Honesty to a VultureGideon P. Smith
5000 words Gerard stared into the man’s terrified eyes. Even the frigidity of the woodshed and the scent of fresh-cut kindling couldn’t hide the rankness of slowly rotting flesh. “You didn’t tell me he was decapitated.” “He stole half the village’s money. What difference does it make how we killed him? Dead in’ he?” The alderman adjusted his black cap and stood back expectantly, arms crossed over his chest. “Just bring him back to life.” “I reanimate the dead, not pieces of them,” Gerard said. “And headless bodies can’t speak, so it would do you no good.” The alderman looked from the head to Gerard, a perplexed expression on his face. “So you can’t do it?” He could. “No.” The old man’s face twisted in frustration. “Well, the body’s over there.” He pointed to a rough canvas sheet covering a misshapen form. “Just sew him back together.” “I’m a necromancer. Not a seamstress.” “Can’t be the first dead person that’s been in pieces. Have you never had to deal with this before?” Gerard crinkled his brow, trying to block the memory. Leticia. His wife. Head severed and left in a ditch. Their daughter, Hannah, laid beside her. Skin cold. They say magic comes to those in extreme pain. The pain forces their soul to pierce the barrier to magic, enabling them to fulfill some extreme need. And his need had been as gaping a wound as Leticia’s own. He’d cradled their broken bodies in his arms. He’d have given anything to be able to speak to them, to comfort them. Or to find out who had done this, so that he could have justice. And one moment he was just an ordinary man. Broken. But ordinary. The next, he’d felt the first pulse of magic. Leticia’s eyes popped open. Dark congealed blood spurted from her severed carotids, her corpse spluttering, drowning in its own secretions. She’d died again right there in his arms five minutes later. Uncomforted. Unable to speak. He’d never got the answers he so desperately needed. “Yes. And that’s why I won’t do it again.” “Well, we can’t pay you then,” the alderman said, as if this threat might change his mind. Gerard tried to check his anger. He’d only taken this job because he was desperate. He’d known the moment this grimy man first shook his hand he’d try not to pay. But it had been a slow winter. “I have to eat. The omission of the body's state was your fault, and I’ve traveled a day to get here.” “And what good has it done us?” The old man ripped the canvas sheet back to reveal the rest of the body, bloody and twisted. “Unless you want to try sewing the head back on?” “No.” Gerard gathered up his possessions. This was a waste of time. He suspected they had no money to give him other than what the dead man had hidden anyway, so there was no point staying or arguing. “I haven’t performed the ritual. We’ll agree you owe me nothing.” The old man spat on the floor. “Without that money, we’ll die in poverty this winter because of you.” Gerard shook his head. “Maybe you should have found out where he hid it before you killed him, then.” Never gratitude. Just morose suspicion when he succeeded. And then, this. Hatred when he did not. “Get out of here.” Gerard headed to the door. “Vulture.” The alderman spat the word at his back as the door closed. The old epithet. Vultures. They lived off the dead. But even vultures have a purpose. Gerard shouldered his backpack and headed on. *** The storm had roiled across the high moor in minutes. The rain was almost horizontal, and Gerard’s necromancer’s cape, lined with black crow’s feathers, flapped in the wind behind him like a sail, dragging him backward. Struggling to keep his balance he stumbled over something by the roadside. A man. Gerard knelt and felt the neck for a pulse. Nothing. But the body was still warm, and the blood still pooled in the rainwater. Recently killed. Gerard drew his short knife. It was a dismal place. Perfect for highwaymen. No one would hear their victim’s screams or come to rescue. Gerard didn’t plan on being next. For a moment he considered heading back the way he’d come, and then he heard a woman scream. Edging up to the next rise, he spied a giant red tent. A highwayman in ragged soldier’s garb was dragging a woman out into the rain. A young boy, half the man’s size, ran screaming after them, wildly waving a wooden stave, but the highwayman cuffed him hard and the boy fell. A second man was loading goods from the tent into his horse’s saddlebags. Gerard left the path, slowly circling behind the campsite, the smell of bracken breaking underfoot. His years in the militia had taught him that one man never won a fight against two. He needed to take them one at a time. He heard movement inside the tent and lifting the thick, heavy canvas, Gerard silently slipped inside. One of the men sat at a roaring fire, his back to Gerard. He was focused on skinning a rabbit. For a moment, Gerard considered slipping back out. As used to the dead as he was in his work, he hadn’t killed a man in years. And killing one from behind, without giving a chance of redemption, was surely a sin. And then he heard the woman’s scream again. He wondered if anyone heard Leticia’s screams, but done nothing. Or Hannah’s. The thought pushed him forward. He crept closer till he smelled the man’s sour body odor. Then, jumping forward, he grabbed the man across the mouth with his left hand and drew his blade smartly across his neck with the right. It bit deep. Warm blood cascaded in spurts over Gerard’s hand. He waited till the man went heavy. Leaving the body, Gerard peered out from the tent. The other robber was busy strapping saddle bags on the horses. Close, but not close enough. The woman was at his feet, huddled protectively over the boy, soaked and bloodied, her traveling clothes ripped and hanging from her shoulder. I’ve got to get closer without him realizing. Gerard slipped off his necromancer’s cloak and pulled the waxen coat and hat off the man he just killed. Keeping his head down, so that the brim of the hat obscured his face, Gerard stepped out into the rain. “That rabbit ready?” the ruffian said, not looking toward him. Gerard didn’t answer, but strode as quickly as he dared toward the man. Drawing his short sword from beneath the coat, Gerard thrust. The horse shied, pulling the highwayman out of harm's way. “So, there’s another one of you,” the man said, unsheathing his own short-sword. “I don’t want to hurt you,” Gerard said. “Why don’t you just take what you’ve stolen and be on your way?” “Kef!” the man shouted towards the tent. “He can’t hear you anymore,” Gerard said. “You killed my brother…” It was less a question and more an accusation. The robber lurched forward on a wave of indignant rage. Gerard parried and was forced back by the strength of the attack, but the man’s swordplay was the repetitive and predictable hacking of an amateur, and his rage made him careless. As he raised his sword to swing again, Gerard stepped forward, thrusting his own sword deep into the man's axilla. The man let out a breathy screech, grasping at the blade as if amazed to find it there in his armpit. He stood, suspended for a moment, before keeling back to land with a sodden thud against the ground. Blood flecked his lips, and then his gasping breaths finally stilled, forever. “Take whatever you want. Just don’t harm my son.” The woman cowered over the boy. Gerard knelt in the rain beside her. “I’m not a highwayman.” He held out his hand. “But you need protection, and I need a dry place to sleep. If we share the tent, perhaps we would both have a better night.” Still wide-eyed, the woman cautiously took his rain-soaked hand. *** By the time Gerard had disposed of the highwaymen’s bodies, the woman was preparing dinner. “The man back along the trail,” Gerard said. “Your husband? I can reanimate him for a last question or two if you need.” It seemed the least he could do for a newly bereaved mother. “You’re one of them vultures, aren’t you?” the boy said, eyes shining. Gerard flinched at the epithet, but the boy clearly didn’t mean anything by it. “I am.” “I wish I could do that,” the boy said. “Only because you don’t know what it’s like.” The woman shook her head. “My husband is dead and buried three months and a hundred miles from here, so I doubt you can do much to bring him back. Nor that he had any gold saved for us.” “And the man on the path?” She shrugged. “A tradesman. We paid him for carriage.” Gerard knelt by the fire to warm up as the woman continued shucking corn. “I wish I could have spoken to my Pa.” The boy edged over next to Gerard, more focused on Gerard now than finishing his job of skinning the rabbit. “You really can bring the dead back?” Gerard felt a pang. He could see the hope in the boy's eyes. He wished he could. “Just for the traditional three questions. After that, they pass again.” “But what if you didn’t ask the questions? Would they just stay alive?” “No,” he replied, as kindly as he could. “You can’t trick magic. If you don’t ask your questions, they just fade back to where they came from.” Leticia’s final moments flashed in his mind. A hard lesson to begin his necromancy career. “It ain’t right,” the woman interrupted. “Good folk, like your Pa. We can live our whole lives as saints, but one bad act before the end, and we spend the rest of eternity being tortured in the depths of Tarsas. But bad men. They deserve to be there. And vult…” She stopped herself. “Necromancers, like this man, they bring them back and gives them a last chance to escape their rightful fate. Ain’t that so?” Her stare was fierce. “That’s what we are told by the priests,” Gerard replied. “But no one really knows if what I do gives them that final forgiveness. I can only bring them back once, so there’s no witness to ask.” “‘Should a man twixt saddle and ground do one good deed, then his soul shall be cleansed. It is how you enter death that determines your eternal fate’,” the woman said, quoting the common version of the Vidrial scripture. She spat on the floor. “So rich men create hidden hordes of money to guarantee their greedy children will bring them back just to ask where it is hidden. That way, those wicked men’s last act of giving away gold is generous and they get to have eternity in peace.” “I’m sure he only helps good people,” the boy said uncertainly, looking at Gerard. Gerard hesitated. “Really?” the woman said, throwing the vegetables in a pot of water. “Who was the last person you helped? Were they good people?” Gerard thought of the decapitated man in the woodshed. He couldn’t even say the men who’d hired him were good, much less the dead man. “Well, I think the last person I helped was you,” Gerard finally replied, softly. “Aye, and I’m grateful. But that’s enough talk about death and magic around my son.” She turned to her son. “Now, hand me that rabbit so I can get it roasting.” She paused and looked at Gerard. “You’re welcome to a portion.” “Thanks, but I don’t eat meat,” Gerard replied. “Why not?” the boy asked. Gerard passed his hand over the skinned rabbit. It twitched and scampered out under the tent wall, disappearing into the darkness. “When you’ve reanimated so many. Somehow, a dead animal doesn’t seem quite so dead anymore.” “That was our dinner.” The mother stood, hands on hips. Her expression reminded Gerard of his own mother right before she would clip his ear. “It can’t survive more than a few feet from me. The magic has limits. If you look outside the tent, the body will be there. Dead again. Ready to eat.“ The boy put one hand over his stomach. “I don't think I want it, Ma” The mother glared at Gerard. Gerard shrugged and opened his pack. “I can offer you rice and spiced potatoes? Or some rye bread and hard cheese?” *** The fire had burned low. The woman lay on a cot, blanket pulled over her, the soft sound of her breathing slow in slumber. “Can I become like you?” The boy peered at him from the other cot. Gerard smiled. He’d known the boy was pretending to sleep. “Maybe. But there’s no vulture school, if that’s what you’re asking? It’s not taught. It’s just something that happens.” “A gift?” “Or a curse.” Abandoning all pretense of trying to sleep, the boy sat up. “What’s it like? Being… you know, like you?” “Not a life I’d wish for anyone. You spend your days touching the dead. Talking to them. Everyone calls you vulture.” “Why do it, then?” Gerard stared into the fire. “When you’ve been touched by loss, it gives you a certain… empathy to others experiencing the same. Bringing loved ones back to be able to say goodbye… somehow it helps. At least, it used to.” “Well, why are you still doing it, then?” The boy’s question touched on something inside him. It bothered him. “People pay. Eventually, it becomes what you are.” The boy was silent for a while, seeming to think on what he had said. “Do you always do it? Like my mother says. Even if theys were wicked?” “Of course. Who am I to judge them?” “I think if I were a necromancer, I would ask more questions before helping.” “I used to. When I started. I thought it was a calling. But when there’s no food in your stomach, you learn to ask fewer questions.” The boy shook his head. “I couldn’t do it if they was evil. There are other ways to earn a living,” the boy said, yawning, and pulling the blanket up. “Honest ways.” The embers of the fire glowed and Gerard sat in silence until the boy’s soft breaths echoed the slumberous rhythm of his mother’s. Then he pulled his vulture’s coat over him and closed his eyes. *** Gerard woke to the sound of hoofbeats. The boy and his mother were gone. The hoofbeats slowed, and a voice outside the tent called out, “Ho there. Have you seen a necromancer come this way?” Pulling his cape on, Gerard stepped out of the tent. “Who is asking?” The storm was gone, and the moor was draped in fresh morning sunlight and the sweet smell of heather. Five richly dressed men on horseback awaited him. “I am Barsan, the new Lord of Naroforth, and I judge from your cape we have found who we were looking for. We have desperate need of your services, necromancer.” “Naroforth?” Gerard’s face tightened. “I don’t ride that far north anymore.” “We’ve not found a single necromancer on the road. I will double your normal fee if you’ll come immediately, no delay, no questions asked. There’s only days before my father’s unresurrectable.” Gerard felt for his purse to see how much money he had left. Could he refuse them? What the boy had said about asking questions, working with integrity, had got to him. He patted every pocket. But like the boy and his mother, his purse was gone. Apparently, ‘honest ways’ to make a living were not the only thing the boy knew. He grabbed at his neck but was relieved to find the two rings still hanging on his chain. Fortunately, the boy hadn’t noticed them. Money came and went, but the wedding rings were everything to him. Those, he could not lose. *** They’d ridden hard, but damp sodden fields had given way to bright sunny stands of corn and barley waving in the warm breeze of northern summer. They were passing a small arched wooden bridge when Gerard heard bells. One, a half tone higher than the other. It brought memories of summer, the smell of buttercups, family picnics. His first kiss by the Lithi River. “Where are we?” Gerard asked, though he was already sure. “That’s the Chasmine summoning bell, so the village must be just over the rise. Sounds like they must need a necromancer, too. Only half a day till Naroforth.” “Make camp here. I’ll be back.” The Lord of Naroforth bristled indignantly, wheeling his horse. “You can’t go. You promised to come to Naroforth.” “And I will.” Gerard turned his horse to cross the bridge into Chasmine. “But my father’s been dead seven days.” The Lord’s voice raised a half pitch, clearly unaccustomed to not being listened to. “So no hurry. Your father will still be dead when we get there.” *** The town was almost exactly as he remembered it. The bakery’s frontage had been freshly repainted from the sad olive it once had been to now a vibrant red, making it stand out amongst the drab, weather-faded wooden houses of the high street. The bakery door hung open and he could smell the fresh bread from the street. People stopped and stared, but he knew they didn’t see him, Gerard, the man that grew up here. It was the necromancer’s cloak of crow’s feathers that caught their attention, and they turned and pointed him to where he was needed. The road followed the Lethi which bubbled over rocks, its winding banks getting straighter as tributaries joined and slowly its waters swelled, growing deeper and swifter. The old mill stood just off the road, the only brick building in the village. The mortar was crumbling and weeds clogged the great wheel, the wooden spokes of which were cracked and useless. It had seen better days. As Gerard approached, a red-bearded man with a crutch hobbled out to greet him. “Finally, we have luck,” the man greeted him, with a broad smile. “Dib Snow’s the name.” “Dib.” Gerard nodded to the man. “What happened here?” “My father died.” “No, I mean the mill. It used to be the economic heart of the village. Now it’s just ruins.” “Used to be?” The red-bearded man peered at him, the creases in his face suddenly relaxing as he saw past the necromancer's cloak. “Young Gerard? Is that you?” Gerard paused. He hadn’t meant to give himself away. He had no desire to reawaken the past. “It’s what’s left of me.” “We all wondered what happened to you. Ever since…” But at least the man had the decency not to continue. “I’ve been on the road. What happened to the mill?” he repeated, trying to re-direct the conversation. “Storm three winters past. The river rose, and the wheel cracked. My brother drowned, and I broke my leg. Never healed. My father was too old to manage the repairs on his own.” Gerard paused. He remembered the father, Old Miller Snow. He had helped search for his daughter. For his wife. He had been the first to stumble across their bodies. “I’m sorry for your loss. He was a good man. Helped everyone, gave to the poor, fed the hungry.” “Aye, well he died without telling us where he’d hidden his gold.” Gerard dismounted. “My usual fee is 1000 but given I knew your father, I’ll charge you only 100.” The old man bobbed, but his smile seemed forced, as if he had hoped Gerard’s fee would be even less. “Come on in.” *** The inside of the mill house was much like the outside; it had seen better days. The kitchen was in complete disarray. Not a single pot or pan was hung up. Flies buzzed on spoiled food, and Gerard tried not to grimace at the sour, pungent odor. Almost as grimy as the pans, a girl of five or six sat in one corner. She paused from playing with a tattered rag doll to look up. “My brother’s girl,” the old man said. “Isbel, say hello to our guest.” The girl winced at the sound of her own name and stood uncertainly. Gerard held out his hand. “Nice to meet you, Isbel.” He smiled, trying to soften her fear. She must be about the same age Hannah was. She took his hand to shake it, but a flash of red ceramic and bronze at her wrist caught Gerard’s eye. He touched the bracelet. “Where’d you get this?” “My Grampa gave it to me,” she said. “Enough dilly-dallying,” Dib said, shoving himself between them. “Clean up, it’s a pigsty.” When Isbel didn’t move quick enough, the old man swiped at her. The girl dodged and started grabbing dirty pots, using a rickety wooden stool to climb up and place them in the sink. “I’ve a new deal for you, miller,” Gerard said, slowly, still staring at the girl’s bracelet. “What’s that?” “I will trade my services for using one of your questions to ask one of my own.” Dib eyed him suspiciously. “You ain’t taking his gold.” “I don’t want gold, just answers.” Dib shrugged. “As long as I get my money.” And with that, the man slumped into a kitchen chair, opened a bottle from the table, and took a swig. The sweet smell of home brew filled the room. *** Old Miller Snow’s bedroom was stuffy and cramped. The miller’s body lay in a narrow wooden bed wedged against one wall. There were no wall hangings, no trinkets or curtains. Dib stood in one corner, fidgeting, as Gerard lit rosewood incense. Gerard plucked a crow’s feather from his cape and laid it on the dead man’s naked chest. He took a long look. The years had not been kind. This wasn’t the strapping man Gerard remembered, but a pale, frail imitation, and death had made the features waxen and unfamiliar. Gerard felt a certain revulsion. He was unaccustomed to resurrecting those he had personally known in life. He shook his head and focussed on the space between the dead man’s eyes, reaching in with his mind, searching for the soul. It was still there. Faint, just a glimmer, still shimmering in the close of life’s day. He breathed onto the old man’s lips and pulled the soul with his mind, up through the grime and dirt of the underworld. The corpse twitched, a finger, a knee. Slowly, it sat up, its eyelids opening, cold blue glassy eyes staring at him. It was Old Miller Snow sure enough. With even this much life breathed into him, he once again regained a more familiar look. But there was also a sneer. “Gerard Bornice. Never thought I’d see you again,” the miller said, his death-breath fetid. Dib jumped to his feet. “Where’d you hide the gold?” Gerard sighed. “He can’t hear you, Dib, he’s dead. Only a necromancer can ask questions.” “Well, ask him!” Dib said, glaring. “My question first.” The corpse sucked in some air and bared its rotten teeth at him. “Your question? What is this?” “Your son traded a question for your resurrection.” The corpse curled its lip and looked away. “Let me answer his questions and let me rest. I deserve that, don’t I, after a life spent caring for them?” “Not yet.” “What’s he saying?” the son hopped from one foot to the other. “Why can’t I understand?” “The language of the dead is not for the living,” Gerard replied, holding up one hand. “Patience.” The corpse looked at Gerard out of the corner of his eye. “And if I refuse to answer?” “Then you can go back to Tarsus.” The corpse coughed, and chunks of lung flecked its teeth and lips. “Ask your question, vulture.” “Your granddaughter’s bracelet. Where did you get it from?” The corpse’s eyes narrowed. “Hard to remember such things.” “Don’t forget, you can lie, but only three truthful answers or a gift of gold will redeem a soul.” The corpse spat on the floor. “I got it from a young girl.” Gerard cursed himself. The dead could be crafty. He should’ve been more specific. He’d wasted his question. But he had to know. A second question wasn’t part of the deal, but Dib only needed to know where the hidden gold was. Dib only needed one question. Gerard couldn’t leave without trying again. A dull band of tension squeezed his temples. “Did you kill my wife and daughter?” A better question. A simple yes or no. No way out. “What makes you think that?” the corpse placed its hand upon its chest and managed to look offended. “My wife’s bracelet upon your granddaughter’s wrist. It was missing when we found her.” Gerard stepped forward. The minutes were passing. If he couldn’t get an answer quickly, the corpse would fade back to the underworld and he’d never get one. “Did you kill them?” The corpse drew back its lips, baring its teeth in a snarl. “Ask a different question.” “No,” Gerard replied, not taking his eyes from the old man’s. “That is my only question. Did you?” Old man Snow snorted a short, sharp laugh. “You know I did.” Why? The question screamed in Gerard’s head. He wanted to grab the man and shake the truth out of him. But he couldn’t ask it. If he did, he would have used all three questions. There would be none to use to get Dib and his niece the gold, and by the state of the old mill, he could tell they needed it. But if he even let them use that last question, this ghoul that had murdered his family would spend eternity in peace, not the pits of Tarsus. It smiled. “Your wife smelled of bluebells and youth, you know. And then when she died, she crumpled, just like a flower after it’s been picked.” The ghoul closed its eyes and breathed deeply through its nose as if smelling her again. “And your daughter…” it licked its lips. Third question and he finds peace. Gerard felt a tug at his sleeve. It was Dib. “The gold. Ask him!” “I can’t.” “What?” Dib’s mouth hung open, a string of drool slowly snaking from the corner. “I won’t purge him of his sins. There has to be a consequence.” Gerard snapped his fingers, and the spell was broken. The corpse fell backward, once again unanimated, and he heard Old Miller Snow scream as he fell back to Tarsus, the third and final question unasked, his gold not passed on, his soul unpurged. Gerard stifled a sob. Finally. Justice. The miller’s son grabbed Gerard by the arms. “Who’s going to look after me now? Without Isbel, who’s going to cook and clean?” “What do you mean, ‘without Isbel’?” Gerard stepped back. “I can’t afford her without the gold. And I’ll not get much for her round here. I’ll have to go to the city, and with my leg that’s a long journey.” Gerard stared at the miller’s son. “Get for her?” Dib spat on the floor. “What did you expect to happen? I can’t work and food costs money. I’ll have to sell her. As a maid or…” He left unsaid the other professions he imagined selling her into. Gerard remembered how he’d first seen the small girl. Dirty, flinching at the sound of her own name. Neglected. Afraid. Other than the dirt smudging her face, she was an echo of his own Hannah. And this old man would sell her? He’s as immoral as his father. “I’ll take her.” He reached for his purse and then remembered it had been stolen. He had no money to offer. The man eyed him suspiciously. “And what would you do with her?” “Do you care?” Reluctantly, Gerard snapped the chain around his neck and held it out to the man. His and Leticia’s rings glistened as they slowly rotated on its end. “They’re made of Tuleran gold. You can have them, if I can take the girl.” The old man snatched the rings and gripped them in his fist. “Just be gone by sundown. I don’t need nosy neighbors asking questions.” *** “So tell me about your father,” Gerard said to the Lord of Naroforth, who peered down angrily from his horse. Isbel sat in the grass nearby, happily playing with her rag doll. “What kind of man was he? Was he a good man?” The lord stared at Gerard. “What difference does it make, vulture? I’m paying you enough.” Gerard paused. The boy on the moor may have been a thief, but he had been right about one thing:questions first. “No. It’s important. What kind of man was he? Was he good to you? To his wife?” The lord snorted. “He was a bastard. Why do you think he hid his money? Guaranteed we’d have to find a necromancer, and he’d get his three questions and be plucked from Tarsus.” Gerard nodded, and shifting his pack, he reached down, took Isbel’s hand, and turned east. “Hey that’s not the way to Naroforth,” the lord shouted. “I know. But I’m afraid you’ll have to find another necromancer. I can’t bring men like your father back anymore.” “You won’t get paid!” the lord from Naroforth yelled as Gerard and Isbel reached the bend in the road. “There are other ways to earn a living,” Gerard said, half to himself. “Honest ways.” |
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Gideon P. Smith
Gideon P. Smith is the 2025 Baen Fantasy Adventure Award winner. His short fiction has appeared in Apparition Lit, Stupefying Stories, Wyldblood Science Fiction and Fantasy Magazine, Crepuscular, 100-Foot Crow, and Troopers Quarterly, as well as in anthologies from Black Hare Press, Shacklebound, and Fairfield Scribes. He also writes about craft for the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association, BSFA’s Focus Magazine, and serves as a first reader for Diabolical Plots and Flash Fiction Online. Follow him online at: www.gideonpsmith.com
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