The hangover I awoke with was more likely attributable to alcohol than my brush with mortality.
As death stole closer I had been assaulted with glimpses from my life - the cliché of one's life flashing before one's eyes proving all too true in my case. While these flashes were too quick to integrate, and I had been too busy to try, I was sure that they awaited me in my dreams.
Any initial unreality of my brief taste of oblivion had worn off, the reality of how close I had come to Pharasa's Judgement now all too clear.
My chosen treatment had been alcohol, and while the Vjarik had numbed my memories of Brother Swarm, so to had it left me remembering less of the night than I would prefer. I was left with a vague memory of treating my stings, ordering Mr Edison around, and retreating to my room to scribble in my Journal.
Mr Boots grumbled as I shifted enough in bed to ring for a servant and pull a pillow over my head. Willem, my valet, was far too loud for so early in the morning, but brought me tea, toast and bacon. While I ate I scribbled a number of notes for my staff, rose, and dressed.
First a note for my driver, Drey. He was to wait outside the courtroom. When the dear ladies Garrow, Starle, and Flicht exited he was to give them a note and offer to conduct them back to my lodgings.
Second a note for the sisters. Here I explained my horror at what we had found, my fear that having been stirred up he may attack them, and an offer to take refuge with me until either an expedition had been sent to clear poor damned Herstag, or I had the capacity to do so myself.
Third a note for my valet Willem. A list of books I was interested in, and instructions to ask at various bookshops as to their availability and price. Most were innocuous enough, but the list also contained the Libris De Malificat - the infamous Book of Harms. If I were to prepare for war, I would do so with arguably the best treatise on the infliction of injury ever written.
Fourth a note for Willem to deliver to Kendra. Here I laid out - though carefully, lest it should fall into hostile hands - the events we had so recently endured. Additionally I asked if she could find information on the isle to which we must travel.
Finally a note I intended to deliver in person. A note to Adivion - for after the circus of a courtroom we must endure today. The note pointed out that it was unlikely that the vigilante crowd gathered to see an execution would be content were we to succeed and see Adam proved innocent. In such a case contingencies would be needed ready to ensure he could vanish to safety.
My memory of legal stratagems discussed last night impaired I put my trust in Adivion and consulted my sparse notes and maps of the Isle de Karb.
I saw the blow coming. Of course Ferramin was determined to destroy me. There was nowhere to run, nowhere to go. I saw my death. Not from some betrayal. Not from simply running out of life. I faced death like a hero - and in that moment I accepted it.
It isn't just death that fills me with terror, but what comes after. In the heat of the moment, knowing my death was the price, I accepted it. I had no thought for the future, only for the now. I felt the fire of righteousness for the first time in... well, as long as I can remember.
Then the boy took the blow.
The thought that an ally - that a friend - might give their life for me had never even crossed my mind. The Bookman doesn't have friends - certainly not friends who cared enough to die in his place.
That I regretted. Stockl - Brogol - had been a better friend to me than even Petros. In my mind I had planned to take him as an apprentice. Teach him all I know. I was blown back by the blast, and all but fell down the oubilette, and when I recovered I saw Esta heal him. I felt a wave of relief so profound I couldn't speak - and then a cold, hard wave ran through my body when it didn't help.
My mind churned as I ran through option after option, and discarded them all. I didn't have the spells to petrify him. To store his soul for a construct. Even simple Undeath eluded me. I considered binding his soul to a new body - but even if in my weakened state I could do it, by the time I was finished he would be gone anyway.
My mind churned, and my chance to say goodbye was wasted.
I have been adrift. Without Purpose. Now I have two. And of those two the one that burns the brightest is this; Brogol Stockl was taken too soon. If I must fight Pharasma to get him another chance, then I will. I have conquered death before for less reason than this;
Brogol Stockl was my best friend, and I will not let him go.
At the ghost's pain a ghastly glee filled my heart. Literally I could not remember the last time I felt such joy - especially at the pain of an enemy. Endless years of drab existence, drowning myself in debauchery in an attempt to feel anything - and here he I was all but cackling like some maniac. The release as days of fear and helplessness finally showed a glint of hope was a balm for the soul.
Then his retaliation struck - a volley of those force bolts would end his hope before it is born. I cursed, internally as I realised I would have to spend my time and resources just staying upright. Then Esta's healing restored my vigor, and I realised I had allies far more reliable than those I'm used to.
As I found myself arguing with a madman - and a dead madman at that - I found myself worried. Logically the girl was replaceable, and probably just in a simple trance anyway, yet I was concerned for her well-being.
"Thank my lucky stars" I thought to myself "that it isn't my cat."
My memories are disjointed, rather than missing. Every now and then some event will trigger recall of some memory. That in turn triggers a others, which trigger others in some strange flood of recollection.
It was the smell of burning bone that brought this latest memory back.
Stockl's blow brought low the haunt-ridden bones of the burned prisoner, the shattered bones combusting furiously and poisonously.
I remembered that smell, and the pain, my own hand desperately holding off my erstwhile 'allies' as I fumbled a command word. Then, back at my library, the whole hand burned down to the bone yet somehow, monstrously, still functional.
That in turn triggered memory of the spell that reinforced my own flesh, bringing false vitality even to bare bone.
I repaired the shreds of burned glove that still clung to my hand, repaired the warped rings that hung loose on charred bones. I remembered the spell to do so. I remembered...
Then Irefist said something, and I was back.
I found myself warming to the girl Lereia. Her attitudes - especially towards what I suspect was a familiar - leads me to believe that Stockl may have been right in his assessment. Unfortunate for her that she should so early have been intercepted by Petros' judgemental comrades.
I did what I could to steer her onto a less dangerous course. If she requires a mentor it is something I can help with later, in private.
My first thought when the ectoplasmic ravens appeared was to look to the girl. A near textbook first manifestation. However, she displayed none of the lassitude or exhaustion one would expect. This led me to believe that it was, indeed, a Haunt.
It is possible this madman Dashil encountered had found the same Haunt. It would certainly explain why he might have killed Lereia's Raven.
Should I ever again have need to work as a servant or laborer, I know now what agent I will engage: "Hasp's Recruitment", may Hasp himself be captured by Kytons.
I arrived in Caliphas with very little but the coin in my new pocket. I needed new servants, quickly, who were prepared to accompany me on a long visit. I had no letters of recommendation, no title, no existing servants and (I see now) an air of desperation.
The first two agencies I visited informed me they could have one or maybe two staff immediately, but I would need to wait a week for a full staff. Obviously I couldn't turn up as Bookman without a retinue, so I pressed on.
Hasp's Recruitment seemed like a godssend. Hasp didn't mind it had just passed sunset and was happy to deal with me, despite how suspicious I looked. I see now that it was the combination of the scent of my desperation and the jingle of the coins in my pocket that made him so happy.
I have paid a truly outlandish sum for five servants. Who pays a years wages in advance? Still, I was comforted that I would now look my part. A Valet, a Cook, a Maid, a Secretary and a Driver. Everything a man of means would possess. I left the Secretary to handle letters in my absence and departed for Ravengro the next evening.
The depths to which I had been swindled were not made apparent to me until the borders of Virlych.
I had charted a route designed to save time while only incurring a fractional risk. I had told my Driver to make best time, and if I wondered at the speed with which he took the narrow mountain road, I assumed he was simply trying to impress his new master. I see now that it was inexperience or incompetence leading to an inability to judge a safe speed.
One of the horses fell off, and there was a sickening moment as the other horse pawed desperately at the crumbling road; but the momentum of the carriage dragged all of us off the road.
It is not the first time I have been in a plummeting carriage, and we were fortunate enough that the fall was a sheer drop of hundreds of feet. I managed to remember enough to cast a spell that saved myself and my servants. I very nearly left Drey to die, but I saw at the last minute that Mister Boots had attached himself firmly to Drey's back.
While we landed safely, the carriage was a wreck. We salvaged what we could and set off by foot. Needless to say my servants were difficult to manage; Ms Corrinson the maid in particular had a tendency to burst into tears for no good reason, and the helpful Drey mentioned he thought we were going to have to spend the night in the Virlych borders. It was during this that I discovered that dour Mr Corrinson was, perhaps, the only good luck I had had. Solid and stolid he carried more than any two of the others uncomplainingly.
Thus, after days of walking along roads we should have been travelling in style we finally came to Ravengro.
When Irefist yelled at me to stand in the middle of the pallbearers I felt my heart speed, and my tongue turned thick in my mouth. Memories flooded me, of time spent commanding an orc horde. Perhaps it was Dashil's words earlier, but I saw a similarity between this "half-elf" and the savages I had commanded and compelled.
There are many rules with orcs, but most of them boil down to this: "Do not look weak".
I knew the physical strength of this new body was inferior; honestly this had never been a consideration. I had people and magic for transporting things. I decided to establish my sovereignty through the use of my intellect and experience. I thought on Pallbearing and waited for the memories to come.
Nothing.
Oh, memories flooded me. Burning bodies, raising them, animating them, disecting them. I worked as an embalmer for a while. I'd stolen more than I can count. But never pallbearer.
In all my time. Even in the books from the lost memories. No-one had ever asked me to be a pallbearer. This, this was new. I had no idea of how to be a pallbearer.
A pallbearer is a friend you want to involve in your final farewell to the world. Not a servant. Not a master. Not even a peer. But a friend.
I claimed to have had friends. I had acquaintances, certainly. I had been asked to participate in ceremonies before. - but always with a hint of reciprocity. A way to get me to do something for them. By the time they needed a pallbearer, they didn't need me anymore (though I had officiated at more than a few rebirth ceremonies). Asking someone to be a pallbearer had no hint of reciprocity. There was nothing I could do for Petros Lorrimor. He was dead. He was going to stay dead. And he had asked me to carry him into Pharasma's care solely because he liked me.
I realised then that if I had simply turned up on his doorstep, confessed everything and trusted him, he would have been there for me on that final day. And, just perhaps, he would not be dead.
As I stood by the coffin, the final resting place of a man I had honestly called 'friend', I found myself reflecting on the strangeness of my situation.
Once I would have raised Petros myself if I could find no other to do so. But if had he not died I would have had to kill him. He was too good a man to ever let a thing like me live if he knew.
I wonder, if I had had to fight Petros, would I have been able to bring myself to actually kill him? But that is a fantasy. Would I kill him? I've killed friends before when my life was on the line.
I saw my home with new eyes, and I marveled at how far it had fallen. It was not simply that the eyes with which I now viewed it performed perfectly, whereas my old eyes had over the years dimmed until it seemed everything faded into a fog save in bright light.
I think it was that I saw it unencumbered by the weight of two lives of memories. Oh, as I saw things the memories surfaced, but I was exhausted from my days of hard travelling and I would look at something for moments before those memories finally surfaced.
I saw the ruin it had become. My servants had all been pensioned off as my last day had come; what point in retraining new ones when soon I would be gone? Even my faithful manservant Jorumel had been given a handsome cottage... somewhere. I wasn't sure if the memory refused to surface or if I had deliberately avoided knowing.
There was nothing for me here. Nothing but the hope that with me gone no-one had come in to find my final post. That that damnable story was still sitting in the scroll case addressed to Professor Lorrimor. That I had not made an enemy of the man I most respected because of my weakness.
I crept into that house, past the empty bookshelves. Past the paraphernalia of a life deliberately wasted. Into the study that was the true heart of the home. There, square on my desk was a simple letter. A few words. A few words that, together, spelled my doom.
Sir,
I took the liberty of returning for one last farewell, and to ensure all was clean. I found you departed, so have arranged for a fresh block of ice and the cleaning lady to come next week.
Also, I saw that your mailbox was full, so have dropped them off with your courier.
I do hope you know that I am ever,
your faithful servant
Jorumel
My heart dropped into my stomach. I sat down, staring out at the window. I do not know how long I sat there when I saw the raven at the window.
Little caring for my wards I opened it and received a letter that proves Fate - or Fortune, for Fate cannot love me - had not finished with me.
Petros Lorrimor was dead. I felt guilt at how this terrible news restored my hope as I worked out the timing. For if Petros Lorrimor had been dead for two days there was a very good chance he had never received my parcel.
Still; two weeks? From my country estate, here, to Ravengro? With all my resources spent? And two weeks was ignoring however long the spell had left the bird trapped at my windowsill.
There was no time to lose: to Caliphas, to arrange for clothing sufficient to allow my new body to don the Bookman Guise, and then on to Ravengro with all haste.
