This was the night when he, Hadar Kertz, would die again and be reborn in a single breath of smoke. He stood hulking in a hooded robe at the window of the abandoned fortress – face horribly burnt and contorted, hands on his back – looking out at the rugged mountains and the twin moons. The red-tinted moon of Orasina hung above the northern peak, and the smaller, icy blue moon of Elios was just now rising behind the ridge. His calculations had been correct. Tonight, the moons would kiss for the first time in twenty years.


    A wolf howled in the distance, a piercing, drawn-out sound that cut through the night. The wind, sharp and cold, tugged at his robe, carrying the smell of pine and damp earth from the mountains below. This was a beautiful, vibrant world full of life.


    But he dealt in death.


    One only needed to open the door down to the dungeons to be sure of that. Corpses piled knee-high, a mass of twisted limbs, some rigid and blue, others putrid and black, loose in the flesh.


    Tonight, he himself would pass over.


    His stomach tightened with fear, a sour taste rising in his throat.


    You blithering weakling! Death isn’t something to fear but to cherish!


    He had worked more than three decades for this moment and ought to feel jubilant, not fearful. Fear was for lesser creatures. But still, there was a tremble in his jaw. His palms were slick with sweat despite the chill in the air.


    He heard shuffling sounds and turned his head just enough to see the broken one hunched over at the door, his face tilted to see through his one good eye.


    “Master,” he said with a lisp, grabbing the door frame. “The time is nearing.”


    Gilnar had once been a stable boy. Now, this broken thing was the only help Hadar had in this, his most important endeavour. It hadn’t always been like this. Once he had commanded more than a hundred loyal souls.


    And he would again.


    The lords that had burnt him at the stake were all dead, and to their successors, Hadar Kertz – the esteemed court mage that turned foul – was just a bad memory, dead and buried for decades. Well, it took more than fire to kill a master necromancer for whom death was only life seen from another angle.


    From a crease in his robe, he took out a glass tube, corked at both ends, and held it up against the moons. The dark liquid inside shimmered green.


    Blackwater.


    It took a certain kind of man to harvest all those bodies down in the dungeon, and remain somewhat human, but he had done it. He had extracted the blackwater from his victims’ skulls, mixed it with the blood of a pregnant grizzle, and kept it exposed to the moons for a whole lunar cycle. It was as charged and potent as it would ever be.


    So much death only to produce life.


    “Master?”


    “Yes, Gilnar. You are quite right,” Hadar turned toward the broken one. “It is time.”


    Gilnar had a crescent indentation at the side of his skull. One eye was partially pushed out of its socket, staring with a bloated, surprised look. The horse that had caved his temple in had also bashed most of his wits away, together with most of his memory. If Hadar’s fear had a source, it was that soon everything would rest in the hands of this halfwit. His pulse quickened as the thought tightened his chest. Hadar could, of course, summon one of his followers, but that wasn’t how this play was written. He wanted a triumphant return, to be hailed in ecstatic fits and religious marvel. He couldn’t be seen like this, disfigured and weak.


    The boy lurched sideways through the damp corridor, steadying himself with his knuckles. Hadar followed with a torch, black smoke billowing and twisting in the draft.


    They ascended the stairs to the crenelated roof. The only noise disturbing the peace was the suppressed sobbing from the young fair-haired man that was tied – hands and feet apart – on a slab at the centre of the roof. In every corner of the slab, oblong mirrors stood, angled to reflect the lunar light down on the man. A wooden table and a sturdy chair equipped with leather straps stood beside it. Plungers, bowls, and coiled-up tubing made of animal veins lay on the table.


    When the man heard them, he turned his face to them, shivering with cold, tears streaming down his face. “Ple-ease. I will tell no one if you let me go.”


    Hadar removed the hood, exposing his burnt face and leathery scalp. The man on the slab whimpered. Hadar disrobed and soon stood in only a loincloth. Goosebumps rose on his skin. He was a big man, towered in crowds, and was built more like a farmhand than a scholar. The man on the slab, lips twitching, was himself a big man, but his core lacked steel. He was a whimpering, blubbering crier, but he hadn’t been chosen because of his person, but for his frame and face, which both were appealing to the eye.


    “Is everything prepared?” Hadar asked over his shoulder.


    “It is, master. Gilnar has prepared everything. All master must do is die.”


    Hadar sat down in the chair. There was a faint smell of alchemical ingredients from the table. The leather straps were cool against his skin, pressing tightly against his ankles as Gilnar fastened them, creaking with each tug. The boy hummed a simple farmer’s song as he worked.


    “It is going to be violent,” Hadar muttered through the side of his mouth, his tongue dry, as if the words themselves drained him. “But no matter my pleas, you will not release these straps. Do you understand?”


    “I do, master. I do.”


    The boy stopped humming and worked the straps around his wrists with silent concentration. Hadar could feel the boy’s hot breath on his neck as he worked, the smell of sweat and something slightly sour.


    “It’s done, master.”


    He stepped back, wetting his upper lip with a lizard-like tongue.


    “Repeat for me the process after my death.”


    “When you’re dead and your heart stops, I will take the medium plunger and empty your heart of blood and…”


    Hadar nodded as Gilnar went through the steps. The man on the slab cried and jerked with his tethered limbs, realizing that Gilnar’s gruesome account of events to come applied to him in equal measures. When Gilnar silenced, the man had gone as limp as a boned-out fish. He just lay there, blinking up at the stars.


    Hadar nodded. The boy knew what to do.


    “And what is the most important thing of all?”


    Gilnar licked his upper lip again, his bloated eye looking even bigger, excited to know the answer.


    “The lunar eclipse, master. It all has to happen during the lunar eclipse, or all is wasted. The dark arts become stronger the closer the moons are to one another, but they are never as strong as when they eclipse.”


    Hadar nodded. It was a rehearsed answer. He didn’t know how much the boy understood, but it didn’t matter. The only thing that did matter was what the boy did during the eclipse.


    The wind howled at the edges of the fortress, cold and biting, but Hadar''s skin had long since grown numb to it. His thoughts churned as he gazed at the moons.


    They kissed.


    Soon Orasina would start eating the smaller Elios. During the twelve minutes he was in her belly, Hadar’s transformation needed to be completed.


    “We don’t have much time, Gilnar. Set the needle.”


    Gilnar bobbed his head.


    “Yes, master!”


    Gilnar scuttled over to the table and grabbed a coil of animal veins. It made a strange slithering noise when he uncoiled it. The end of it was equipped with a needle of iron grass, cut at an angle. He turned to the man on the slab. The man’s eyes went wide, and he started squirming.


    “Oh no, please! Please don’t!”


    Gilnar clamped his arm down and rammed the needle in with all the finesse of a butcher’s apprentice. The man screamed and drummed his heels against the slab.


    “Oh, shut it,” Hadar muttered. “Is there blood?”


    “Oh yes, master! It’s drip-drip-dripping at the end of the tube, but not quite running.”


    “Good. Now, attach the plunger.”


    Gilnar wiggled the tip of a metal plunger into the tube. It was filled to the brim with a poison that could stop a heart in less than ten beats.


    “You need to hurry. Now the smoke.”Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.


    “The smoke. The smoke,” Gilnar repeated and fetched a tin plate from the table and placed it between Hadar and the stone slab. From the pouch hanging from the belt of his worn-out tunic, he emptied a grey powder. The powder caught the combined lunar light, glowing faintly with a greenish hue, as if absorbing the energy of the moons. The light spilling over the sobbing man had shifted from the bluish grey of ordinary lunar light to an eerie kind of purple.


    “By the gods, what are you doing?” the man gulped between sobs, his breath catching as his voice broke.


    Gilnar took the torch Hadar had brought and set it to the powder. It caught fire with a fizzle and sparks. The smoke billowed up, unnaturally dense. Hadar closed his eyes and breathed the heavy, sweet smoke. He heard the man cough on the slab, but he could no longer see him.


    “Now, the poison,” Hadar said with a coarse voice and thumping heart.


    The shadow of Gilnar came wrestling through the smoke with a wooden bowl in his cupped hands. He put the bowl to Hadar’s lips. The liquid filled his mouth, bitter like crushed apple seeds, and burned its way down his throat. His stomach clenched like a fist. He exhaled and said in a perfectly calm voice:


    “If you mess this up, Gilnar, I will haunt you from the other side. In every waking hour and every strand of sleep you’ll get, I’ll be there waiting for you.”


    Gilnar paled, the bowl trembling in his hand.


    “I will not, master! Gilnar will do as instructed. Gilnar will not disappoint.”


    “Good. Go kill that sobbing twat now.”


    Gilnar gave a sharp nod and went into the smoke. It swirled around him, his figure barely visible in the dim light. Hadar heard the man on the slab scream and plead with a voice that rose to a high shriek of terror.


    Then, he suddenly fell silent.


    Gilnar had pressed the plunger.


    Hadar felt light-headed. His vision blurred, his pulse quickened, each beat a sharp, thunderous echo in his chest. A sudden cramp hit his stomach, like being stabbed by a thousand knives. The pain tore through his insides, white-hot and unbearable. He slammed his head against the backrest and sputtered air through his nose.


    The pain!


    Panic invaded him, seizing his mind, reducing everything to the singular sensation of his body burning from within. His limbs were on fire, his back arched. He sputtered again, blood and froth spewing from his mouth. He sloshed it around, whipping his head left and right. Distantly, he heard Gilnar’s panicked “Master!” but the excruciating pain left Hadar’s mind with only one thought: death needed to come fast, or his mind would irreparably break.


    The billowing smoke let him see a brief glimpse of the sky, the moons hazy and distant through the swirling fog. He saw the last sliver of Elios disappear behind Orasina, and then...


    ...he died.


    There was darkness. Cold, vast, all-consuming darkness. He floated in it, weightless, his body numb. Naked in both body and soul. There was no up and no down. The concept of thought had not yet reached him. He was a newborn in the void, a womb of his own making. But then, there was a speck of light, faint to the point of imagination, but strong enough to break the dark monotony.


    Thoughts started to form and they raced ahead of emotion. His mind clawed for recognition, for identity.


    A surge of dread rose within. Was he to spend eternity here? Left to the mercy of his own mind and his revenge unfulfilled? He was no longer naked in soul. It filled with weakness, with fear, spreading through his very being like venom. His mind started to slip, but that speck of light, no more than a needle prick in the dark, anchored him. There was something familiar about it, even if it was as distant as the most distant star in the sky.


    And then, it started to grow – rapidly.


    His eyes went wide. The pull in his stomach told him that the light wasn’t coming to him, but rather he was being hurled towards it.


    He was standing on the stake again, the rough wood of the post digging into his naked back. He looked at the executioner’s torch, its flickering light casting long, wavering shadows across the square. The high lords and the fatherless boy king were standing on the dais before him, people crowding around the square. There was none of the usual jeering and mockery. It was dead silent. They feared him still, even when he was tied to the stake with his hands behind his back. They feared him, and they wanted him gone. And by the dark lord, he was afraid.


    Then he saw them. His people. They were standing intermingled with the crowd, giving him silent nods. None of them was going to intervene because he had told them not to.


    The others were there too, the ancient enemies, standing silent, their hoods casting shadows over their faces – silently revelling in his fast-approaching death.


    One of the lords spoke with a powerful voice, reading out the allegations. The boy king stood next to him, pale with red-rimmed eyes. The sky was overcast, the air sick with moisture, and when the executioner put the torch to the hay, it started to rain. But that didn’t stop the fire. It crackled and hissed, growing louder as it licked the soles of his feet.


    He turned inward. Tried to block out the pain, tried to go through his trial with as much dignity as possible, but in the end he screamed like they all did; howled to the sun that was but a pale thumbmark behind the clouds.


    No, this wasn’t real… This had already happened. Just the afterglow of a lightning strike in his mind.


    He gritted his teeth. Then there was a distant booming sound. It was his own heartbeat, he realized, emanating from his unconscious body in the physical world. He focused on the booming sound and pulled himself back, away from the fire.


    Hadar opened his eyes.


    He was on his back, his head feeling like a split-open tooth, his body numb with cold. The first thing he saw was the swell of Elios on the right side of Orasina, like the moon giving birth. For a moment, he was paralyzed, unable to move his arms and legs, not even able to twitch his fingers. Then he breathed in sharply and blinked.


    “Master?”


    Gilnar approached the slab cautiously, both hands clenched to his chest. Hadar smiled. The motion didn’t pull and strain his face. Smiling was smooth and effortless. His new flesh felt supple, almost unfamiliar, like silk brushing his bones.


    “Yes, Gilnar. It is me.”


    Gilnar looked at him with unbelieving eyes.


    “Remove the needles and untie me, Gilnar.”


    Gilnar did, and Hadar rose to his feet, rubbed his wrists, and breathed in the cold night air. He smiled again, then he laughed. Gilnar did as well, but hesitantly so.


    “Oh, my… Gilnar. You wouldn’t believe what I’m experiencing now.”


    “What, master? What are you experiencing?”


    The surge of power within. He tensed his lips and clenched his fists. Fists that could crack a mountain top to bottom. He could feel the heat of life burning through his veins, each pulse a fiery reminder of his newfound strength. This young body was now his. He had passed over with the smoke, and he could become smoke again, whenever he wanted. He was finally free, in every sense that mattered. Free to pursue his goals, to get his revenge, and put this whole world at the stake. They should feel what he had felt. Experience what he had experienced. Only then, when they fully understood, could he accept them as his subjects. This world belonged to him and his true master, just as this body did.


    “I can’t describe it, Gilnar. I’d better just show you.”


    He grabbed Gilnar by the back of his head, pulled him close, pressed his lips against his, and breathed out the smoke.


    “Master!” Gilnar screamed and stumbled backward, wiping his lips, eyes pinched shut, his feeble mind in disarray.


    Then, suddenly, he stilled. His face relaxed, and he dropped his arms and shoulders. He opened his eyes, and Hadar experienced another mind-wrenching moment when he looked back at himself.


    “Remarkable,” he said with Gilnar''s mouth, looking down at his hands.


    “Four hands are better than two, considering what we are about to do,” Hadar answered himself.


    On the chair, still strapped in, the immense husk of his former body sat slumped, mouth drooping and eyes looking over the armrest with an uninterested stare.


    The two men, who were now one, untied the corpse and, with considerable effort, lifted it to the slab. There it lay, slack-jawed, staring up at the sky. They worked fast and without words. Gilnar uncoiled more of the tubing while Hadar fingered the spot at the base of the corpse’s skull. He reached backward, and Gilnar placed the tube with the needle in his hand. Hadar aligned the needle and started pressing, careful not to bend the petrified straw and shatter it. It broke through the bone with a snap and went up into the brain at a perfect angle. He took the double-corked vial out of his pocket, gave it a quick shake against the moons, just to make sure that it still had the greenish sheen to it.


    It did.


    The vial made a faint clink as it tapped against the edge of the slab, the liquid inside swirling, thick and viscous.


    Gilnar put the end of the tubing in his mouth and sucked. He jerked his head back and spat out black blots of blood, the thick metallic tang making the men gag in unison. Gilnar pinched the tube closed with his thumb before handing it to Hadar. Hadar didn’t need to ask for the needle; Gilnar gave it to him as if they had performed this procedure many times. They hadn’t, but Hadar had gone through it a thousand times in his head.


    He wiggled the needle onto the end of the tubing and then pressed it through the end of the double-corked vial. He pressed it until he saw the needle shoot up in the black liquid.


    Then he pulled the cork at the other end of the vial, releasing the vacuum.


    There was a sucking sound as the vial drained.


    Then there was only silence.


    The two men stared down at the corpse on the slab.


    “Soon,” they said in unison.


    Wasn’t there…? Yes, an almost unnoticeable tension in the jaws of the corpse. The two men gasped as one and leaned closer.


    The corpse bit its jaws together with a sharp clack! The tendons in its throat tensed. It rolled its eyes, and they fogged over, becoming pale moons of their own.


    It kept clicking its teeth.


    Click-click-click-click.


    The burnt corpse swung its legs down and sat up with gritted teeth and a tense grin. Then it got to its feet.


    Reality wobbled. Hadar saw the burnt body of his former self with two sets of eyes, simultaneously, while looking back with those fogged-over eyes. Being inside the reanimated mind of Hadar Kertz was like standing inside a windswept ruin, the black broken stone cold with moisture and mildew. There was no spark left, just a planted desire, and Hadar could feel it like a throbbing heart – a desire to spread and grow. It was a seed, more powerful than whole armies of swords. But there was a limitation here. Hadar''s mind darkened. A very unfortunate limitation. Three minds at any given time – that was the limitation of the smoke. It was unfortunate but manageable.


    Hadar once again secured Gilnar’s head with both hands and put his mouth against his. He breathed in, feeling the hot smoke rush past his teeth, coil over his tongue, and deflate Gilnar’s lungs.


    Gilnar blinked, and his bloated eye did a confused roll in its socket. He looked at the tall and radiant figure of Hadar Kertz and blinked again.


    “Master? Is it done?”


    “It is,” Hadar said, taking the knife from the slab.


    “I had a dream, master, that you and I were one… and that –”


    Hadar slit Gilnar’s throat with a single swipe – left to right. The blade hissed through flesh, and the wound gaped open. Blood started to well. Gilnar pawed at the wound, his one good eye full of confusion – pain not yet a factor.


    “Master?” Gilnar uttered, his voice barely a rasp as his pallor turned ghostly white, and then his body crumpled to the floor.


    The Seed stood silent and heavy as a statue, foggy eyes unmoving, hands halfway clenched as if ready to spring to action.


    And spring to action it would.


    In the courtyard, a cage housed a lumbering, snarling creature – a gore hound. It was as big as a bull and reanimated weeks in advance; revived because no living thing would carry the Seed on its back. The gore hound had a disproportionately thick neck and shoulders, a misshapen heap of muscle and sinew, nature’s cruellest joke made flesh – as hideous in appearance as its name suggested; its face contorted in fleshy wrinkles, embedding small eyes that shone with a dull red gleam. Its mouth twisted in a perpetual grin, saliva dripping from its jaw as it breathed in wet snarls.


    “Mount the beast and ride north to the place you know best. Wait for me there.”


    The Seed, now dressed in Hadar’s black robe, answered with a gruff exhale. The hood laid most of his face in lunar shadow, but the protruding, burnt lower lip and the yellowed nose that ended in a black necrotic stump were still visible.


    The Seed unlatched the cage, the metal screeching as the door swung open, and mounted the beast. The gore hound, despite its massive size, moved like flowing water, its large canine paws thudding against the ground.


    And then they were gone, taken by the night.


    Hadar looked up at the twin moons, Elios now again parted from his eternal lover Orasina, and smiled.


    A new world was born.