1st of Winter, 519
"Open", she commanded, and the basement door of the Infinity Manor moved aside for her. "I want everybody out. Everybody. Lani, Allister, the twins, Emma, the cat and the god damned chickens. Everybody gets out of this house."
Her back was straight and sure, and her eyes gleamed cold fire. The manor's consciousness fluttered confused around her like an eclipse of moths, the questions from it formless but insistent. Madeira short them down with a wave of fury. "Do not question me. Never question me", her voice hissed, but the power behind it was deafening. "Get everyone out. Throw them out if you have to. Then I want the lab lit and ready."
The scones on the stone walls shivered to life, casting a hesitant glow on the flotsam of her research. Madeira's orderly lab was in chaos; the black board thick with scribbled notes, books and papers loose where she last left them. And on one table, cleared of the trappings of her magics, a skeleton was laid. It had been laid out neatly, with every joint of every toe accounted for, every rib spaced evenly apart in their proper order. At the top a skull sat, propped up by its long fangs. It was unrecognizable without the lower jaw resting underneath. At least then one could see a hint of the cruel smirk that its owner often wore.
Jomi.
Madeira removed her glove and brushed her fingers over the creamy white of the domed skull. What was she doing? This was insane. Worse, this was dangerous. The teeth clacked on the wooden table, and it sounded like laughter. When something is dusted you don't bring it back.
She had spent all season researching it. Pouring over incomplete notes from long dead Dusk Spiritists who couldn't even half her skill, trying to piece together anything she could possibly find about what happens after a ghost is dusted. She had dusted a creature only twice- once while she was training under her family, and again when she was defending her home against a Returned. She had never asked what happened after such a crime against Death, and nobody had ever told her. She was just assured that once the ghost had been dusted, it was never coming back.
But Rothsam couldn't win. Rothsam the Curse Eater, Lhavit's Spiritist, was the one who ripped Jomi away from her and sent him away to that unspeakable nowhere. He had Jomi betray her, spy on her, sell her secrets to the highest bidder, and once he was no longer needed he dusted the Kelvic.
But there was still time to turn this around. Jomi, that hateful, foul creature, belonged to her. She owned him. Rothsam captured but couldn't handle he strongest piece, so he removed him from the board. That was his first mistake. She was going to bring him back into play. She was going to bring Jomi back. And this time they'll do things right. She needed him, she understood that now. She needed him, and now he needed her.
She glanced behind her, at the spear of light that slid in through the ajar basement door. That door was made of incredibly hard wood, over thirty centimetres thick and studded with thick iron ghostnails. But Uldr's priest was able to break it down, back then. She hoped it would hold this time against whatever they were about to drag out of the nothingness.
The basement was lit with covered wall scones and an enormous hearth, but the light couldn't seem to reach all the darkest corners. Shadows skittered about, and a permanent ghostly chill was in the air. She stood on her toes over Jomi's corpse to reach the shelves above him to hunt down a cloudy jar that housed what was left of his soul, and her iron nails.
"We're bring him back", she finally told the house. "We're bringing Jomi back. Today. This isn't like before. This isn't just bringing something back from the Ukalas. That's child's play compared to this. We are bringing back something that even the gods cant touch. If this goes wrong, if we bring back something that's not Jomi, I don't know what will happen. If it is Jomi..." she did not finish the thought. Nothing comes back the same. Even if it is the ghost, he wouldn't be the Jomi they knew. Both sides were dangerous. Success and failure came with equal risk. She clenched her fist against the rush of fear. "Do you understand?"
Her ghostnails were very special to the Spiritist. They were made custom by a young Isur Reimancer back in her home city. It was the first piece of spiritism equipment she bought for herself, and she was proud of them. They were long and thick and sturdy, nine made of iron and one of jet. They had protected her from all manner of dangerous undead creatures. Now she whispered a prayer over them as she took them down, asking them to protect her one more time.
The house, getting over its shock, rallied itself. Madeira felt a burst of affection for the home she lived in as she felt it ruffle its metaphorical feathers, its determination all but leaking from the walls. She heard the basement door slam and lock behind her, and she met its conviction with a burst of her own. Choosing six of her toughest nails she slid each one into the holes that had been drilled into the stone floor for just that purpose, encasing the ahleas star carved in the basement floor in a barrier of soul protection.
She threw the jar of dust into the circle, and the shatter of glass was an exclamation point in the simmering tension of the room. Madeira unscrewed the top of her holy flask, embossed with Dira's sickle. "Ready?", she whispered to the empty room.
Yes, the house hummed, all of its attention focused inward at that shimmering remains of Jomi's ghost.
Madeira flicked her soulmist into the dust.
