Chapter 199: Necromancy: Rebirth
[TL: Asuka]
[PR: Ash]
“By the gods!” Ignatius huffed and puffed as he scuttled backward like a bristling cat. He still had that look of horror on his face despite being already backed to the wall. “Why did Jennifer have something that evil in her mirror?” It was then Ignatius, despite his slow reaction, understood something important. “Wi-Witchers, are you saying that Jennifer was the curse giver? She cursed her own bloodline?”
Roy shook his head and sighed. “Most sorceresses can’t have their own children. If Jennifer was a sorceress, your bloodline would not have existed, and neither would you.”
“She wasn’t the curse giver? That’s… That’s good to hear.” Ignatius heaved a sigh of relief, but what the witcher said next made him nervous again.
“She might not have been a sorceress, but she was the one who planted this curse.”
“What? A mortal can cast curses too?”
“Be quiet, baron!” Roy said coldly. “If I’m correct, the answers to Jennifer’s secret, the mystery of the rune on your head, and the misfortune that has surrounded your bloodline are in this book.” He looked at Letho, who seemed surprised. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking, Letho?”
Letho’s finger hung in midair, and he did not flip to the next page. “What are you trying to say, kid?”
“Look at the title. ‘Book of Bones’? Bones are usually related to death, and this reminds me of another forbidden practice in witchcraft—necromancy.”
Most witchers would probably know nothing about forbidden practices like this, but Roy used to play a lot of Witcher 3, and he collected the information on Olgierd and his summoning of the Caretaker and The Black Cat and Dog during his playthrough of the Hearts of Stone DLC out of curiosity. It was then he noticed a dark practice—goetia (also called demonology)
There were a lot of different kinds of witchcraft in this world, but one of them was unanimously forbidden. Anyone who tried to research that would be the enemy of all sorcerer academies, and that practice was called black magic. Black magic included a lot of things, including goetia and probably the necromancy that was written in this book.
Letho arched his eyebrow. “And where did you hear that from?”
“Did you forget what my bloodline is? I saw parts of it by chance. Well, keep going then. Or are you scared?” Roy scanned through the crimson message again, and he felt a chill run down his spine.
“Witchers are sterile. This warning can’t deter us.” Letho flipped the page, but the thing written on it was not the book’s content. Instead, it was a piece of paper scrawled with Jennifer’s handwriting. “This is Jennifer’s private confession.”
“Jennifer left that?” Ignatius pinched his nose and came closer.
The three men set their eyes on that piece of paper.
‘The more beautiful you are, the more agonizing getting old will be. I used to have skin that glistened like velvet, looks that bewitched the public, and body so perfect it could allure even the gods. But now… now all of them have become my worst nightmares. My youth is gone, and so is my beauty. I am but an old, fat hag, filled with wrinkles on her face.
My dear Leon and children still love me, but alas, I can’t say the same for myself. This nightmare is my personal hell, and it is driving me to insanity. Perhaps I might be hallucinating, but I think I saw all my younger servants laughing at me, mocking me. I will not stand for this. I devoted myself to Melitele and prayed as hard as I could, but she never responded.
I asked the city’s most famous alchemist for help, and he told me of a medicine that can heal all my woes—Divine Beauty. But alas, I do not have the Child of the Sun, the most important ingredient for this concoction. I lost all hope. I locked myself in my room, for I have lost all courage to see anyone. I can do nothing but watch as I waste away like the flowers on my windowsill. All the colors have left my world, and I am but an empty husk.
However, a surprise knocked on the door in my darkest moment. I looked out the window, and there he was. He looked unassuming, as if he were just an everyday merchant, but he wields powerful and bizarre magic. Words aren’t enough to describe it.
He proposed an exchange. I will have the spell that shall grant me eternal youth, but in exchange, I will have to pay dearly. I was almost drowning in my own despair, and he was the only sliver of hope I had. I agreed to it. He gave me a book, and there’s a little ‘toy’ in there. A forbidden spell. I did not know what it meant then, but I was willing to pay any price, as long as I did not have to face my old, wrinkled face. I would pay any price, even if it was my soul.’
The confession stopped there, and then Ignatius gulped. He wanted to say something, but he stopped himself and kept reading as the witcher flipped the page. A conspicuous line was written in black on the top of the next page. It employed Common Speech.
Mortals do not have the luxury of long lives like elves and dwarves, but they can achieve eternal youth. – Necromancy: Rebirth
The words were no longer written in red. Instead, they were purely black, like any other book. There were a lot of minute granules mixed in among the pages, and aside from the nauseating stench of rotten meat, Roy noticed a faint scent of ash coming off the pages.
“This book’s pages…” Letho tensed up and brushed his hand across the page. “It’s made out of human skin, and the ink has ash in it.”
Ignatius put his hands in a prayer, closed his eyes, and muttered, “Human skin? Ink made out of ash? Gods, did the devil himself write this book?”
“The devil?” Roy mused for a moment. He connected that to Jennifer’s confession, and a familiar feeling welled up within him. “Who was the one that lured Jennifer into this mess? And what did he ask from her in return? Think. We’re in the white orchard, and this book was hidden in the mirror. This feels really familiar, but I just can’t remember why…” Did someone block my memory out or something? Roy scratched his hair in frustration, and his face fell. Beads of sweat formed on his forehead, and he could feel the answer coming to him, but every time he tried to grasp it, it would slip back into the darkness.
Letho patted his shoulder. “Kid, you shouldn’t read this if you can’t take it.”
Roy shook his head. He put all his thoughts aside and turned his attention back to the Book of Bones. It was a thin book that only spanned five pages, and all of the content talked about the spell of Rebirth in the practice of necromancy. “Verbena, bison’s grass, Fool’s parsley, celandine… Crush all them into a fine dust and dry them out. They will be used to make a concoction. Drowner brain, specter dust, crow’s eye, beggarticks, and the caster’s own blood… They will be used to make the potion for the rune. Make sure no copulation is done. Cleanse your body and soul with a bath made out of the ingredients above. Drink the concoction on the night where the stars and moon are blocked by the clouds. Use the rune potion and implant the sacrifice rune on your wrists, belly, calves, and scalp…”
Aside from the rather wordy explanation, there were also pictures in the book that illustrated the details of human anatomy and its relationship with magical energy. The more Roy read, the more terrifying the book became. Back at the temple of Melitele, Coral told him that all spells would need to channel their power into magical energy before they could be cast. Mortals would never be able to cast any spell, even if they mastered the whole process of one, but necromancy broke that rule. To be specific, this spell was made specifically with mortals in mind.
Sorcerers had long lives and could change their appearances with magic. They had no need for a spell like this.
“No wonder this is forbidden.”
The spell had no need for magical energy at all. Any literate mortal could complete all the steps written in this book.
“Look at this.” Letho pointed at one of the lines in the book. “Once the spell is cast, the rune of sacrifice will appear on the caster’s partner and one of their direct descendants. The rune will be passed down from generation to generation.”
This explained the mark on Ignatius and his family. Among the three children Jennifer had, Sara must have been the only one who had the mark on her. “After the caster’s death, they will turn into a wraith and search for their descendant who bears the mark so they can take over their descendant’s body…” Realization struck Roy. “So that’s it!” He turned around. “I checked the tomb this morning, and your guess is correct. The remains of the women are gone. They must have returned to the fortress as wraiths after their deaths. They wanted to possess their descendants. The specter dust in the attic is proof.”
“Possess… their… descendants?” Ignatius licked his lips. “What does that mean, witchers?”
Roy turned around and gave him an eerie look. “In other words, Jennifer possessed her daughter after she died, and after her daughter died, she possessed your grandmother. So on and so forth. The matriarchy was set in place not because of Jennifer’s contributions, but because Jennifer wanted to make sure her rule over the family would never wane. There was a reason your mother, or Jennifer to be precise, risked her life to give birth to a girl. You can’t have children of your own, and you have no daughter, so she had to do it herself. She was trying to create another vessel for her to possess. The source for your family’s curse was your own ancestor—Jennifer Verrieres herself.”
“Stop!” Ignatius raised his hand in a hurry to stop the witcher. His forehead was drenched with sweat, and he said with a trembling voice, “Grandmother and Mary was… was… How is this possible? That must be a lie!”
“That’s the truth, baron. Accept it,” Roy said coldly. “All the women in your bloodline are actually the same person, and it was Jennifer, the founder of the family.”
“No!” The baron let out a scream, and he bumped into the wall before sliding down to the ground. His face was ashen, as if something died in him.
“Look at this, Roy.” Letho pointed at the reminder on the last page of the book. “If the caster is a woman, then she can only possess her female descendants. Works the other way as well.”
“Weird. They can’t even change their sex, even after their rebirth?” Roy mocked. “Do souls have anything to do with sex?”
“Who knows?” Letho said, “Maybe you can ask Lytta about that.”
“The ones who bear the mark shall live with misfortune all their lives. They can and will die anytime from diseases or accidents. The caster is not exempt from this cycle.” Roy mused, “So this means if the caster dies without any descendant to possess, they will have to live as a wraith for eternity. The closer the descendant’s bloodline is to the caster, the more memories the caster can keep. The members of the family have been marrying people from other families and diluting the bloodline. Less and less of Jennifer’s memories would be retained, and she might forget everything about this spell somewhere down the line.”
Roy wondered if that was the case, but Jennifer was the only one who could answer that, and she was not around.
The book ended there, but the witchers had to take some time to process what they just saw. Ignatius finally snapped out of the shock, but the fact the person who raised him was actually possessed by his own ancestor upset him. Not to mention, they also had sex. He would probably be his own ancestor if the child was born, but that did not happen.
Despair filled him, and he wiped the sweat off his face. Ignatius asked carefully, “At least I know the reason behind my family’s bad luck now. Now it’s time to break the spell. Witchers, what will you do with the book?”
“It’s your ancestor’s book. Of course we’re giving it back to you.” Roy pretended to toss that book to Ignatius.
Ignatius wiped his sweat off more and refused. “Please do not jest, witcher. I will not accept something that evil. I can give it to you. You can do whatever you want with it.”
“That works, too.” The witchers exchanged a look. “I’ll keep it for the time being.” Roy tucked the book in his inventory. He actually had no plans on keeping something this sinister, however. “And then I’ll burn it once this whole fiasco ends.”
“We have a problem here.” Letho crossed his arms. “The source of this curse is your own ancestor, Jennifer. If we get rid of her, we’ll break the curse, but she has been turned into a banshee and disappeared.”
“According to the book, she’ll find her female descendant and possess her after death. But she did not return to Amavet Fortress. Baron, do you have any illegitimate daughters out there?”
“No!” the baron shouted, as if he were stung by a wasp. “I have never been with any other woman. My son is dead, and I have no children now. Nor do I have any sisters.”
“Are you sur—”
“I am very sure!”
“Why don’t we ask Grant? You’d get drunk a lot, and maybe you lost control during one of your outbursts.”
The witchers went to ask Grant about it, and the butler gave it a lot of thought. “The baron’s illegitimate children… I am not very sure about it.”
“You’re not sure about it?” Ignatius sounded surprised. “Have I done anything stupid after I got drunk?”
Grant looked at the baron carefully and answered, “Sir, did you forget about the thing that happened more than a year ago? You barged into a villager’s wedding after you got drunk and forced yourself on the bride, taking her virginity. But it was just once. I don’t think she would get pregnant just from that.”
The witchers remembered Grant talking about that when he was under the spell of Axii.
“Who was the bride? Where is she now?” Ignatius demanded, looking crazed but excited at the same time. He realized that he might actually have a descendant. “Thank the gods for keeping the bloodline alive.”
“I cleaned up after you, sir. As I recall, she is the wife of Bram, a villager in the orchard. Her home is in the eastern part of the village,” Grant said. “To be exact, she’s a widow. Her husband has died from an illness.”
“Bram?” Roy fell into his own thoughts after hearing that name.
“Oh, you’ve heard that name before?” Grant explained patiently, “Bram is the cousin of the innkeep, Brenna.”
“Brenna? The innkeep?” Roy held his head in agony, and then the air around him dropped sharply, the cold covering him with an invisible, icy cape, and the chill grasped his heart. “I remember it now!”
He remembered the day he stepped into the inn and saw the only customer in there. He sat beside the window and disappeared all of a sudden. The answer that eluded him had finally been caught, and he knew who the mysterious person was.
The one who made a deal with Jennifer was no sorcerer, and it was no coincidence that Jennifer hid the Book of Bones in the mirror. “An ordinary merchant that wandered to the orchard a century ago, and that customer in the inn… Could he be Gaunter O’Dimm, the Master Mirror?”
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