B5 Chapter 9 – Going to the Rifts

After his discussion, Tyron finished his simple meal, went to his room to wash up and then slept. He was out for over twelve hours before he woke to find Briss poking her head through the door as he blearily sat up. The moment she saw him, she vanished, leaving him confused. He shook his head, staggered out of bed and went to put some fresh clothes on, only to find a warm plate on his desk with breakfast. Had Briss just delivered this?

If so, he had to ask her how she’d managed to get her hands on some eggs. They were worth their weight in gold these days, with how few chickens managed to make it over the mountains. As many eggs as possible were being fertilised in the hopes of building up the population, so actually getting to eat one was a rare treat.

After pulling on a simple robe, he sat down to enjoy the meal. After washing it down with some water, he felt much refreshed, if not fully fit. He’d pushed himself pretty hard this time, that much was clear. Thinking it over, he’d made some headway in his research, which was something. He’d doubted the Dust Folk had ever thought he’d be able to extract anything meaningful from the scrolls they’d given him. He was most definitely going to have the last laugh on that front.

He took the time to shave off what was starting to be a scraggly beard and not merely stubble before he combed out his hair and tied it back. A haircut was long overdue. He’d probably get Filetta to put a knife to it. Just as he was finishing, there was a tentative knock at the door.

“Come in,” he said, turning to face it.

Expecting to see Briss, he was a little surprised to see Georg and Richard as well. The three students entered his small and sparse chamber, giving him deferential nods as they did so.

“Is there a reason you all want to talk to me in my bedroom?” he asked, frowning.

“Oh,” Richard started, just seeming to realise where he was. “We… we’ll go wait in the sitting room. Come on.”

A moment later, they’d all shuffled out, leaving Tyron behind wondering what was going through their heads. After he’d pulled on some socks and sturdy shoes, he went to join them, falling into his seat and giving each of his apprentices a searching look.

“I assume you have something you want to tell me?” He said. “Some sort of breakthrough in Arihnan’s texts?”

If so, he was quite keen to hear it.

“Exactly that,” Richard said, unable to conceal his excitement. “The three of us have been coordinating to get through all the material, there’s so much of it, but we put that aside a few days ago to focus on something Georg found.”

The former farmhand jumped in.

“I was working through some of the things written by Bintis—”

“Wait a second. Who is Bintis?” Tyron interrupted.

“Oh. Some of the volumes appear to have been written by Arihnan’s… apprentice, or helper. He’s named in a couple of writings, but it isn’t clear exactly what he did. Anyway, some of the texts dealing with more fundamental Necromancy appear to have been written by him.”

“Interesting,” Tyron mused, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “Go on.”

“Right. The book seemed to be Bintis detailing the steps that needed to be completed in order for Arihnan to work on various forms of undead. Most of these things are familiar to us. How they treated their bones for skeletons. How they preserved corpses for zombies—”

“Anything interesting there?” Tyron interrupted again.

Finding new ways to prepare raw materials to create better undead was one of Tyron’s many obsessions. He’d done so much work on his own to develop more ideal bones, and now a lot of that research had been passed to Bone Smiths and Corpse Handlers, yet he still thought about it often.

Squeezing even a single percent of performance out of his basic skeletons would make a significant difference when his army numbered in the tens of thousands.

“Not… not really? There’s a few things that could be useful, but we would need to work on translating the names of the alchemical substances they used to get a better idea. It’s possible we have already tried those methods.”

“Make sure you look at that as a priority,” Tyron insisted.

He refused to believe that, in just a few years, the Necromancy that he and the others practiced was as developed as what Arihnan used. Sure, the spellwork might be better, since Tyron was, if nothing else, very good at magick, but processing corpses was brand new to him and everyone else he worked with. Necromancy hadn’t been illegal in Granin during the time of Arihnan the Black. That meant hundreds of years of research and innovation into their methods.

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Tyron knew he was smart, but he wasn’t that smart. Overcoming a deficit like that in just a few years was impossible. When it came to the spellwork, he had the benefit of further hundreds of years of theory and development since Granin had collapsed. That certainly helped.