《A Chat With Dad》


 Chapter I

    Khargrad was not a city and not a sleepy village but a middling town whose moderate fortune was entirely owed to the great, ever-glowing rifts in the sky where the world of the dead bled into the world of the living. It was from this Khargrad earned its nickname: The Town of Twilight, so named because in a ten-mile radius around the town there was a strange and unexplainable stasis. The sun was forever an inch below the horizon, the sky a purple-and-orange ombr¨¦ with clouds like stained putty and trees poised in eternal autumn, their leaves forever one day from being shed.


    Though people still died, there was a permeating ambience to the place that made it feel as though death¡ªthat final end¡ªwas forever looming but never present. As one traveling bard colorfully put it in a limerick all Khargradians are sick of hearing:


    There once was a mage necromantic,


    Whose love for cold bodies was frantic.


    So he want to Khargrad,


    but his enthusiasm thawed,


    When the corpses were still quite organic.


    No one loathed this infamous verse more than the Smertsky clan, whose family trade for as long as recorded history was commercial necromancy. They were, in fact, the only magical family in the kingdom permitted to employ necromancy and only for a single purpose which everyone from the loftiest king to the dirtiest peasant sought them for: Speaking with the departed.


    What won the Smertsky clan their royal monopoly were the strict standards they held their ancestral practice to. Most famous was the family¡¯s vow of secrecy as to what occurred between their clients and their deceased family members. Stories and legends abound of Smertsky necromancers withstanding the most heinous of tortures in order to protect their client¡¯s confidentiality. Dead men¡ªas many an unscrupulous person has realized¡ªcould tell not only interesting tales, but lucrative and compromising ones.


    In addition to their famous vow of secrecy, the Smertsky clan had a litany of other, less lurid restrictions no less important for preserving their reputation. These included stringent investigations of family lineage to prevent fraud, bans on certain types of questions concerning the afterlife, and a rigorous training regimen including healing magic should the words of the deceased cause unfavorable reactions in the living, up to and including cardiac arrest.


    Least interesting of all to outsiders were the standards the clan placed on themselves for matters of professionalism, family tranquility, or both. These rules included such things as forbidding members of the Smertsky family from participating in the communion of living and dead as anything other than necromantic interlocutor. Nor could they become professional necromancers until their 30th birthday after a long and arduous apprenticeship, at which point they could conduct the ritual as primary interlocutor only with the oversight of a master necromancer, a path which took yet another twenty years to complete. It was no wonder, then, that all of the patriarchs of the Smertsky households were forever on the lookout for their overconfident progeny misusing necromantic powers. All of the patriarchs, that is, save Vladimir Smertsky, father of Ivan and Peter Smertsky, who had recently died.


    ¡°Brain bleeding,¡± the doctor from the church told the family.


    Upon announcing the cause of death to the necromancer family seated around the parlor, the good doctor proceeded to explain in scientific detail the latest theories from the Royal Medical Academy about how a brain might spontaneously bleed from the inside-out. Ivan Smertsky, a boy 15 years old, who had undergone the vows and initiation of an apprentice necromancer not a month prior under a very lively, very healthy father, did not care to hear about these brain bleeding theories and fled his family¡¯s parlor so as not to hear any more.


    With a single flick of her eye, Ivan and Peter¡¯s mother, Katerina, an accomplished sorceress herself in both necromancy and the conjuration of social reputation, charged Ivan¡¯s elder brother Peter with going and dragging Ivan back. Which he hastened to do.


    Peter caught up to his brother at the front door.


    ¡°He¡¯s an insensitive bastard, Ivan. I understand. But you can¡¯t get up and¡ª you shouldn¡¯t run from dad¡¯s¡ª from the¡­¡±


    Peter wasn¡¯t quite able to articulate what the social occasion exactly was. It was not a funeral or a wake, but nor was it the horrifying moment when the two brothers were being drilled on the sacred words by their father when he suddenly forgot them, shuddered, and announced he thought the sun might finally set in Khargrad before collapsing into a pathetic, father-shaped heap, never to regain its rigidity. The occasion of the doctor¡¯s explanation of death was therefore a strange thing. Something which did not provide closure but merely signalled a liminal moment of transit between life and death, like the last day of autumn.


    Ivan said nothing at his brother¡¯s admonition and Peter put up no resistance when Ivan led them both out the front door and onto the brick path leading away from the manor. Above them, red and yellow leaves waved at them as they walked, refusing to fall. Both felt their disdain for the tactless doctor justified, and they knew Peter was only chastising Ivan at the behest of their mother.


    Ivan cared little for his mother. She was, in his estimation, cold, stiff, and far more interested in matters of social reputation and etiquette than in the warmth of familial intimacy. The only difference between her and the corpses their family made a living reanimating was that the undead were, on the whole, more gregarious.If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    More like his father had been.


    In his life, Vladimir Smertsky¡ªor ¡®Vladi¡¯ to all but the tax collectors¡ªhad been the exact opposite of the kind of man one imagines to make their living speaking with the dead. He was possessed of a loud, booming voice which reminded the listener of the blasting of a tuba, though his words were never anything but jovial and kind. His cheeks were ruddy and whiskered with a big red nose which had a habit of flaring right before he broke into one of his notorious belly laughs. He loved food and drink perhaps a bit more than most, lending him a larger than normal belly from which to belly laugh from, though he was quick to make sure others ate their fill. All who knew him loved him, and for the fifteen years fate had allotted Ivan to get to know his father, he¡¯d never known anyone to have an unkind word to say about him. Vladi Smertsky was everything Ivan wished to be when he grew up aside from, as of three days prior, dead.


    What most rattled Ivan was learning firsthand how ¡®dead¡¯ had a way of consuming all other descriptors until it was all that remained. ¡®Kind¡¯ and ¡®loud¡¯ were the first to go in the moments after his father collapsed, followed swiftly by ¡®upright.¡¯ Over the past several days it had consumed ¡®ruddy¡¯ and ¡®warm,¡¯ and Ivan was all too aware he could count on his hands how many more days he had with ¡®dry¡¯ and ¡®solid.¡¯ Off in the future there would come a day when even ¡®boney¡¯ would be no longer apt, and ¡®dead¡¯ would be his father¡¯s sole remaining attribute.


    The two brothers stopped at the gate of their family¡¯s manor. Ivan, filled with anger, made it all the way to the wrought-iron bars before succumbing to the need to dry heave. The term ¡®brain bleeding¡¯ still sloshed in his head as though it were the fluid itself. Peter pressed his hand against his brother¡¯s back while he heaved, transferring as much of the heat from their house¡¯s hearth to his brother as he could in Khargrad¡¯s perpetual autumnal chill.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry¡­¡± Ivan moaned.


    ¡°You have nothing to be sorry about,¡± his brother said softly, his voice imbued with a hint of his father¡¯s sonorousness yet with the scratchiness of youth.


    ¡°Not to¡ª¡± Ivan wiped his lips in spite of their dryness, ¡°¡ªnot to you. I mean¡­ to our clients¡­¡±


    ¡°What do you mean?¡± Peter asked.


    ¡°I didn¡¯t know¡­ I didn¡¯t know it was like this¡­¡±


    Peter knew what his brother meant. Their family¡¯s business, the business of temporarily resurrecting the dead so their family members could speak with them one last time, was just that: a business. Through sheer routine, the act of crossing the threshold between life and death was robbed of its horror and majesty until one began to find the outpouring of emotion from the living family members distasteful, embarrassing, and pitiful. Peter could recall a time not long after his twelfth birthday when, called upon by his father to assist with a ritual for King Jermaine III to speak with his dead mother, Peter was treated to the revolting sight of the most powerful man in the kingdom wailing like a newborn. Over the last several days, Peter had developed new sympathy for the king.


    ¡°Once you¡¯ve gathered yourself, I think we ought to head back inside,¡± Peter said, withdrawing his hand from his brother¡¯s back. ¡°The¡­ medical examination, it should only last another half an hour or so. You can put up with that.¡±


    ¡°I won¡¯t,¡± Ivan said. ¡°And you haven¡¯t the force to make me.¡±


    This was certainly true. Though Peter inherited his father¡¯s voice and eyes, he owed his slight build and cool temperament to his mother. His younger brother Ivan, though his junior by five years, was already beginning to develop his father¡¯s barrel chest and firm limbs. Should it come to a tussle, Ivan would emerge the victor.


    ¡°What can I say to convince you?¡± Peter asked.


    ¡°Nothing. I will not sit through that smarmy doctor describing our father like so much meat! Let the other houses tut at us, but I won¡¯t go back, and if mother cares more about our reputation than about respecting our father¡¯s memory, let her follow him,¡± Ivan said, turning away from the house and preparing to march off into the woods.


    Peter grabbed his brother¡¯s thick wrist. ¡°You don¡¯t mean that, Ivan.¡±


    ¡°I do! Let me go!¡±


    Peter felt closer to his mother than to his late father and so felt he understood her better. What Ivan believed to be their mother¡¯s coldness was precisely the means by which she was respecting his memory. Their father, forever the carouser, was not the one who ensured bottles of wine and suckling pigs were purchased for the feasts he so loved to host. It was Katerina Smertsky who coordinated the servants and managed the family¡¯s coffers and comforted their often distraught clients. Her domestic diligence left little time for the affection and warmth their father had possessed in abundance, yet Peter could not help but see his mother and father as a single unit acting in concert.


    In light of that, Peter viewed his mother¡¯s continued assiduity even in the face of death as nothing less than a promise to their late father to continue managing the household to the best of her ability. And the more Peter considered this, the more imperative it became to assuage her concerns and ensure Ivan returned to finish the proclamation of death.


    Ivan attempted to yank his wrist from his brother¡¯s grasp, but a peculiar strength filled Peter and he kept hold of his younger brother¡¯s hand. Peter was not confident, however, that he could repeat this feat. What he needed was something to offer his brother in exchange for returning to the house.


    ¡°What if¡­¡± Peter began to say.


    He knew what he planned to propose, but the enormity of it filled him with dread and buried the words in his throat.


    ¡°What!? Out with it!¡± Ivan said. ¡°Speak now or I shall be off.¡±


    ¡°Suppose¡­ if you were to come back¡­ that I could conduct the communion ritual for you, and¡­¡±


    The rebellion drained from Ivan¡¯s eyes at the allusion to something no member of the Smertsky clan was permitted to even consider, let alone act upon.


    ¡°That is a poor joke, Peter,¡± Ivan said.


    ¡°I am not being funny. I will do the ritual between you and¡ª¡± he must say it aloud now or lose his courage, ¡°¡ªfather. I¡¯ll do it if you come back with me.¡±


    Ivan¡¯s mouth twitched. He wanted to say no, and to call his brother insane for suggesting they break one of the clan¡¯s most important covenants. But even more than that, he wanted to speak with his father again. It would be one final time, and to pull from him the memories and tales he had not had time to bequeath.


    ¡°Very well,¡± Ivan said, turning back towards the manor house. ¡°As mother wishes.¡±

 Chapter II

    The ingredients necessary to return the dead to life were threefold: The particular, the universal, and the geophysical medium. The town of Khargrad functioned as this medium, for nowhere else in the world was the line between life and the hereafter thin enough to sustain prolonged contact. The ¡®universal¡¯ was likewise a reliable constant, being always an extraction of the departed flesh burned together with myrrh in a bowl formed of a maple burl. There was then only the matter of the particular.


    ¡°Do you think his journal will suffice?¡± Ivan asked.


    ¡°Perhaps if it contains a memorable entry,¡± Peter replied, rummaging through a desk.


    Scouring their father¡¯s study in the dead of night, the two brothers resembled befuddled burglars, unsure of what they were taking. In every scribbled note and smoke-scented handkerchief lay the promise of an item dense enough with memory to entice their father¡¯s spirit back to the world. A single tobacco pipe or worn slipper might suffice, but Ivan and Peter¡¯s necromantic training afforded them a special sense for when an item had the potential to entice the dead, and when it merely held sentimental value for the living.


    Ivan slapped the journal down on the desk. ¡°Nothing in it. Business and social observations, that¡¯s all.¡±


    Peter shut the drawer he was looking through and gingerly turned a brass key in the lock. Above them lay their mother¡¯s room and she was sure to be awake on this night of all nights. They themselves had hardly slept since their father¡¯s passing.


    ¡°His reading chair. Check the folds,¡± Peter said, gesturing at the overstuffed chair with its garish geometric patterns favored by a culture several thousand miles from Khargrad. He could hear even now his father¡¯s light-hearted argument with their mother who thought the chair garish and ugly.


    ¡°It¡¯s the essence of the thing, you see, not the outside. It¡¯s ugly to be sure, but sit your rump on it. Sit! Sit! See now? With most chairs a man will ache after an hour or two. But my back and my behind feel right as rain even if I were to sit all day. A painting is measured by its prettiness, but a chair by how it serves the ass!¡±


    And though their mother continued to pout, their father¡¯s belly-laugh drowned out any bad feelings lingering in the air and all seemed silly.


    ¡°Ah! I might have found something!¡± Ivan said, as loud as he dared raise his whisper.


    Ivan had found a piece of paper: Scribbled notes lost amongst the cushions. He uncrumpled it and found written shorthand references to one or another of their father¡¯s training sessions with them. In the funny way only incidental things can be, Ivan felt a wave of tenderness attack his throat and chest and had to turn away from the scribblings to compose himself. His elder brother took the note from him.


    ¡°We ought to subject it to a test,¡± Peter said. ¡°Finding a good ritual component is harder when the person is close to you. We need to make sure our feelings are not getting in the way.¡±


    ¡°Oh for the gods¡¯ sakes, Peter, you can stop being a necromancer for a moment and be a man who¡¯s lost his father!¡± Ivan said.


    Peter shushed him as his brother¡¯s voice rose above a whisper and their house creaked with movement. The noise was as likely to be a rat in the walls as their mother getting out of bed, but it was no excuse for clumsiness. They listened for a minute, straining to hear the soft thumps of their mother¡¯s feet down the upstairs hall. Even the wind outside hushed to hear if the brothers would be caught committing their family¡¯s gravest sin. But there was nothing.


    When the danger passed, Peter looked at the note and found he knew precisely the training session it recalled. His father had been trying to impart on them the importance of mindset when chanting the incantation, his advice lodged in Peter¡¯s brain:


    ¡°Your mind cannot be slack.¡±


    Their father had been seated on a cushion at the head of the ritual chamber with Ivan and Peter kneeling in front of him, Peter around 12 at the time, Ivan, seven or eight. Their father¡¯s seriousness had struck him then, his booming voice echoing out across the ritual chamber like a god to his faithful.


    ¡°The smallest distraction will ruin the incantation the way spoiled meat ruins a stew,¡± Vladimir Smertsky said. ¡°If you bring impurities with you, it will fail. There can be nothing else in your mind but the sacred words. No intentions but the calling of the dead.¡±You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.


    This lecture had been directed at Peter, who had failed several times by then to call to the dead. His father had neither punished him nor chastised him, but it was clear in his tone and demeanor he wished for Peter to fix this mistake as soon as possible. At feasts, when Vladimir Smertsky was at his most gregarious, his eyes did not see and his ears did not hear his first born son. This treatment continued until Peter corrected the incantations.


    In the present, Ivan sighed. ¡°If you must do the tests, do them, but I trust my instincts.¡±


    The two brothers shut the door to their father¡¯s study with the tenderness of a mother escaping a slumbering newborn and crept out the hall, into the main hallway, the foyer, the porch, and from thence to the garden shed where they had stockpiled the ritual supplies which might give their transgression away. From beneath a pile of half-rotted rope Peter produced a brass bowl to test the suitability of their calling material. He laid the scrap of paper in the basin along with a sprinkle of their father¡¯s ashes and prepared to chant the incantation.


    Ivan took up position across from his brother and clasped the other side of the bowl. The two locked eyes with one another and opened their mouths and throats as slowly as their jittering nerves permitted in order to synchronize the incantation.


    ¡°Our vessel is empty. It is without original nature. That which we abide in is temporary. When its constituents have run their course, they take on a new form. Equally empty. So it is with all things great and small. Nothing is born, nothing is dead. Nothing is and nothing is not. Nothing is gained and nothing is lost. Those who know this can see the threads along which lives run like beads and thus may they turn them in their hands,¡± they chanted.


    For a full ritual there were another five stanzas, but for a test of the ritual material this was sufficient. After a moment of pregnant silence, the dusty air of the garden shed filled with a low, brassy ring as though a ghostly hand were tracing a fingernail along the rim of the bowl. Peter took the bowl and set it down on a workbench and it ceased ringing.


    ¡°I told you! I could feel it,¡± Ivan said, eyes fixed on the scrap of paper in the bowl.


    Suddenly, as the prospect of the full ritual drew closer, Peter felt nauseous.


    ¡°Perhaps we shouldn¡¯t do this after all,¡± he said.


    Ivan stabbed a finger at him. ¡°I came back with you. That was our deal. You cannot back out now.¡±


    Peter swallowed. ¡°I know what I said, but just as you trusted your gut about that scrap of paper, now I am trusting mine. Why do you think our ancestors banned performing our rituals on family members? Surely they must have had a good reason.¡±


    ¡°Who knows why we have any of these rules!? If it were so dangerous, wouldn¡¯t we have been told why?¡± Ivan said, looming over his elder brother in the dark of the shed. ¡°I know not to run in front of a horse to avoid being trampled and I know not to put out an oil fire with water because it will spread. I know these things because people have told me why they are dangerous. But if our ancestors banned something, they should have told us why. Unless it isn¡¯t so dangerous after all.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t be ridiculous,¡± Peter said.


    ¡°I am not being ridiculous!¡± Ivan said.


    ¡°Suppose we were to ask one of the family patriarchs why?¡±


    ¡°And hint to them what we¡¯re up to? Don¡¯t be daft! You know as well as I, our rules exist to mystify patrons, to sell them the story that our clan is the only one who ought to be trusted with necromancy. Or, to keep power in the hands of patriarchs so no one questions why they get all our earnings and we get a measly allowance!¡±


    ¡°Patriarchs like our father?¡± Peter asked.


    His younger brother blushed. ¡°I didn¡¯t mean¡­ You know what I meant! I¡¯ve heard you say as much before.¡±


    ¡°I know I have, but¡­¡± his mind was changing, was what Peter wanted to say. He was beginning to feel the wisdom of the prohibition, though he could not articulate it, and being unable, had no argument for his brother. ¡°Is there something else I can offer you?¡±


    ¡°No,¡± Ivan said.


    ¡°And what if when we¡­ when we speak with father¡­ what if he says things we wished we hadn¡¯t heard? Secrets better left forgotten?¡±


    ¡°I am no coward. I am not afraid of what our father might have done. Suppose he had a mistress, why should I care? Whatever disappointment I might feel will be made up tenfold in speaking with him once again.¡±


    Peter could not help but think his brother resembled their patrons when warned of the dangers of speaking with the dead. Peter had been present at numerous rituals and was all too aware of the horrors which might come from a ghost¡¯s candid mouth. Most patrons came to the Smertsky clan knowing full well the dangers, yet they forged ahead with an obsessive fervor, seeking a closure they were unlikely to receive. All too often the pain they sought to fix by speaking with the dead resided with the still living, and most often in themselves. His brother ought to have known this, but to live that aching need was to have it seize your rational faculties. Peter could feel its clutches upon himself even now.


    ¡°I will do it,¡± Peter said, ¡°but you must promise me one thing.¡±


    ¡°Another promise?¡±


    ¡°Yes, another. We should speak to father only about what we already know. Memories, stories, and tales. Promise me that we will not pry into anything we do not already know the answer for and I will utter not a word more in protest.¡±


    ¡°I hadn¡¯t wished for anything but! All I want is to hear the tales of old again. I want to hear him one last time tell us of how he met our mother and of the silly Dwarven ruins and all those old stories. That is all I want,¡± Ivan said.


    Seeing in his younger brother¡¯s eyes that he was sincere, Peter scooped up the scrap of paper from the bowl, placed the ritual supplies back under the pile of rotten rope, and turned to the door. ¡°We¡¯ll begin at dusk tomorrow.¡±

 Chapter III

    Though the garden shed sufficed for testing ritual ingredients, it was too close to Ivan and Peter¡¯s home to safely perform their ritual. Though the town of Khargrad was large enough a traveler might pass through anonymously, the same was not true for a member of the Smertsky clan, especially due to the long-standing suspicion the townspeople held towards them. It was for this reason Ivan was forced to concoct an excuse for why he and Peter needed to borrow a wheelbarrow and were going off into the woods and would not be back for supper.


    ¡°You have no reason to be out that late in the dark,¡± his mother said.


    Peter thought her tone disproportionately urgent for what ought to have been two young men out for an evening stroll.


    ¡°If we wish to have a walk, that is for us to decide. You have no authority over us,¡± Ivan replied.


    This was true in a technical sense, as Peter had become the patriarch for their family branch the moment Vladimir Smertsky was proclaimed dead. In practice, however, Smertsky sons, in the rare case where they were prematurely thrust into the role of patriarch, were expected to defer to their mother¡¯s wisdom until they were a master necromancer at the age of 50. The reason given was that sons were liable to make rash decisions with the powers afforded to a patriarch. To contradict this was unthinkable, and it was not Ivan their mother turned to but Peter who stood behind him, wringing his hands.


    ¡°Peter, this is ridiculous! You are the head of this household now, you cannot be running around into the woods like a child! Least of all should you be dragging your brother along and allowing him to speak to me like this!¡± said his mother.


    Peter had thought before that moment that he was incapable of being cruel towards his mother who he so admired, yet as she stood before him, balling her robe in her fists and looking at him through hysterical eyes with frayed gray hair falling over them, he found in himself a font of something less than pleasant. Repugnant, even. Who was she to tell him where he was permitted to be and at what hour? Peter was twenty. A grown man in any corner of the world.


    ¡°I am the head of the household and if I have business to attend to after dark that is mine to decide. Not yours,¡± Peter said.


    A look of hurt flashed across his mother¡¯s face. After his moment of spite passed he regretted not only his words but the unexplainable malice which had overcome him. Though he wished to say something in reconciliation, to do so would be to betray Ivan in turn. It was clear a threshold had been crossed in that moment which he would not be permitted to retreat from. Nor was he allowed to view his mother as the unshakeable authority she had been for much of his life. In her absence was a frightening sensation of being untethered. Or, perhaps, to be tied to something else which was not altogether innocent.


    Katerina Smertsky¡¯s lip quivered and a strange fear passed through her eyes and then she spoke not in admonishment but in a kind of anxious fear. ¡°Your father used to say similar things. And your uncles¡­¡±


    ¡°And it was their right to do so,¡± Ivan added.


    Ironically, Peter felt something petulant, even pitiful in the way his brother made the same claims as he. Placing his hand on Ivan¡¯s shoulder, he squeezed. If they were going behind their mother¡¯s back, he wanted to minimize the harm they caused her. Nonetheless, at his brother¡¯s outburst, their mother¡¯s face adopted a strange, uncomfortable smile and she laughed. Her eyes focusing intently, almost fiercely upon him in a way that Ivan had to avert his gaze from.


    ¡°You have no idea what I¡¯ve done to keep our family together. To keep us presentable. To keep us safe! From¡ª¡±


    Peter had some idea, though he didn¡¯t care to think too hard about it. There hung in the air of any Smertsky family manor things that were known but never said, as though they would lose their power if spoken aloud. Ivan, for all his earnestness, felt this as a centrifugal force, something which pushed him out.


    ¡°Don¡¯t come looking for us. We will be back by midnight,¡± Peter said, his voice firm.


    Her fierce eyes flicked to him but she said nothing. In her gaze he thought he saw something probing, as an inquisitor might press a suspected apostate. Fearing his own indecision might give away their transgression, he turned and fled the house.


    Ivan joined him at the door and the two walked in silence to the shed where the ritual tools had been packed into a wheelbarrow and covered with layers of linen. Deciding he ought to take the blame should they be caught, Peter took the handles of the wheelbarrow as his brother followed along beside and they made their way to the forest trail on the edge of town.


    ¡°We should not have spoken like that to mother,¡± Peter said.


    ¡°I won¡¯t indulge her obsession with reputation anymore. It¡¯s not as though it helped me when the other children teased me about being a necromancer,¡± Ivan said.


    ¡°You chose to go to school in the town,¡± Peter said.


    ¡°I chose not to insulate myself like you did and like the rest of our family does. Father didn¡¯t hide behind the walls of a family compound and pretend not to hear what the townspeople said. He confronted them directly. He fought for and won their respect. No one called him a corpsefucker.¡±


    Peter raised an eyebrow. He knew some of what his brother had been subjected to, but the worst of it Peter escaped by taking his primary schooling with the other children of the Smertsky clan. This was the preferred way, as the townspeople did not like or trust them, even as they single-handedly propped up Khargrad¡¯s economy with their family business. Ivan alone rebelled and mingled with the townsfolk, and he had learned firsthand why the clan kept to themselves. Peter could still recall the day his brother came home in tears because the other boys stuffed a bloody pig¡¯s head in his pack and asked him to speak with his dead sister.


    ¡°Don¡¯t take out your frustrations on mom. She has good reasons for what she does,¡± Peter said.


    ¡°She didn¡¯t do anything to defend me. It was dad who went into town to get them to stop. They knew not to mess with him. That¡¯s how I want to be,¡± Ivan said.


    Peter let the matter drop. The winds were picking up and it felt cold enough to strip the leaves from trees if such a thing were possible in Khargrad. They were lucky in that respect. It would have been harder to hide their work in the deep woods if the trees weren''t covered in autumn foliage.


    After an hour¡¯s walk, Peter pointed out a spot off the path where a bent tree formed a half-arch over a rocky path just wide enough to fit the wheelbarrow. The sun was below the horizon now and what light remained cast a dim purple shade over the woods. The moon was nearly new, a slivered crescent in the sky hardly brighter than a planet for their purposes. Neither brother dared light a lantern, however, as their work belonged in the dark.If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.


    Far enough into the woods they could not be seen from the road, Peter announced they had arrived. Under the minimal starlight, Ivan saw the dead husk of a stately yew tree, its petrified trunk the span of three men. He ran his hands along it, feeling the hard, smooth crystals which had long replaced the living tree. While he did so, his older brother rolled the ritual ingredients out onto the linen sheet: The wooden bowl, the scrap of journal, sticks of myrrh, and an urn with the ash and half-charred bones of their father.


    ¡°Are you ready?¡± Peter asked.


    Despite the autumn chill, Ivan felt a dark cold prick him from the inside. Hesitation crept up upon him, but he was not one to second guess his decisions. No Smertsky ought to be, in his estimation. In this way he was like his father, a man who never stumbled or minced his words but always knew what he wanted and acted.


    ¡°I am ready,¡± Ivan replied.


    The two sat down cross-legged on either side of the linen sheet. It felt strange to skip the step of guiding a patron through the process, telling them their role in the ritual and how they ought to think and speak and act. Instead, they went straight on to the incantations. Ivan chanted the words in a baritone register as Peter chanted them in the tenor and the two proclaimed the empty self-nature of life to the cold, dark forest around them.


    Suddenly, there came a scratching along the wooden bowl. Peter, with a piece of flint, lit the sticks of myrrh. Upon touching the wooden bowl, the ember tips of the incense sticks flared and burned down to the end. The incense smoke filled the bowl to the lip where it roiled as though an invisible piece of glass enclosed it. Into this bowl Peter poured their father¡¯s ashes and chips of bone and the smoke rose from the bowl first as a pustule which burst forth into the air, threading in and out of the darkness.


    The two brothers felt their skin prickle with goose flesh and the cold around them became as hot as it was cold. In the dark, a hazy outline was formed like something half-seen, the contents of a feverish dream transposed onto the harshly rational edges of reality. The spectre didn¡¯t speak so much as the world around the two brothers seemed to speak for it. Nocturnal animals scratched and scurried to form the consonants and the wind and leaves whistled the vowels.


    ¡°Awake again¡­¡±


    ¡°D-Dad?¡± Ivan asked.


    ¡°I am he. I was Vladimir Smertsky in life.¡±


    Ivan¡¯s heart thumped in his chest. This was undeniably his father in another form. Nonetheless, he felt mild disappointment that it must be in this dreadful, half-alive state where his father could only answer questions posed to him. Though Ivan himself might find joy in hearing tales from his father once again, it soured the experience to know his father felt nothing in turn, that the blissful reminiscence was one-sided. He envied the family¡¯s patrons who could delude themselves that the dead shared their pleasure.


    Peter swallowed. ¡°How a-are¡ª¡± He bit his tongue. Force of habit had made him ask how his father was. But that wasn¡¯t a question the dead could answer.


    ¡°D-Do you remember us? Your sons?¡± Ivan asked.


    ¡°Yes¡­¡± the spectre hissed as rustling leaves. ¡°The elder¡­ and the younger¡­ your names¡­ Peter¡­ Ivan¡­¡±


    ¡°Do you miss us?¡± Ivan asked.


    Their father was silent.


    ¡°We miss you.¡±


    Their father was silent.


    Seeing his brother¡¯s face scrunch in dismay, Peter leapt to ask the next question:


    ¡°Could you tell us again how you met our mother? Katerina Smertsky?¡±


    ¡°Katya Zhiznov¡­¡± the father said ponderously. They had never once heard him call her that. In life he referred to her as ¡®mum.¡¯


    ¡°Katya was in my year¡­ was in school with me¡­ in town¡­ the other children despised me, but not her¡­ she shared her cakes with me¡­ the other children said if I ate them¡­ she would smell like a¡­ corpse.¡±


    Ivan had heard this story a hundred times, but never in the cold, halting way their father¡¯s ghost was telling it now. But besides this feeling of unease there was comfort at knowing that this story lingered after one of its tellers was gone. Ivan was born from the events of this tale, and with it he would go to his grave.


    ¡°We grew older¡­ and were teenagers¡­ her family forbid us¡­ but her grandmother died¡­ and I performed the ritual¡­ without payment¡­ in secret¡­ and her family gave us¡­ their blessing¡­ I gave her the ring¡­ in coffin wood¡­ she laughed¡­¡±


    Peter couldn¡¯t help but imagine the woman as someone other than his mother whenever their father told the story. The girl who threw her reputation to the wind to be with the son of a necromancer could not possibly have been his mother. But it was. When he asked her about it, his mother said simply that the two cases¡ªconcern for the family¡¯s reputation and concern for her own¡ªwere two different matters. The former was far more important than the latter.


    While Peter reflected on this, Ivan¡¯s eyes were full of stars. His mother and father never hid the fact that they had broken the family¡¯s rules to perform the ritual for his mother¡¯s parents, but on this night it was even more significant. Ivan and his brother might have been committing a sin by speaking with their father¡¯s ghost, but this sin was part of a family lineage. His father had broken with tradition to go to school in Khargrad and to court the woman he loved. This was the blood flowing through Ivan¡¯s veins.


    ¡°Thank you, father,¡± Ivan said.


    Their father was silent.


    ¡°I-I want to hear another,¡± Ivan said. ¡°I want to hear about the family¡¯s travels to the dwarven ruins.¡±


    He waited for the chuckle with which his father would preface the story, sometimes followed by a joking groan at having to ¡®tell that old story again.¡¯ There was none.


    ¡°Katya and Peter¡­ he was young¡­ when we went abroad¡­ to Tolyumborg¡­¡±


    Gone too was the meandering attempt to recall how old Peter was, which fluctuated between 18 months and three years old depending on the telling.


    ¡°The ruins¡­ were disappointing. There were¡­ three gears¡­ in a cave¡­¡±


    Ivan laughed at that only because it was his part in the retelling to laugh. There was much more to the story, including his mother¡¯s excitement and Dwarven history obsession leading up to it, Peter mispronouncing ¡®dwarf¡¯ in front of the tour guide in a way that sounded like a swear word, the worst borscht his father had ever had, and several other tribulations which crescendoed on the winds of his father¡¯s booming voice to the punchline that the ruins had mostly been sent to an academy¡¯s antiquarian for study.


    ¡°How was the borscht at the sledge stop?¡± Ivan asked.


    ¡°Bad¡­¡±


    Ivan chuckled again. ¡°So I have heard!¡±


    His brother gazed at him. ¡°Ivan¡­¡±


    ¡°Well! We¡¯ll ask him about another,¡± Ivan said. ¡°Why don¡¯t you ask him one, eh? Don¡¯t let me have all the fun!¡±


    Peter¡¯s jaw clenched. Neither he nor Ivan wanted to admit what they knew was true. What they knew beforehand would be true: That this was a pitiful farce.


    ¡°Father¡­¡± Peter said. ¡°Could you tell us about¡ª about what you hoped for the future?¡±