The Apprentice, Chapter 15

Dad’s home

Guess who’s back in town?

Chapter 15: Taking Control

Gentleness and graciousness had not worked. I was trying to better the lives of everyone and they were blinkered by base fear and ignorance. How could I have imagined anything other than this reaction from these people? Their lives were so black and white, good and evil, alive and dead. It was disheartening. Yet I was not ready to give up on my plans; if they would not see the future I would make them see. The mayor would have his part to play though I would have to do some spell modification again before I could make that happen.

I set my servants to the task of cleaning up the courtyard. It was only then that I noticed the child. A girl of thirteen or maybe fourteen (yes, I realise the irony of me calling her a child but the fact was I felt and looked a great deal older.) It seemed she had fallen to the ground in the rush and scrum as folks panicked. Then one of the tables must have fallen on top of her, depositing chicken bones, corn husks and greens to cover her further. At some point she had been knocked unconscious. As the skeletons lifted the toppled table off her she stirred.
“Hide quickly!” I ordered them. As she pushed herself up off the flagstones I went to her side, “are you hurt?” I asked. “I don’t think so, at least not badly. What happened? Where is everyone? Where is my father? My father left me!” She was becoming distraught. Her head was whipping from side to side in search of a familiar face. Tears dropped from her cheeks and her lips quivered. “Shush now. They have not abandoned you. There was an emergency and they all had to flee. You may have been overlooked in the chaos but you will be returned to them. Here take a seat on the bench and have some water.” I stepped away to fetch a water jug from the table behind us and quickly performed Calm. When I returned, she gratefully accepted the cup from me and gave me a pretty smile in return.

“Now, someone at the party spoke to me of something odd. Perhaps you can illuminate the matter for me. This gentleman told me that the dead had risen in Pitch Springs once. Could this be true?” I asked. “Oh yes! It was the worst day I can remember. It was four years ago. There were three of them. One of them was Pretty Primmy Sharpetzi, one was this poor farmer who had walked under a plough and the last one was a little girl who died in a fire at her family’s farmhouse. I don’t know the names of the other two but I remember Primmy, all the girls do. We all wanted to look like Primmy when we grew up.”
“We live on Mictus Square so I saw the whole thing, well, when they came out of the temple anyways. I saw a little man or a boy leaving first, I don’t think he was one of the dead so I don’t know how he got away from them but they found Hindryk Scheimtzi inside the temple near the altar. There wasn’t much of him left, my Poppa said, but his Momma recognised his clothes. Anyways, it looks like maybe the dead ones had been too busy eating poor Hindryk to worry about this fellow who escaped. It’s funny, I remember seeing this little man pushing something ahead of him like it was on wheels, though I didn’t see any wheels on it. It might have been a big book or a little casket, it was hard to see. He pushed it all the way out of the square and not long after that the dead came out, I screamed when I saw the farmer. He came out first and ran off across the bridge.”
“I heard later that he had gone home to his farm, ate four chickens and a little puppy before his widow came outside to see what was happening. They say he almost chewed her head clean off before his son plucked up the courage to take him on with a pitch-fork, impaled his dead Poppa on it and stuck him to the wall of their stable. My Poppa, who’s one of the mayor’s men, said he was still struggling and writhing when he got out there to see what had happened. They burned the whole stable to do him in. It took a long time for him to stop moving and moaning, Poppa said.”
“The little burned girl went home too, I was told. Of course no-one was home. All her people died in the fire too, you see. I heard she lived for a few days after it happened and that’s why she wasn’t with them in the temple. So she went to the house but it was a burned down wreck. She went inside and just stayed there. It was a few days before anyone noticed there was someone in there. It was her old neighbour, a boy she used to play with, only six years old. I don’t know exactly what happened but she made short work of him by all accounts. After that she ran out of the house and into the town, attacking everyone she saw. A lot of folks got bit and scratched but she didn’t manage to kill anyone else before a constable rode her down on his horse. Even after that, she was still thrashing about though she was so broken she couldn’t get up. They caught her in a net and dragged her off outside town. Knowing about the fat farmer already, they burned her up and finished the job the house fire had started.”
“Primmy…poor Primmy. Guess where she went to. That’s right, she went home too, to her house on Saint Frackas’ Square but not before she visited the old washer woman she used to work for. Grey Greta got dragged out of that place and into the street. She was screaming and hollering so much half the town turned out to see what was happening. It was well past my bedtime but I snuck out wrapped in a blanket to find out what had happened. I saw Primmy there with her black eyes and blood all over her, tearing great chunks out of Greta with her teeth. By the time the constables arrived The woman was long dead and Primmy was just eating her! Everyone stayed well back, standing in doorways and behind anything they could find. I was hiding behind an old watering trough in front of the inn there when they came. When she saw them she hissed like a demon and spat the washerwoman’s blood at them. They charged her and forced her back into the house and then they threw lit torches in after her. We all watched it go up and everyone pitched in to put the fire out. When the constables went inside after it had cooled down, though, there was no sign of Primmy. She had escaped out the back. It was a few hours later when a constable went to check her house and he found what was left of her old governess in bits on the floor of the parlour. The whole place was covered in blood and Primmy, they said, was upstairs in her room, just sitting there on her bed. She tried to attack them when they found her but they hacked her to pieces and then burned the pieces in the square in front of the house.”
“It was all so scary and sad. I can’t believe that poor Primmy, Pretty Primmy ended up one of the walking dead.”
The girl fell silent then, her story done.
“Its time for you to go home now,” I said to her. I went and fetched one of the horses from the stables and lifted her up into the saddle. “Just tell your father you fell asleep after everything that happened and then took this horse home. Just pat him on the rump when you get there and he’ll make his own way back to me.” And away she went.

“She was not like you, my servant,” I said to the nearest of my skeletal minions, “her curse was unbalanced by a lack of control. You know your place and what you should do.” I looked down again at the corpse of the mayor, “although you do it a little over-zealously on occasion. I must bring control to Pitch Springs if this is ever to work anywhere else. You and you: take the body inside and leave it in my study,” I said, pointing at two of the ancient dead.

The next day, the mayor was up and about again. Dressed in a new shirt and jacket it was even difficult to tell that he had been speared through the chest and was missing a vital organ. He still looked dead, of course, but I had given him an ability unknown to the others; he could speak. Well, he could speak after a fashion. His mouth, undamaged and undecayed could still form words and I made it so that he could draw air into his lungs and release it to give his mouth’s words volume. I myself would give him the words to speak through a magical connection.
Back to Pitch Springs went its mayor with me following him all the way through the use of Farsee. I watched as he crossed the bridge and entered the town. An elderly man, his eyes no doubt, weakened by the years, approached to greet him. I could not hear what was said but as he drew nearer the old man slowed and peered harder before stopping, pointing at my mayor and running back into town, waving his hands about in the air. Panic ensued and all ran before the dead mayor. He continued on at a measured pace until he reached the town hall where he stood on the steps. The Town Square was deserted but I began to speak anyway.
“Folk of Pitch Springs, please come out to hear my words. I wish you no harm.” Nothing happened. Unsurprisingly, they did not believe me. “If you are so fearful then come and destroy this body…” This time there was movement on the far side of the square. A brace of mounted constables arrived followed by a few cowering townspeople brandishing torches. One constable started to shout something. I do not know what. I continued. “Finally, an audience. Please lend me your kind ears.” I noticed a few curtains flick in the windows around the square. I was getting their attention. “I have sent your former mayor here to tell you what I have to tell you. I am the occupier of the fortress on the Scharpetzi farm…Davus lu Fae, and I am speaking to you through this body for two reasons. One, I think you will take it better coming from the mouth of someone you know and trust; and two, to show you that the dead can be made to work for us. I raised this corpse from the dead to be a tool. It is a tool of communication, this one. Imagine a world where we used such tools to perform the manual tasks that we normally must spend hours of our time doing ourselves. They can farm, as they have on my land, resurrecting a farm from the dead. They can build and cook and wash and fetch and deliver and fight if necessary but all at our command. This is an opportunity that you can grab now! Imagine what your lives could become with the time to do as you please, when you please. Our people could progress culturally and academically and economically in great leaps!” I stopped speaking. The constables were very close now, right at the foot of the steps but their horses reared and shied away from the mayor’s animated corpse. The townspeople with their torches hung back and watched the mayor warily. Others had come out of their doors and stood around the edges of the square, hands covering mouths, eyes creased with disgust and dismay. “You still do not see the potential!” I shouted, angry now at their refusal to see my great vision for them. “You would prefer to fester in your pathetic little homes, toiling every day to earn a crust of bread when I am offering you a life of leisure and a feast! You do no-”

A man emerged from the town hall and walked around to look in the mayor’s drooping, pallid face. He was a big, broad, grey-haired, clean-shaven man, wearing a cuirass of banded mail and a bastard sword strapped to his back. I commanded the mirror to focus on the man as he spoke to the corpse. I fell to the floor when I saw his face as his achingly familiar lips and teeth and tongue formed the words, I – am – coming – for – you. I sat there, trembling as my father, Korl Sharpetzi, drew his enormous sword from its sheath and hacked the head off the mayor. He dragged body and head into the middle of the square. The townspeople closed in and threw their torches on it. I ended the Farsee spell and put my face in my hands. I wept as I had not done since I was just a babe. He was home and he wanted to kill me. He did not understand my plans. If there was one person in all the world I would have wanted to understand, it was my father, and I was sure he would. My certainty was misplaced, it seemed. Now, I had to make a plan to defend myself from him. He was war-hardened now, perhaps like he had been before he had ever had a family. He was a seasoned warrior and he had every reason to want to kill me: I had killed his daughter and then returned her to life as an abomination, I had caused the death of our governess who had been his own governess as a boy and he thought I was a menace to his town. I was afraid. I had never before been afraid of my father. When my sister and I were small children he never struck us and never raised his voice to us. Poppa always looked on us with kindness and understanding even though I had killed Momma and Primmy was always doing stupid things. The face of my father that I saw in the mirror had the look of someone possessed by hate and vengeance. He had earned some scars in the wars, I could see a jagged one running across his forehead and a crescent under his right eye but most of them were behind his bloodshot eyes.

I banished my fear, telling myself that if only I could meet him in person and he saw it was me I could talk to him rationally and make him see things my way. I dreamt of a tearful reunion, the two Scharpetzi men together again at long last. I imagined him at my right hand as my plans and my servants transformed the world. I was sure everything would turn out as I wanted it to; no, even better than that. Poppa wouldn’t hurt me, he would join me. So I decided to continue as if nothing had changed.
Now, graveyards, boneyards, cemeteries, mass graves, catacombs; these would all cease to be needed in the long run as corpses would be raised almost as soon as their souls had departed in the future that I pictured. So all those burial places would become plots of land that could be reclaimed in the name of progress. Until then, however, they were to be my primary source of new labour. I had to go recruiting that night, in fact and the most populous graveyard in the region was right on the edge of Pitch Springs. There were hundreds of corpses there, many of them would be too decomposed to be of any practical use but a great number would be relatively intact and could once again be made into productive members of society. It was time to go on an outing. A dozen of my skeletal servants accompanied me to the Pitch Springs Town Graveyard. The words were embossed on a metallic arch over the gate. It was the dead of night and the place was locked up so I had four of the skeletons pull the gates off their hinges to allow us entry. The gates clattered and clunked heavily onto the pavement outside and lay there resembling ornate cattle grids. I walked in after the gate wreckers, trailing skeletal minions. They formed a protective circle around me once I had come to a stop on the path in the centre of the graveyard.

I began the spell, the amalgam of spells which gave me control over the dead ones that I had raised. I sang the words and performed the movements perfectly but was interrupted when the skeleton directly to my right toppled over into a pile of bones and roots. It’s head had exploded. The circle had only just tightened around me when I saw the next one in line to the right collapse. What is happening to them? I thought. Is it magic? But then I saw it. An arrow streaked past my face, only a rib’s width from my nose, and exploded the skull of another skeleton directly to my left. I was under attack.

The area was covered in ancient, brittle bones. The magic that animated the skeletons also toughened and strengthened them but losing their heads seemed to break the spell and all its effects. Stepping backwards in an attempt to avoid the next arrow the sole of my boot connected with a leg bone which rolled and then crunched underfoot. The back of my head hit a paving stone with enough force to fill my eyes with black holes and bright stars. I was unable to arise immediately. While I lay there I could hear the swipe and swish of a heavy sword as it sang its way through my skeleton guard. I was showered with bone shards. Flinging my arms over my face I saved myself from blinding by that terrible rain. I shook my head painfully until my vision returned almost to normal and I saw him there, beheading the last of my skeleton guards. My father raised his enormous bastard sword in both hands and looked about him with practiced motions, wary, alert, ready to fight. From the corner of my eye I saw what he could not have from his vantage point; one of the skeletons, head battered sideways and crooked as a five-ace pack, trying to gain his feet behind a gravestone nearby where it had been knocked by the sheer force of one of my father’s terrific blows.

What would you do? I was not to have the chance to convince him of the rightness of my plans, his plan was to kill me, as quickly as he could. I could not, in good conscience, allow my father to murder his son after all that had happened to me in my life due to the murder of family members. What would you do? Well, that’s a question that does not matter. I was the one in this situation and I cannot imagine that anyone else has ever been in a predicament exactly like it before. Looking back now, however, I can see that, although I take responsibility for my actions like an adult, I know I was under the Fae-Mother’s influence still. I see it all so clearly…now that it is too late.

I called to him. He had not recognised me by my features alone since my features had changed so drastically in the years and months since last we had encountered one another. I called him, “Poppa! Poppa! Its me!” He looked towards me without a trace of the hate or anger that I had seen in his face when he was speaking to the mayor’s corpse. He wore the expression of focus and seriousness he always wore when working, no matter if he was pounding fence posts, writing a letter or teaching me a lesson. I knew what I was doing. I knew what was going to happen. I knew, even, a little of what I would have to live with later. But I was committed to my cause, to the betterment of all people, no matter the cost. “Maryk?” his whole face squinted and his forehead scar rippled in the folds of his brow, “It can’t be. Maryk is dead!” I levered myself up onto my elbows and said, “I’m not dead, Poppa. I’m Davus lu Fae. It is me. Just look. I know I have changed but you must know your own son.”

My Poppa leaned down, dropping his massive sword until the point rested on the ground. “By all the Saints…Maryk…What have you done here? Why do you look as if you are an older man than I? Was it…was it you that killed your sister? How could you do all this!? Didn’t I raise you better than this? Why, Maryk? Why? Why? Why?” I gazed up into his face. He was weeping. I had never seen him do that before. I remembered my sister saying that Old Aggie came to collect jars of his tears because they were magic. I remembered seeing his face smiling and at peace, sitting in his rocking chair following a long day’s work, puffing on his pipe and telling us all about goblin bakers and talking dogs and then his two bony hands grabbed each side of his grey head and snapped it sharply all the way around until he faced backwards. My father’s corpse fell on top of me and I screamed until the last remaining skeleton lifted it off and I was able to rise.
I finished the job I had come to the graveyard to do. More committed than ever before, that’s how I felt then. I had just killed my own father for the sake of it and now even he became just another dead servant along with everyone who had died in the town of Pitch Springs in the last hundred years.