Riette, Lila and Idris left Veridia on a squally, rainy morning. Idris would have preferred a carriage, but he had already assured Riette that he would be fine to ride, despite his general distrust of horses. His equipment was coming on a war wagon, driven by Lila, so all he had to worry about was following Kurellan’s apprentice, a softly-spoken young man called Arthur, to the farmhouse north of Veridia. The rain bounced off the cobbles and invaded Idris’s cloak, pushing under his hood in hard pellets.

  “Perfect day to catch a necromancer!” called Riette, grinning from beneath her helmet, as she turned her war-horse, Moon-Rider, to face the gate.

  “If by chance he has frozen to death,” Idris said, shuddering.

  Riette spurred Moon-Rider forward and, following her lead, Idris gave the command to his own borrowed steed, the horse Noctis that they had taken from the border on the first day chasing Dravid Orrost. Soon, he and the horse were flying across Veridia’s coral-marble bridge out of the palace, Moon-Rider at their side.

  There were many things that Idris was concerned about. The first was arriving without falling off the horse – although he had a new prosthetic for riding, it felt awkward on his leg. The second was that by the time they reached the farmhouse, most of Layton’s aria would be untraceable. He should have been there in the first instance and he was angry about that, but there was nothing that could be done. Everything else was wrapped up in thoughts of his mother and father, of who they were and who he wished they could be, of how he wanted this to be over so he could breathe again – and of the safety of his friends.

  The driving rain made visibility terrible. Idris had little faith in the surefootedness of his horse and kept checking the ground for rocks and deep puddles, flinching when he felt a bump or the gait changed. Riette had no such paranoia and pushed on, mud splattering up the hind legs of Moon-Rider. Eventually, as the morning wore through, Arthur raised a hand and gestured to a track on their right.

  “The farmhouse is about twenty miles down this road,” he said through the weather.

  “He was close, then,” said Riette.

  “Closer than expected.”

  “Did His Honour use caustic salt for the thralls?” said Idris. Arthur drew a finger across his neck. “I see. Thank you, Arthur. Are you meeting your tutor at Obsidian Lake?”

  “I’m to come with you to the house, then move on.”

  “Understood. Onwards, then.”

  They rode with less urgency on the thinner road, being careful not to trip on clods of earth or tree roots. The rugged landscape of the outer farmlands was a place Idris knew rather well; every year, in the autumn and winter, he took a tour of the places which might need working thralls for harvesting or field ploughing and provided what he could. The people out there knew him, and while most of the court feared Idris’s necromancy, the farmers had a cautious but understanding air when he visited. They were appreciative of his help and he often had repeat customers. Since he had joined the court at seventeen, farm yields had increased substantially and infrastructure projects took much less time. Thralls did not need to be paid, nor did they need food. It was the cheapest labour around. The villagers knew his cart, and they knew it to be a good omen – but he doubted they would approach unless they could see his black clematis.

  “Much of these lands fell to ruin during the war,” Idris said to Riette, as the horses walked together. “Fields became unmanageable and then were trampled by Orrost’s forces. The last two years, a lot of my work has been repairing fences and border walls and helping to dig new crop fields. As far as the death aria goes... it is rather prevalent out here. I am unsurprised that Layton came this close, considering all of the material he has to work with and the aria that is available.”

  “There must be many abandoned farms out here,” she said.

  “There are. Easy pickings for a carrion bird like a raven,” he added in a mutter, gazing out at the grey sky and the bumpy earth.

  “How long do you think he lived here?”

  “That, we will know when we get there.”

  It was late afternoon when the farmhouse came into view, a crumbling little thing without an attached barn or field. The border fence was rotten and shattered and the roof had holes, but the windows were still intact. Arthur stopped them and indicated how far out he thought the death curtain went.

  “Scouts got to here and saw nothing,” he said, about ten feet outside of the fence. “The road just passes the house, so they didn’t come any closer.”

  “See how the grass is scorched,” said Idris.

  “Oh.” Riette raised her eyebrows. “I do now. Not only scorched, but...”

  Idris released his prosthetic from the stirrup and jumped down off the horse, and put his gloved hand on the ground where the grass was black. When he pulled away, slimy, rotten foliage coated his fingertips.

  “Decomposed,” he said, showing Riette. “This is where the curtain was. It runs in a ring. That is a substantial curtain to hold for longer than a week, without the proper apparatus.”

  “Well, here is where we part, Sir Idris,” said Arthur, bowing from the back of his horse.

  “Thank you, Arthur. Tell His Honour we will join them within the week. And if you see Lila on the road behind us, can you direct her?”

  “Certainly. Commander DeTrentaville, I take my leave.”

  “Thank you, Arthur. Dismissed.”

  Idris straightened up, looked at the ring of dead grass and sighed as Arthur trotted off.

  “At least we will be dry in the house,” he said. Riette slid off Moon-Rider.

  “Comparatively.”

  “Keep on the lookout for thralls.”

  “He must have had a horse out here,” said Riette, frowning at the landscape. Idris shrugged.

  “I think he walks everywhere. I do not know if the power in the skull means that he does not need to sleep, but I am certain that if he had a horse, he would have given it up weeks ago. It requires too much maintenance and is too easy to spot. Horses are also not very happy if they have to be near death arias for extended periods of time; it spooks them.”

  “So no horse,” she said, walking with Idris towards the farmhouse door. “No attendants.”

  “Only thralls.”

  “And he whisked himself away as soon as he knew we were in Temple Hill?”

  “I assume so.” He checked the doorframe. “Look how rotten this wood is.” He picked at the dry timber. “Decomposition like this usually takes twenty years.”

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  Already, he could hear the aria, fading quietly but persisting beneath the sound of the wind and the rain. He felt it in his bones, vibrating, settling. It called to him, but he knew it to be the music of his father’s sickness, of the hatred in the skull.

  “You do know a remarkable amount of things, Idris,” said Riette. He felt himself blush, but he tilted his head and pushed the door open.

  “I know a remarkable amount of things about death and decay. More than is usually acceptable in polite company. Wait until you hear my speech about rotten eyes.”

  “I think I will pass on that lecture, Magus,” she said, wrinkling her nose.

  “Rotten eyes are fascinating.” Idris checked the corner for thralls, then waved Riette inside. “The worst body part is by far the lungs. They get terribly sticky and they reek.” He sighed. “Well, this looks like a necromancer’s hovel if I ever saw one.”

  The farmhouse was rancid. Piles of mouldy straw sat in the corners with threadbare blankets. Dead rats, killed prematurely by the strength of the death aria, lay feet-up on the ground. A few unlucky pigeons littered the spaces below the rafters. Anything that could rot was rotting, and the smell, combined with the dank wetness of the rain, cloyed in Idris’s nose, but it was no more distracting than the death aria, weaving in and out of the cool air coming through the broken roof.

  “Your rooms do not look like this,” said Riette, taking down her hood and pulling off her helmet.

  “I do not perform necromancy in my rooms,” said Idris. “Especially not the kind that might do this. Errant death arias cause this kind of destruction. The skull of Johannes Vonner does not seem like an object which cares about what its power destroys.”

  “Could the breastplate do this?”

  “It is likely.”

  He ventured in, being careful to dodge the dead animals and trickles of rainwater from the roof. There were ashes in the fireplace and the dust was disturbed, and then, kicked over through a scattering of straw, Idris saw some symbols on the floor.

  “Wait,” he said, kicking the straw aside. “Wait, here it is...”

  He knelt, started shoving the straw away; Riette swept it with her feet, until there was a seven-foot-wide pentagon in the middle of the mouldy farmhouse, drawn in ash which had burnt into the ground, surrounded by dozens of runes. The runes themselves were spindly and dark. Idris rubbed one.

  “Blood magic,” he said. “Look at the colour. He drew these with blood.”

  “Question,” said Riette, striding around the pentagon, “why does he use these? You do not.”

  “It enhances the range of most spells, not usually the potency, but it depends. If you place an object of power on the corners, it can strengthen your aria.”

  “Objects of power?”

  “Oh. Like...” Idris removed the bag of knuckle bones from their usual pocket against his chest. “Like these. Items which have been close to a caster, or used in casting for many years. For me, it would be this bag of bones my uncle gave me to practice with. I have kept and used them for so long that they are an extension of my will.”

  “I see.”

  “I think this is how he maintained the curtain. With the crystal inside. Still, it seems large for that.” Idris stood, walked along the ashy lines of the shape. “All of this to hide... no, he had to...” He glanced out of the back windows. “The thralls, Kurellan said they fought thralls. This pentagon, with a similar one maybe two miles further up the road... that might maintain them. If I had been here sooner – it is so frustrating. I cannot be close enough to stop him or to see what he is doing, and I do not know enough to make an educated guess.”

  “Well, let us not worry about what we cannot do,” said Riette, touching his shoulder gently. “Let us worry about what we can. Is there anything you can attempt within the pentagon that might give us some information?”

  “I...” He sighed, casting about in his mind for ideas. “I can find out how long he was here and how long he has been gone.”

  “Let’s start there. From there, I can start estimating where he might be now, if he is walking.”

  Idris walked to the wall, pulled his glove off, and placed his palm flat on the stone.

  “Stone holds arias longer than other materials,” he said to Riette. “Let me think.”

  He closed his eyes, listened hard to the aria that was left behind. Slowly, he took deep breaths, trying to feel how it vibrated, how it bounced around his lungs and heart. He thought of the days he spent learning with Magus Arundale as a child, kneeling on cold flagstone, his bones aching as he tried to find form and shape within the music, as he tried to ride its waves.

  He listened for the sounds like a hunting dog searching for scent.

  “Nine days,” he whispered.

  “Hmm?”

  “Nine... nine days he sat. Crafting, shaping. Weaving. Preparing. The threads, they feel thin beneath my fingers...”

  The aria had texture and worn spots where the natural sounds seeped through.

  “On the tenth day, he came out to the overlook. It started fading then.” He sighed. “So, he invited me to tea, and then he came back, collected his belongings and went.”

  “He has been gone weeks, then,” said Riette.

  “How long were we in Marbury?” Idris said, taking his hand down.

  “I think eight, nine days. At least, he has been in the wind for two weeks.”

  Idris tutted, sucked his cheeks. “Then he is already established elsewhere. Necromancers do not need much.”

  “Is there any sort of trail we can follow?”

  “The thralls,” he said. “Kurellan did not salt them, he cut their heads. There should be bodies. Thralls left without specific instructions or boundaries to wander within will walk towards the nearest place of necrotic power, which is usually their master.” Riette nodded, hand on her sword. “Would you like your first necromancer tool?”

  “Please. That sounds rather exciting.”

  Idris passed her a vial of caustic salt in its waterproof pouch and a handful of kill-pills.

  “You are hereby recognised as a necromancer’s apprentice,” he said; she smirked.

  “How many apprentices do you have, now? Three?”

  “One of them won’t talk to me. The other decided she wanted to be a knight.”

  “Well, I will not abandon you, Master,” Riette said, forcing another blush through Idris’s cheeks. “I rather like this kind of work.”

  They exited the farmhouse and began searching the surrounding area for dead thralls. By the time Riette called Idris over to the first body, Lila had made it with the war-wagon.

  “The wagon will have to stay here,” Lila said, jumping down.

  “That is fine,” said Idris. “I doubt it can follow us where we need to go. We can carry what we need on our backs.”

  They separated out the items they would need, leaving Idris’s books and prosthetics on the wagon, and with the first corpse easily visible, they followed the trail to the next. Kurellan had made light work of Layton’s warriors – clean cuts across the necks on all of them – and while they had attacked in clusters, the groups were spread out in a weaving line, down into a steep gorge.

  “On foot, he can traverse this,” said Idris. The gorge looked like it used to be some kind of mine; old tracks ran down on its base and pulley systems hung abandoned on the walls. Platforms made of wood and stone criss-crossed into it, with rope ladders and walkways, and then the gorge made way to thinner, closer paths for some miles. “This is a useful place to hide.”

  “Down the pit?” Riette said, watching the rain tumble into the crevasse.

  “I can scout a safe route,” said Lila, back in her leather armour with her sword on her hip. “I can’t imagine this will be the easiest climb for you, Sir Idris.”

  “I have my riding boot on,” he said, showing her the jigsaw of the flattened sole which clipped to the stirrup. “I have some grip and purchase.”

  “It is wet, though, and that boot does not bend,” said Riette. “Lila, here is what we will do – I will carry Sir Idris on my back -”

  “You most certainly will not,” said Idris sternly, his chest tight with shame.

  “ - and we can simply pulley the equipment down after us,” she said, ignoring him. “I am sure Sir Idris is lighter than this pack, anyway.”

  “I will not be carried like an invalid -”

  But his protests did not matter. Within minutes, he was hanging on Riette’s back like a child while she clambered down ladders and wooden staircases, further into the gorge.

  “This is emasculating,” he muttered.

  “At least nobody at court can see you.”

  “And just thoroughly demeaning.”

  “What, you do not like a big strong woman treating you like a gentleman?” she said, humour in her voice.

  “I would like to die, now, please.”

  “You take yourself too seriously, Idris. Hold tight, now.”

  “The last person who carried me like this was my uncle. And I was unconscious, so at least I cannot remember it.”

  “Does he whine like this often, Miss Lila?” Riette called down. Lila nodded her head sagely.

  “You are a traitor, Lila,” he said.

  At the bottom of the gorge, once Idris was back on solid ground, Lila gazed up at the fading light and sighed.

  “Where next?” she said.

  “The Remaker might have gone into the tunnels,” said Riette, brushing mud from Idris’s legs off her waist. “Mines must have a lot of fatal accidents.”

  “He has definitely been here,” Idris said, focusing past the sound of running water and moaning wind, to the mournful melody of the death aria. “There is a good, strong aria here. Better than above.”

  “Is it worth walking through the night?” said Lila. “We don’t want to be trapped in here if Layton left thralls or other traps.”

  “It is your expedition, Sir Idris,” said Riette, looking at him with confidence he did not share. “What do we do?”

  Idris thought.

  “We follow the aria,” he said. “Into the mines.”