005 The Lich

  The cathedral stood like a monument to forgotten eras, its towering spires cwing at the overcast sky. Gargoyles leered down from the roof’s edge, their expressions warped by centuries of erosion and darkened by grime. Stained gss windows stretched high along the stone walls, though many of the panes had dulled with age, losing their once-brilliant luster. Within the hollowed chambers, the air smelled faintly of dust and incense, as if time itself had come to rest beneath the vaulted ceiling.

  This cathedral had been Donatello’s sanctuary for centuries—a pce that bore witness to both his triumphs and his many failures. Here, in the heart of what was once a thriving city, he had carved out a refuge of solitude, far removed from the noise of mortal lives. It was quiet now, save for the faint crackle of a hearth tucked near the back of the main hall and the occasional flutter of bats that had taken up residence in the bell tower.

  Donatello stood at the center of the cathedral, his eyes trailing over the murals that adorned the walls. He had painted them himself long ago, back when his hands were steady and his heart was full. The images depicted angels and saints, scenes of devotion and sacrifice. But time had done its work here too. Faded pigments and chipped pster rendered some of the figures little more than ghosts of what they had been.

  He sighed, his gaze drifting downward to the cluttered table before him. There, amidst dusty tomes and gss vials filled with strange, luminous liquids, y the remnants of his test experiments. Failed attempts, all of them. The Elixir of Eternity—a formu that had consumed him for what felt like an eternity in itself—continued to elude him.

  "It was easier when I believed," he murmured to no one in particur, his voice echoing softly against the stone walls.

  He reached for one of the vials, a swirling blue liquid that glowed faintly in the dim light. Carefully, he lifted it to eye level, studying the way the liquid shifted and churned within the gss. It looked promising, but he had thought that before. He set it down again with a sigh.

  As his fingers brushed the edge of the table, his thoughts drifted back to another time, another life. Back when he had been a mortal man, with mortal dreams. He had been in love once. He could still remember the way her ughter had filled the air, bright and warm, like sunlight filtering through leaves. They had been hopeful then, so many things seemed possible.

  But that was a long time ago.

  Now, all that remained was the work. The endless, grueling pursuit of knowledge that had led him down this path. He had sacrificed everything for it—his humanity, his soul, even his faith.

  A soft creak echoed from the far end of the hall, drawing Donatello’s attention. He turned, his sharp eyes narrowing as he scanned the shadows. But there was nothing there, only the shifting light from the dying hearth. He shook his head and returned his gaze to the murals.

  “Perhaps this is my penance,” he said quietly, tracing a finger along the cracked surface of a painted angel’s wing. “To chase eternity and never reach it.”

  The words hung in the air, heavy with the weight of centuries.

  He sighed, rolling up the sleeves of his tattered bck robes. "Time to clean this up," he muttered.

  Cleaning was a task he hated, but he trusted no one else to do it properly. His minions were clumsy at best and catastrophically incompetent at worst. The st time he had left them unsupervised, they’d managed to set fire to the cauldron and melt half the boratory floor.

  With a flick of his bony fingers, Donatello summoned a gentle gust of magic that swept the broken gss into a neat pile. Another spell sent the scraps of parchment fluttering into a drawer. He moved efficiently, muttering incantations under his breath, but when it came to the dangerous chemicals—the ones that still bubbled ominously and shimmered with unnatural light—he handled them personally.

  The st thing he wanted was to fumble and create something the realm would regret.

  Like goblins.

  His jaw clenched at the memory. Goblins were the unfortunate byproduct of one of his earliest experiments, back when he’d foolishly attempted to create a homunculus using devil magic. He’d been trying to craft a loyal, intelligent servant. What he’d gotten instead was a swarm of gold-obsessed, mushroom-hoarding idiots with the collective brainpower of a particurly dim rock.

  “Never again,” he muttered, carefully pouring a viscous, purple liquid into a fsk. He tightened the stopper and set it aside with a sigh of relief.

  For a moment, everything seemed peaceful.

  And then he felt it—that creeping, unmistakable sensation that sent shivers rattling down his spine. It wasn’t the chill of the cathedral. It was the feeling of being watched.

  Slowly, reluctantly, Donatello turned his head.

  There he was.

  The ghost.

  He stood near the far end of the hall, leaning casually against one of the cracked marble columns. His arms were folded across his chest, and his head was tilted slightly, as if he were watching Donatello with amused curiosity.

  He looked the same as always: dark jacket, dark trousers, dark, tousled hair. His boots were scuffed, his posture zy, and his smile—oh, that damn smile—was just a little too enthusiastic, as though he found the entire situation hirious.

  But it wasn’t the smile that unsettled Donatello the most.

  A bright red line encircled the ghost’s neck, vivid and angry against his pale skin. It looked fresh, as though it had been inflicted only moments ago. The ghost had been haunting him for a month now, and had been doing nothing but annoy him.

  “Ugh,” Donatello groaned, rubbing a hand over his face. “Not you again.”

  The ghost said nothing. He couldn’t.

  There was a nguage barrier, a cruel twist of fate that left them trapped in awkward silence whenever they crossed paths. The ghost didn’t seem to understand Donatello’s tongue, and Donatello didn’t recognize whatever strange dialect the ghost spoke—if he spoke at all.

  Still, that didn’t stop the ghost from following him everywhere.

  Donatello watched warily as the ghost took a few steps closer. His boots made no sound against the stone floor, but his expression spoke volumes: wide-eyed, grinning, practically vibrating with energy, as if he were thrilled just to be there.

  “Don’t touch anything,” Donatello warned, holding up a hand.

  The ghost tilted his head, as if trying to decipher the words. Then he shrugged and gave Donatello a thumbs-up.

  Donatello groaned again and turned back to his work. Ignoring the ghost was usually the best strategy—though it didn’t always work.

  He returned to his cleaning, carefully beling a set of vials and wiping down the surface of the workbench. He could feel the ghost’s gaze on him the entire time, like an itch he couldn’t scratch. Every now and then, he risked a gnce over his shoulder, only to find the ghost standing closer than before, watching with that same unsettling grin.

  “Why are you still here?” Donatello muttered, though he knew he wouldn’t get an answer. “Please, leave me alone…”

  Sometimes, Donatello just wanted to die. Truly die. To let the blue fmes in his ribcage flicker and fade, to dissolve into nothing and let the void cim him at st. But he couldn’t. He was too much of a coward, and far too entangled in the magic that had bound him to this wretched afterlife.

  There were times, however, when he believed that if he didn’t end himself, loneliness eventually would.

  He sighed, the sound hollow and rasping, as he sat on the cold stone floor of the cathedral. His empty eye sockets drifted up toward the towering stained gss windows. He could still hear the echoes of long-ago hymns, could almost imagine the pews filled with worshippers kneeling in reverence.

  It had been centuries since the cathedral had been anything but his boratory—a mausoleum of shattered dreams and failed experiments.

  He thought of her, as he often did. His wife. His beloved. The princess of a powerful nation, with hair like spun gold and eyes as deep as the sea. She had loved him once. Perhaps she still would, if she could see him now—though he doubted it.

  Their st argument was etched into his memory as clearly as the runes carved into the cathedral’s stone walls. She had begged him to stop, to abandon his quest for immortality.

  “Our love is more important than magic,” she had said, her voice breaking. “What’s the point of all this power if it destroys you?”

  But they had been at war then. Their kingdom was crumbling, besieged on all sides by enemies with dark magic at their command. They needed strength. They needed him. And so he had made his choice. He had turned to the unholy, and in the process, he had transformed himself into a Lich.

  The ritual had been soul-wrenching, both literally and figuratively. He could still remember the searing pain as his mortal flesh burned away, leaving only bone and fme. He had gained unimaginable power, but at a terrible cost. He had lost his humanity. He had lost her.

  A sudden creak pulled Donatello from his reverie. He turned his head slowly, the blue fmes in his eye sockets narrowing as he stared at the ghost that had been haunting him for the past month.

  The ghost was sweeping up shards of gss, whistling cheerfully as he worked. Every so often, he’d chuck a handful of gss out the nearest window, where it shattered against the stone courtyard below.

  Donatello sighed again and rubbed his bony temples. He had tried everything to get rid of the ghost. He had bsted it with magic, trapped it in wards, and even attempted to sy it with a cursed bde forged in the depths of the Shadow Realms. Nothing had worked.

  In a moment of desperation, he had even hired a former clergywoman from Outw City to perform an exorcism. The woman had taken one look at the ghost, paled visibly, and promptly fled without so much as a prayer.

  Donatello snapped his bony fingers, his thoughts colliding like falling rubble as he suddenly remembered something crucial. Unfortunately, his enthusiasm had unintended consequences—his thumb shot off his hand with a faint plink and skittered across the stone floor.

  The ghost scooped up the rogue digit and held it aloft like some kind of prize. His grin was as wide as ever, and he wiggled the thumb in Donatello's direction as if to mock him.

  “Give me that,” Donatello grumbled, snatching the thumb back with a quick swipe. The ghost let go without resistance, his expression one of innocent amusement.

  Donatello grunted in annoyance, reattaching the thumb with an audible click. “You’re more trouble than you’re worth,” he muttered, though he couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that the ghost’s antics were far less aggravating than the crushing solitude that had weighed on him for centuries.

  But now wasn’t the time for self-reflection. The memory that had surfaced moments ago spurred him into action. Without another word, Donatello turned on his heel, his tattered robes sweeping across the dusty floor, and made for the cathedral’s hidden vault.

  The ghost, naturally, followed.

  “Don’t you have anywhere else to haunt?” Donatello snapped over his shoulder as he descended the narrow spiral staircase leading to the vault. He didn’t expect an answer—not that the ghost ever gave one—but he was rewarded instead with the sound of the ghost’s boots echoing close behind.

  When they reached the bottom of the staircase, Donatello halted before a massive iron door, etched with ancient runes that glowed faintly in the dim light. Behind it y his treasure vault, a collection of artifacts and relics he had amassed over the centuries.

  And guarding it was Cerberus, a towering, three-headed dog whose bck fur rippled like shadows. Each of its heads snarled and snapped as Donatello approached, though the creature made no move to attack. It recognized its master, after all. The ghost, however, received a far less welcoming reception. Cerberus growled menacingly at the intruder, its massive heads lowering in unison.

  “Oh, hush,” Donatello chided, patting one of the heads with a bony hand. “He’s harmless. Annoying, but harmless.”

  The ghost gave a mock salute, clearly unfazed by the monstrous guardian.

  With a whispered incantation, Donatello traced a sigil in the air, and the runes on the iron door fred brightly before it creaked open. He stepped inside, motioning for the ghost to stay back, but, as always, his spectral companion ignored him and followed right behind.

  The vault was a cavernous chamber filled with shelves and pedestals, each one bearing a piece of Donatello’s long and storied past. Here were enchanted weapons that glowed with an inner fire, scrolls inscribed with forbidden spells, and gemstones that shimmered with otherworldly light. And there, in the far corner, was what he was searching for—a modest, unassuming box made of dark wood.

  Donatello reached for the box with trembling hands, his bony fingers brushing against the smooth surface as he lifted the lid. Inside, nestled on a bed of faded velvet, was a simple silver ring engraved with intricate patterns that seemed to shift and dance in the light.

  “The Ring of Understanding,” Donatello whispered, a rare note of reverence in his voice. “I almost forgot I made this.”

  The ghost leaned over his shoulder, peering curiously at the ring. Donatello sighed, turning to face him. “This,” he said, holding up the ring, “is one of my finest creations. I designed it to enhance comprehension, to expand the boundaries of knowledge itself. But, as with most of my experiments, it didn’t quite work as intended.”

  He chuckled darkly, slipping the ring onto his bony finger. “Instead, it grants the wearer the ability to understand and speak every nguage. Omnilingualism. It’s magic on par with the dragons’ Drakespeech themselves.”

  As soon as the ring settled into pce, Donatello felt a strange, tingling sensation course through him. It was as if the world itself had shifted, the myriad nguages of creation unraveling and aligning in his mind. He turned to the ghost, his hollow sockets narrowing.

  “Speak,” he commanded. “If I can’t make you leave with force, I shall use my words instead. What do you want? Wealth? Power? Magic? What is it?”