Mortality: The Story of Mortanius

Chapter Thirty

The elderly man on the table was very near death. His skin was pallid and slick with sweat, his heart struggling to beat, his breath just a whisper. Mortanius wiped a cool rag across the man’s forehead and clasped his thin hand. The private laboratory in the basement of the Temple of the Guardians was illuminated by glowing braziers and the air was freshened with incense to mask the occasional foul odors of decay. Sometimes, there were as many as five or six bodies laid out for examination, but at the moment, there was only one patient under Mortanius’s care.

“You’re almost there,” he said quietly, sensing the man’s soul as it struggled to break free of its mortal home. “It’s going to be okay.”

The man was named Rufalkus and he was dying of a corruption in his lungs. His family had brought him to the Temple of the Guardians two weeks earlier, in the hopes that one of them could possibly cure his affliction, but there was no cure for such a serious malady. Knowing his time was short, Rufalkus had instead given himself over to the Guardian of Death. Just the day before, Rufalkus said his final goodbyes to his family, and now he was on his deathbed with only Mortanius by his side.

For decades, Mortanius had made it known in cities across Nosgoth that the terminally sick and elderly were welcome to come to the Temple if they wished the Guardian of Death to ease their passage into the afterlife. Mortanius also sought volunteers for his research, but very few people agreed once they realized what such research entailed. He’d been searching for someone to volunteer for this specific experiment for over a decade, until Rufalkus came along. In return for his participation in the experiment, Rufalkus asked for something in return, and Mortanius readily agreed to the deal.

For many years, Mortanius refrained from actively observing the dying and the dead, instead choosing to study his Pillar in a more abstract fashion. But he could only learn so much about death without actually watching it take place, and after a few hundred years, he became more pragmatic and less squeamish about his powers. And so he began to seek out the dying, to sense their souls leave their bodies, to study and experiment in order to learn. There was no shame in studying death. It was the focus of his Pillar and it was foolish of him to try to resist it.

He visited infirmaries and hospitals, homes for the aged and the diseased, attended the executions of criminals, and even made his way to regions in conflict to witness the deaths of men in battle. It was unpleasant work, but there was no one more qualified than Mortanius to do it.

Rufalkus was breathing his last. Mortanius let his vision drift into the spirit world, and within the dying body of Rufalkus, he saw the soul within, pulsing and glittering with spectral light. Even though the man’s body was frail and weak, the soul was bright and alive. The body’s hold on the soul was so tenuous and fragile that if Mortanius had chosen to do so, he could have pulled the soul free and ended the old man’s life right then. But he preferred to let the soul come free naturally.

The old man’s body went still, and the soul quickly slipped free of its bonds, ready to fly away and be reborn in the body of some other human being born at that exact moment. Mortanius raised his hand and held the soul steady in mid-air, restraining it like a dog on a leash. When he was very young, such an effort would have exhausted him, but after centuries of practice, commanding a soul was a simple thing to him now.

Keeping his vision in the spirit world, he directed the soul over to one of his long work tables and the deep red gemstone pendant sitting on its surface. It was enchanted with a series of spells that Mortanius had spent years designing. He guided the soul into the pendant and then carefully wove spells to condense the soul so that it was entirely within the red gemstone. He felt the soul yearning to break free, but he moved his hands in a complex pattern to fortify the spells once more, and then lowered his hands and very gradually relaxed his hold on the soul. It trembled within the gemstone, but did not fly away. He crossed his arms and watched it for a moment, as if expecting his spells to fail. But they did not fail, and the soul remained inside the gemstone, which now glowed with an unearthly illumination.

Ever since he first explored the vampire ruins on the island in the middle of the Lake of Mist, Mortanius had been developing new magic spells and increasing his knowledge and control of souls within the spirit world. The vampire souls trapped in the stone altars remained undisturbed, and he intended for them to stay that way, but one of his long-term projects was to imprison a soul in a similar fashion, just to see if he could accomplish such a feat. His first attempts to do so were colossal failures, utterly unable to contain the incredible power of a soul and the supernatural forces that directed it. But those early failures gave him invaluable information and knowledge, which he used to strengthen his magical powers and create more elaborate soul containers.

The gemstone pendant was just the most recent object he used to hold captive souls. Originally, he used large stone chests covered in runes and magic symbols, and from those prototypes he refined his methods until he could direct a soul into a small gemstone such as this.

He picked up the pendant and held it in his hand, letting himself smile. But containing the soul within the pendant was not the experiment he was performing today. There was still work to be done. He carried the pendant over to the body of Rufalkus and laid it on his motionless chest, and then fastened the golden chain around the old man’s neck.

The next part of his experiment would not be so easy. While the soul remained captive inside the pendant, Mortanius opened up his grimoire and began to cast another long series of spells. Magic bristled and throbbed in the air of the laboratory, tiny sparks erupted from the tips of Mortanius’s hands as he wove an increasingly complex pattern of magic upon the dead body before him. The candles in the laboratory flickered and sputtered, but did not go out.

Finally, weary and sweating from the exertion, Mortanius lowered his arms and set his grimoire aside. Then he spoke aloud, “Rufalkus from the town of Badenmire. I am calling to you now. By the powers of the Pillar of Death, I have bound your soul to your body and I am commanding you to awake. Rufalkus from the town of Badenmire. Rise again and live once more.”

At first, nothing happened. But one glimpse into the spirit world told Mortanius that his spells had not failed. The soul was still there, filling Rufalkus’s body and slowly bringing him back.

Mortanius had not performed an act like this since he was a child, the day his family died. That had been an act of impulse, an act of hatred and uncontrolled fury. This time it was different. Instead of forcing a dead man’s soul back into his body temporarily, only for him to die once more, this time Mortanius’s powers would keep the soul trapped and restore a semblance of life to the body for an extended period of time. It was the culmination of decades of work and study. In effect, Rufalkus would be brought back to life, or at least something almost like life.

The old man’s eyes opened up and he tried to breathe. Mortanius leaned over him and gently held his shoulder. “Look at me, look at me,” he said quickly. “That’s right. I’m right here. It’s going to be okay, Rufalkus. It’s like I told you. Look at me. Now, bring air into your lungs. That’s right. Very good. Now, breathe out so you can speak.”

“My – Lord – Mort – Mortanius –,” Rufalkus croaked. “I am – I am dead – ?”

“Yes, you passed into the afterlife, and I have brought you back. Just like I said I would. You need to tell me how you feel.”

“I’m scared –”

“I know you are,” Mortanius said soothingly. “And I will keep my promise. But first, you must tell me how you feel. Tell me what your body feels like.”

“Cold. It’s cold.”

“Can you move? Please, try to sit up.”

He backed away to give Rufalkus some room. The old man shuddered and spasmed as he tried to regain control of his dead limbs. Mortanius watched in fascination as the old man managed to sit upright on the table and then, groaning with effort, swing his legs off the side. Wide eyes looked around the laboratory in panic and confusion.

“I cannot – I cannot feel –”

“You can’t feel what?”

“My – My heart –”

“That’s because it’s not beating, Rufalkus. I told you all this, remember? Do you remember what I told you? I know you’re scared, I know you feel strange. It will be over soon, I promise. Try to take a few steps. Walk towards me.”

Rufalkus did as he was told. He got down off the table and took a tentative step forward on unsteady legs, and then another, and then another. Slowly, he was regaining control over his dead body. His movements became more natural. His speech returned to a more normal tone. If someone had come down to the laboratory at that moment, Mortanius was certain that they would never have known that Rufalkus was dead.

For he was truly dead, that was not a matter of debate. His heart did not beat, his blood did not circulate, and his lungs did not respire. He had to force himself to suck in air to be able to speak. If he tried to eat food, it would sit in his stomach undigested. Rufalkus was dead, and yet he was walking and speaking almost like a living person.

As long as his soul remained bound in the gemstone, it would continue to animate his body and keep his mind intact. The soul was the key. Without a soul, no amount of magic could revive a dead body. Mortanius could animate a corpse, as could anyone of sufficient magical skill, but it would not be able to think or speak. In truth, it was Mortanius’s magic that allowed Rufalkus to move his dead limbs, but it was his own soul that restored his memories and intelligence.

“How long could I live … I mean, how long could I stay like this?” Rufalkus asked.

“I don’t know,” Mortanius admitted. “My magic will allow you to move, but it does not heal you or cure you. Unfortunately, your body will start to decay very soon. I can cast additional spells to strengthen your body and limit the deterioration, but I would also have to cast illusions to disguise your appearance. I’d expect that within a few days, maybe sooner, your body will begin to have visible signs of decay.”

“But if you did all that, how long could I remain like this? Could your magic keep me … Could I stay this way for a hundred years?”

Mortanius nodded, his own thoughts following a similar course. “Perhaps. As I said, I’d have to cast more powerful magic spells, but it’s possible that you could remain animated for centuries or even longer. But I don’t think you’d want that.”

Eventually, Rufalkus’s body would rot away, leaving little but a skeleton behind. Even so, as long as the soul remained contained within the gemstone and Mortanius’s magic kept its potency, Rufalkus would be able to move around and even possess intelligence. He would lose the ability to speak once his lungs could no longer blow air through his vocal chords, but that was the only limitation that Mortanius could think of.

It was a merely academic question, because Mortanius had no intention of allowing anyone to stay animated for so long. Some might be tempted by the idea of immortality without the risk of disease or injury, but who would ever desire such a cursed existence? Unable to sleep, unable to eat, unable to enjoy any kind of physical intimacy, an eternity as a walking skeleton? It was too horrible for even Mortanius to contemplate such a thing.

“Thank you, Rufalkus,” he said once he had satisfied his curiosity. “You’ve done me a great service. I think it would be best if we ended this experiment now. With your consent, of course.”

“Yes, my Lord, I agree,” Rufalkus said, nodding. “I don’t like being this way. I’m not scared anymore, but this isn’t right. I don’t think people should be brought back from the afterlife.”

“Go ahead and lie back down on the table, as you were earlier. All I have to do is dispel the magic that I cast upon you, and your soul will leave your body once more.”

Rufalkus climbed back onto the table and laid down on his back. “Okay,” he said. “And after you’re done, you’ll take my soul back home, like we agreed?”

“I’ll do what I promised,” Mortanius said. “Are you ready?”

“Yes, do it.”

Mortanius wove another spell, this one much simpler than the complex magic he used before. There was a flash of glittering light, and Rufalkus’s body went limp, his head lolling to the side. His soul rushed out of his body and returned to the gemstone, which Mortanius then removed from the corpse and placed into a velvet-lined carrying case.

Rufalkus wished to be buried in his home town of Badenmire, and so Mortanius would have to hire someone to take the body, prepare it for burial, and transport it there. He usually hired locals to come and remove the bodies from his laboratory, since he was reluctant to have any of the Temple servants do such grim work. He would accompany Rufalkus to Badenmire, but not in order to attend the funeral. It would be best if the other citizens of Badenmire didn’t know Mortanius was even there, or else rumors might spread.

The agreement between Rufalkus and Mortanius was a strange one, but Mortanius looked forward to fulfilling his part of the bargain, as it would serve as yet another experiment. Rufalkus’s daughter was pregnant with her first child, and she was due in just under a month. He had hoped to live long enough to see his grandchild enter the world, but since that would not come to pass, he asked Mortanius for something much more personal. With the blessing of the family, when Rufalkus’s daughter gave birth, Mortanius would release the soul within the gemstone and direct it into the newborn child. Rufalkus’s grandchild would possess the soul of their own grandfather.

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