I was silent for a moment, and out of the corner of my eye, I could see that Henry had seated himself on the arm of the couch.
"A couple of willing sacrifices?" I repeated back to her, "What do you mean by that?" I asked, but that was a dumb question. It was something awful and not something I wanted to take any part of.
My eyes were now more adjusted to the dimly lit room, and I could see the contents of the room more clearly. There was an unlit crystal chandelier that hung from the ceiling above our heads. The floor appeared to be wooden, but i to was mostly covered in a giant yellow and red carpet embroidered with four black petaled flowers dotting it. Besides the chair Alyeeza sat on, and the couch I was lying on, and the small table beside my couch, there was also an unlit fireplace where two more couches were also placed around. There was an old grandfather clock in the corner opposite the lantern, and the walls were covered with paintings of dark-haired, purple-eyed people.
"Oh I think you know what I mean, I smell a fresh one on you," Alyzeea said and her nose crinkled and she shifted in her chair, her black flower gown rustling around her "And it was a powerful one, you reek strongly of death and death is never a pleasant odor, but this one is the most unpleasant one that I have ever smelt. I recommend a bath when you get the chance. I would offer you a bath here, but the area's water supply has been cut off. "
I casually bent down and sniffed my arm and recoiled at the scent. I did smell awful, but all I could smell was my sweat, not the smell of dead people, which was good enough for me. Didn't exactly want to walk around smelling like I killed someone, even though I had.
I looked back at her. "Yes, I had to sacrifice someone, but I want to make it clear that it will be the first and last one I perform. So no sacrifices, willing or otherwise!"
"You have to," Alyzeea said, her voice flat and matter-of-fact, "It's never a pleasant thing to do, but it's a whole lot better than letting an entire world be overrun by dead things!"
I repeated my desire, "No more sacrifices, willing or otherwise! And...," I narrowed my eyes at her, the thought just now occurring in a brain that was slower than usual from exhaustion, "how will sacrificing anyone solve this? I mean, an army of dead vs. an army of dead could help subdue the problem for a little, but it seems like I'm the only one who can kill them permanently, and I must do so directly, like, as in plunge the knife in myself.
Alyzeea raised her eyebrows, and I took that as a sign that she was surprised that I knew all this.
"That's right, I learned from fighting them myself, and also I just know stuff from our dead ancestors!" I said proudly.
" I know, I watched you battle with the creatures. And I saw that you put to rest one of the undead by plunging your weapon into its chest and evoking your element, and therefore giving it the last bit of death its body needed to be at rest. At least for the time being. Another ritual will have to be done to ensure death remains in the body, and there's also another solution that requires no additional ritual or direct stabbing. The only problem with your way is if you don't get them all by sunrise tomorrow, then the results are permanent for the zombies you created and the zombies they created."
"That might be the case for you, but I'm sure I can get them all by then, my guardian angel told me that the way I'm doing it, is a way to get rid of these things. Maybe since I'm half of this world and half of the other world, I'm a sort of special elemental of the 5th and have variations of our element! And my variation might be killing creepy soulless dead things with sharp objects."
Alyzeea shook her head. "Your guardian angel has a lot more faith in that plan than she should. Does she happen to harbor any ill will towards you?"
"Ummm..."
"And I've never heard of special elementals, but the ability to put the dead to rest is not unique among our people. Necromancy is not just about raising the dead, but putting the dead to rest, even those who we don't raise, and that also takes energy to put to rest more than one at a time..." She trailed off for a second, and this time it was her turn to narrow her eyes at me, "Hey, you just said you were in purgatory and educated about what we are by some of our ancestors, right? Didn't they tell you about any of this? I mean, this is some basic information that is a must-know for people like us. It seems like you're missing very big pieces of Necromancy knowledge and history."
Instantly, I felt the weight of two eyes pair on me while they waited for me to answer. It was like I was in elementary school being asked a question that no matter how I answered, I was going to seem dumb, "Um, well, I'm not really good a paying attention to things that relate to history. So, maybe I tuned out a few things here and there. And forgot somethings here and there."
Henry began to laugh before quickly suppressing it, which earned a kick from me, while Alyzeea looked back at me, her dark purple eyes filled with mild disgust.
"Anyways, because it seems you are missing some knowledge, let me continue to fill you in on why you will need to perform these sacrifices with willing sacrifices. To perform Necromancy at the level to put these creatures down permanently and release all the souls they have captured, a sacrifice needs to be made. And you just can't sacrifice anything."
" Something of great value must be sacrificed to the force of death, and nothing is more valuable to death than life itself willingly given, and especially the life of a person," Alyzeea continued. "A person's life, whether they be magical or not, is more valued than the life of any other living creature, which is strange in my opinion. That's not important, though."
"But have you ever wondered how you can raise the dead when you kill a willing sacrifice? In case this escaped you, too, it's because it momentarily breaks your essence into multiple parts, each of which can then be used to cast a separate spell on each of the zombies. So you can individually put them to rest."
I swallowed hard, "How can you even get willing sacrifices in a world where people don't believe in magic, and would certainly not believe in Necromancy? It's impossible unless you used some sort of mind control, and we don't have someone who is the sixth element here," I pointed out, wanting to change the subject. Although this wasn't too far away from the topic. I was moving the topic away from scarifying people to how one can get someone to sacrifice. Yeah, great job on that one, Violet.
"You're right, we can't use elemental mind control, no sixth element users made the crossover into this world with us. They had been mostly hunted into extinction by that point," She paused, and she began to chew on her lip, "Wait! One did. She was half-blooded too! How could I have forgotten? They were the ones that opened the portal for us, but other elementals don't live very long naturally. She died long ago and without descendants."
Alyzzea shook her head slowly, and her full lips widened into a smile, and her dark purple iris seemed to be glowing, "Mind control, yes, but not of the elemental magical type. Unlike our homeworld, where we are treated like demons, here we have regained our status as gods. In the year you spent here, did you ever hear of the term cults, Violet?"
"You really think she would remember what a cult is, even if she heard of one?" Henry scoffed, which earned him another kick from me.
I racked my brain trying to think, but nothing came to mind. But then again, that was hundreds of years to rake through, and once again, my brain was working slower than normal. I could barely even remember my childhood home, let alone some obscure word from the other world. I wasn't feeling good either. Even though I had been sleeping for hours, I felt like I still hadn't slept in days."
"Isn't that when a group of people lets some religious freak tell them how to live their lives?" Henry replied.
"I was talking to Violet, not you," Alyzeea quipped, her tone short, "And no, it is not always led by religious freaks as you like to so distastefully put it. But it is sometimes led by those who know how to control the sheep. We Necromancers have cults all over the place, and we have around seven thousand followers. You see, all we have to do to convince the sheep that the Fifth Element's demigod of the underworld. We just raised one of two dead birds from the grave in front of them, and presto, and we are divine beings!"
"Ah, I see. It's they're not just led by religious freaks, but also by freak freaks. Using your Necromancy to trick people into thinking you are gods. Then what, use them as willing sacrifices when you want to do your Necromancy magic?"
"Willing sacrifices in case there is an uncontrolled dead outbreak, like the one that is going on now, and willing followers for profit and power. We even got some top government officials who are part of our organizations. As we speak, they are sending people to escort us back to the disaster zone, so that we can take care of this problem."
"How kind to call us freaks, though. Aren't you charming?" Alyzeea sheered sarcastically, and I rolled my eyes. Was it Henry's main goal for everyone to despise him when first meeting him? Heck, I had really hated him when I first knew him. But then again, he had been kidnapping me, so that was that.
"Well, he has a nice little cult following, and I already, three of our members who have volunteered to be willing sacrifices, and we have four more on hold if they are needed."
"I will fall apart if I have to make another sacrifice! It's so evil! It's so evil!" I yell, and then I stop, my tongue frozen from saying anything else. I was shocked by my own words that had come tumbling out of my mouth. My body was shaking, and I sat up on the couch and wrapped my arms around my knees in an attempt to stop shaking.
The image of my father slowly disintegrating into dust under my hands, along with my father's own friends under his hands, flashed in my mind's eye. Then I imagined women, children, sons, daughters, mothers, fathers, sisters, and brothers all being reduced to ash under my fingers, and I felt my breath hitch in my throat as an unimaginable wave of terror rolled over me.
The room began to spin, "No more sacrifices, willing or otherwise," I whispered. I was aware that Henry had said something to me, but his voice was growing distant, and an awful ringing had begun in my ears.
Suddenly, Henry had his hands on either side of my shoulders, and he was staring into my eyes. He squeezed my shoulder hard, his fingernails digging into my skin through the fabric.
"She can't go through something like this again, look at her; she hasn't recovered from having to sacrifice her father," I heard through the ringing. He glanced back at Alyzzea. "You will make sacrifices for your own cause rather than the people who cause this incident."
"She has to, or the price goes up! If I'm sensing the power within her correctly, the most powerful Necromancers in this world would have to sacrifice at least one hundred willing people to conjure up the magic she could with only 3-5 people!"
"Stop saying she has to! She doesn't have to do anything that will unhinge her!" Henry yelled, looking over his shoulder at her, "We will find another way! And he stood up from the arm of the couch, "Does death accept any other currency than life?"
Alyzzea narrowed her eyes, "What do you mean by currency? That's a new term for me. Go on, explain its meaning, and maybe I'll be able to answer your question."
"Son of a banshee, I forget that you people are out of touch with what's going on in our world, or for that matter, most of the people that live in it," Henry mumbled. "Well, anyway, fire's main currency is air and flammable material. Wind's currency is also air and force to disturb it, and so on. Basically, it's what the element needs to be activated to its highest level of functioning. Within the last four years or so, it was discovered, but not widely shared with the elemental community, that usually each element needs two currencies to be activated, but if there's an extreme abundance of one currency over the other, then the latter currency isn't required to activate the element. What other currency does the 5th element accept?"
Alyzzea was silent for a moment, while I sat trembling under Henry's firm grasp. His grip was keeping my body from trembling more violently than it already was. "It's our elemental magic itself. It takes abundant amounts of our element to cast our spells, and that's why, out of any other element, we suffer the most from magical exhaustion."
So, we are going to make a sacrifice..."
"No sacrifices," I choked out, and even though I now had my eyes closed, I could tell that Henry was now looking at me.
"Let me finish, I promise that I'm not going to make you do anything you can't live with doing," she said gently.
"So, will you let me finish explaining?" she asked