74 Searing 121
"He felt neither remorse nor hesitation as he toyed with and manipulated the lives of those he had captured. Most of the raiders died in the experiments but in the end, a handful of them proved at least moderately successful. They were not a true realization of Garel’s plans but they were, at the time, close enough to be tested."
Kala grimaced. The origins of her people were not glorious. At least, Garel of Atoria was a necromancer of great power and little in the way of ethics. But perhaps it was not her place to judge; the Hellmaw was certainly a threat to all life on Ransera. If his experiments plowed through lives like laboratory rats, it was easy for her to say that it was evil. He was doing what he thought he had to. At least, she could allow for that possibility. She had never met him and would likely never confront his spirit if it hadn't been destroyed in his own experiments.
The people who had followed in the footsteps of the raiders were more heroic, perhaps, or just pushed to the edge of their capacity and submitting to the blades and powers of a fabled necromancer seemed the only path toward a brighter future. Perhaps it had been their only hope. She set aside the history, knowing it would be more of the story she already knew and less of what she really wanted: clues as to how the man had crafted the Avialae out of normal folk. The clues Saedene had given her were as deceptively simple as any oracle. Look to the skies could mean anything from astrology to returning to the Temple of the Fallen Skies. And the gate she had seen looked more like something she might find in the Warrens, but was it something that others had found or something she would have to find for herself in some hitherto undiscovered region in the abyss?
This was some little thing she could work on while she tried to puzzle through the divine riddle. She would seek the origin. The history of her people had begun with Garel of Atoria, only passing through the hands of the Masked Queen when politics and bad actors had enslaved the Avialae. If she were to find the Masked Queen and the women who had gone to her, she would have to travel back in time, figuratively at least.
Or perhaps this was all a fool's errand and she was misreading anything, but she couldn't give in to despair, not when she had only begun. If nothing else, understanding necromancy might give her some context later in her journey.
And so she read what she could find, mostly primers as grimoires were not kept in the Archives. Or, if they were, they were not in the card catalog. She had sent a message home requesting a basic grimoire, at least. Perhaps it would come. She did not want to swear to the Tower of Lore in order to learn about these things.
She did not intend to experiment with life and death and everything in between as Garel had, as the elf lords of old Sol'Valen had. But she wanted to understand.
Kala read about the Way of Souls. It seemed as though it might be helpful to be able to exorcise unhappy spirits that needed to move on, though this was also the school that learned to bind spirits against their will. All magic could be used for good or for ill, though, just as she could use her elementalism to keep someone from freezing to death or she could use it to burn their house down. It seemed to also deal with carcasses, which was a deterrent, of course. But she wondered if that was how people like Iselya healed. She had brought necromantic salves down into the Warrens to increase their chance of surviving the Warren March. The young woman could see how unpleasant work could lead to benefits for the injured and ailing.
To her mind, the Way of Remembering seemed more problematic. Using someone's remains to make empowering artifacts did seem like cheating somehow, and she was somehow pleased to know that the benefits always came with costs. She supposed a truly skilled necromancer knew how to minimize the costs, but they could not be eliminated. The Mistlord Lyren took His due. Or perhaps His teachings merely taught ways of changing things that couldn't be perfect because they were subverting a natural order. These were questions for someone wiser than her.
With greater interest, she read about the Way of Flesh. This, of course, had clear medical value, and also seemed most aligned with the story of the creation of the Avialae, though if it were such a complex masterwork that survived its creator by so many generations, she would not be surprised to find that there were more complex goings-on at work. Flesh and soul might have been changed to create the winged species. Perhaps the original wings were even Remembered from ice eagles or something similar. Certainly, Kaus' wings looked much like a sparrowhawk's, while others she knew had wings like various other birds. She wondered what that meant.
She turned the page and then began to read with some interest about soul totems.
