprentice was still arranging.

  ‘This is dark meddling, my old friend. Secrets best left to the gods. Do your ritual. I will have no part in it. I will observe with the lad, but I warn you, we should not dabble in such black arts.’

  ‘Do as you will,’ said Eldrick with a flash of anger in his voice. Logan turned to Truda and said, ‘You walk in peril, lass, but do as you will. I will not forbid it.’ Truda shrugged and continued at her work.

  Master Logan scowled and sat down against the standing stone nearest the apprentice, their eyes met, but he didn’t speak. Logan sat silently against the old stone, his face perturbed and distant.

  The apprentice thought better than to disturb him, instead his eyes were drawn to the grizzly endeavours of his master and Truda around the altar. The master was busy drawing great circular symbols on the floor around the stones, each bearing more of the strange runes and writings familiar to the apprentice from his study of his master’s work on the Bone Ritual.

  Eldrick then joined Truda at the altar and using the blade of the long twisted ritual dagger, they began carving more strange arcane glyphs into the skin and face of the dismembered dead man.

  The markings had been previously made on the bones with charcoals, the apprentice had spent much time over the past weeks at that very task. Eventually the decaying skin was covered in markings which the apprentice recognised as those used to bind a spirit back into its bones so it may rise once again.

  Master Logan looked on without word as Eldrick began.

  There was much chanting in an eldritch tongue as the master and Truda prepared. The master raised his arms to the sky. The apprentice noted the moon creeping over the great standing stones that encircled the top of the hill. The moon cast little light and
was just a thin sliver in the dark sky. The black moon would rise the following night he was sure.

  The master’s droning voice echoed amongst the stones as that familiar darkness again enveloped them, consuming the diminishing light of the flaming torches. A gust of wind sent the smoke from the torches swirling off into the night. The apprentice felt the hairs of his neck prickle up as a chill draft swept in around the stones. He could hear the return of faint whispers on the wind. The master was calling the dead, and they were here.

  The master’s voice rose to a commanding shout as again the ritual came to its zenith. The hound started barking and howling. The beast lay low in the grass baring its fangs at the encroaching darkness. They all stood, breath held in anticipation. The apprentice could feel the chill breath of the restless dead turning his skin to goose flesh and worse, he could feel their unseen eyes watching him, eyes full of spite.

  A malign presence assailed the apprentice. He clutched at the wooden idol hung at his neck, his resolve faltered as the resentful shades stole not only his life’s warmth but seemed to draw and devour his very will into the whispering darkness around him.

  There was a sudden gasp from Truda. All eyes turned to her. Truda’s stare was fixed on the altar she stood over. Logan rose and approached but suddenly stopped and took a step back, his attention fixed on what he saw there. The apprentice could not see clearly through the smoke and using Logan’s walking staff painfully raised himself to his feet. He steadied himself against the standing stone before slowly limping over to discover what wondrous horror beguiled them. The hound was still howling and barking wildly as the apprentice passed.

  A ghastly shriek pierced the gloom and echoed amongst the stones. The apprentice startled, he stumbled and fell as he tried to turn to face the noise that appeared to come from all around him. A great surge of pain exploded from his foot as he lay stricken. He cried out in pain, but Truda and Eldrick just stood there transfixed. The master still stood with his arms raised. His eyes seemed dark and distant. Another blood curdling shriek pierced the night.

  Logan looked around, his eyes searching for the source of the sound. He froze in terror as he eyes fell onto the disembodied head perched amongst the candles and skulls of the altar. Its dead eyes were staring off away from Logan, its face was hidden facing the other way towards Eldrick. Yet Eldrick stood with his arms still raised his eyes seemed darkened, almost black. Logan was shocked to notice his fellow master seemed to look through him, his expression was vacant, and he had a twisted smile across his aged face.

  Another shrill shriek from the altar. Logan seized the severed head by its blood matted hair and raised it up so he could look into its face. The dead man’s pallid skin had been cut deep with the arcane runes that now covered its staring face. The mouth gaped open. Just a dead man’s head. Logan had seen worse. The mouth suddenly snapped shut and its dark eyes rolled up at the master. It snapped its exposed teeth at his face and screeched again. Logan dropped it in horror. He kicked it hard. The head tumbled away, still shrieking, falling down into the darkened ruins below. He heard another terrible scream, but not from the dismembered head. This was a voice he knew.

  CHAPTER Seven

  Revenant

  The dead man’s chest seemed to rise and it slowly turned its head. The lifeless eyes full of malice and sheathed in darkness stared straight at the apprentice. One arm jerked up and slammed down grasping the altars edge. Not taking its dark eyes off the apprentice, it brought its other arm up and dragged itself onto the ground. Clawing at the earth with its long, animated fingers, it dragged itself towards him.

  The apprentice was petrified like the stones that stood silent around him. He could not move or take his eyes off the grasping torso slowly pulling itself ever nearer. The pain in his foot was intense all he could do was scream. The bandage around the dead man’s waist slid away as it clawed through the earth. A putrid coil of entrails spilled out and trailed behind it in the dirt, still it drew closer. Its eyes full of malice and intent, snapping its gaping teeth together biting at the swirling smoke.

  The apprentice screamed again. Still unable to move a hysteria of fear set in. He looked again for help from his master, but he and Truda still just stood there. The dead man seized his good foot with a terrible vice like grip and tried to drag the apprentice closer. The apprentice wildly kicked and struggled, but he could not release its iron grip. Pain exploded up his broken leg as he thrashed for freedom. The dead man seemed to snarl and wheeze as it snapped its teeth and with a terrible strength slowly pulled the apprentice’s leg into its snapping maw.

  Logan leaped forward and drove the altar dagger into the clawing torso until it bit into the earth underneath it. The dagger had no effect, the thing hardly noticed, it just continued dragging the apprentice closer. He then pulled the shaft free of the rotting muscle and bones and drove its long thin twisted blade smoothly through the back of the dead man’s skull.

  The steel point protruded through the thing’s open mouth, reddened with congealed blood and gore. The iron grip lessened and the body trembled and fell limp into the cold earth. Logan pulled the dagger free and looked at the shaking apprentice. The apprentice stared off through the smoke, his eyes seemed lost. He just lay on the floor shaking and whimpering.

  Eldrick slowly lowered his arms but still just stood there. Truda had her hands on her face in disbelief but then she ran to Eldrick. ‘We did it,’ cried Truda. ‘You did it master.’

  His voice shaky, but excited. The terror somehow already forgotten replaced an almost hysterical excitement. Master Eldrick turned to her and placed an aged hand on the young apprentice’s shoulder with that same twisted smile still on his face.

  The stricken apprentice was not so excited. He felt cold and couldn’t stop himself shaking; he just lay there his eyes wide, still unable to speak.

  ‘You call that success,’ roared Logan.

  The smile dropped from Truda’s face.

  ‘You summon back fell creatures from the dead. You lost control, it attacked the lad, did you not see?’ thundered Logan, his expression full of anger.

  ‘I did not lose control, Master Logan,’ snapped Eldrick. ‘The boy is unharmed. You dealt with the problem. When exactly did I lose control?’

  Logan was taken aback by the sudden spiteful change in his old colleague. ‘You’re losing your mind if you cannot see the peril of your endeavours, my old friend. Can you not see yourself, this is evil?’ Logan looked around at his companions. ‘The living should not use the dead as playthings to summon like puppets at your command.’

  Master Eldrick turned to Logan his voice calmer.

  ‘My mind is as sound as ever Logan, it was indeed unexpected. Who could have guessed what was going to happen, but the situation did not get too out of hand.’

  Logan shook his head, ‘Too out of hand…’ he muttered. He threw up his hands in frustration and stalked away angrily.

  ***

  The apprentice spoke little on the return journey to the camp. He just lay shaking and muttering in the back of the cart. Logan had long since walked on ahead trailed by his great hound. Truda busied herself throwing the bodies off into the burial pits with the other remains of the discarded subjects of Eldrick’s experiments.

  They departed the summit leaving the torches to burn out. The apprentice lay in shock, his mind on the edge of a dark precipice. It took all his remaining will to keep his sanity from forever plunging into that dark abyss, never to return to him. Perhaps it was his stretched and shattered nerves, perhaps not. But as the cart painfully bumped and jolted back down along the winding track towards the camp, the apprentice swore he heard that terrible shriek once again, echoing amongst the stones and gnarled trees of the surrounding ruin. He shuddered and sank down low into the cart.

  The following morning the apprentice was still mostly silent and distant. The master let him slowly pack his possessions before his long return journey to the College. He often seemed to pause and stare
off into the trees and mossy stones. The apprentice could not stop thinking about the previous night, about the clutching hands and evil black eyes.

  Master Logan had spent many hours at council with Master Eldrick upon their return. They spent most of the night shut away in Eldrick’s tent. They talked until the morning and at times it had become heated. The apprentice had heard their raised voices in the dark hours while he huddled in his blankets trying to sleep.

  Before midday another cart rolled up along the track and into the campsite. At the reins was a grim looking man wearing thick heavy leather over his clothes. He had a long dirk hung at his side; one of the hired swords. The apprentice had seen little of the hired swords since their arrival. Even on the long journey here, they had spoken to the hired men very little, only giving them nervous glances as they rode past the carts and receiving back only icy stares before kicking their horses on ahead. Only Logan seemed at ease in their presence and it was Logan who strode out to meet him. The man got down from his perch at the reins of the cart and met Logan with a nod. They spoke for a short time, and then the man turned and made his way back down the track disappearing off into the trees.

  Truda was given the task of loading the cart for the journey. Logan and the master were checking through the apprentice’s work from the previous day. They checked through the reports and finds that they were sending back, ensuring all was to their liking and nothing forgotten. Both masters had other parchments and scrolls, letters, and messages to be delivered by the apprentice upon his return. The fragile parchments and books were wrapped in waxed linen and stowed in sturdy wooden cases which they tied down and covered in skins to keep the rain off.