The Journeys of a Different Necromancer by James J. Crofoot Page A

where’s
the fish?”
    Thomas looked at his da, smoking his pipe at the table. He
sighed and sat down across from the man.
    “ Well?” his mum said, banging his wooden plate of stew down on
the table in front of him.
    Thomas glanced at his da again; his blue eyes looked back at
him from under a mop of unruly blond hair.
    “ Answer your mother,” his da ordered.
    “ I was with Xavier,” Thomas replied. With head bowed, he
stared at his stew, sensing he would not be allowed to
eat.
    “ Who?” His mother’s voice. Her angry, high-pitched
voice.
    Thomas looked up at his father to see a pipe halfway to a
gaping mouth. “Xavier, you know, he lives in the tower. He wants to
teach me to read and write. He wants me to be his
apprentice.”
    His mother sat down and stared at him.
    “ He’s got lots of books, scores of them. He showed me a book
with lots of animals in it.”
    His da sat back in his chair, silent. His mum folded her hands
in her lap, also silent.
    “ Think of it,” Thomas continued excitedly. “Think of the
things I could do if I could read. I could go and work for the
prince in Targon, I could see the whole kingdom.”
    “ Go to bed, Thomas,” Da said.
    The boy gazed down at his untouched food. It smelled good
and looked even better, but his father had spoken. Thomas got up
and climbed the ladder to his loft. Deep into the night, even after
his parents stopped their whispered arguing, he lay in bed thinking
of the map Xavier had shown him of the kingdom. He would find a
way. He would be…what word had Xavier used? Necromancer. He would
be a necromancer and he would see the whole kingdom.
    * * *
*
    In the morning, Thomas awoke to the smell of porridge. Having
had no dinner the night before, he hurried down the ladder. There
he found his da already eating. His mum ladled his share into a
bowl and then got some for herself.
    “ We’ve decided you may learn to read and write. None of that
dark stuff, though. You hear? No digging up of graves,” his da
said. “We want more for your life, Thomas. Now then, what does this
friend of yours want in return? We can’t afford to pay anything. I
suppose he mentioned a price.”
    Thomas looked at his mum as she sat down. She folded her hands
in her lap and remained quiet.
    “ He said it would cost nothing. He just wants someone to
teach. Xavier said he’s getting old and just wants someone to pass
on some of ’is…” Thomas paused trying to remember the word.
“…knowledge.”
    Da wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “Then we’ll give it a try.
Only til ’arvest, though. You’ll be needed in the fields then.
Anything after that and we’ll see.”
    A month and a half, Thomas thought excitedly. I have a month and a
half!
    “ No good will come of this,” his mum remarked. “Mark my words,
that man never did any good for anyone.”
    Thomas finished his breakfast in a gulp and got up to run from
the house. He stopped just outside the door to pick up his favorite
stick and heard his da say, “I want better for him, Sonya. This
life is no life for my son. He’s smarter than this.”
    * * *
*
    A month passed and Thomas studied. He studied geography; the
world turned out to be a lot bigger than he imagined. He learned
arithmetic, how to count to a thousand. Then moved on to reading
and writing, eight to nine hours a day he went through the books
and scrolls. On the second and third floors of the tower stood
skeletons of various animals, there he learned science, anatomy,
and biology.
    The fourth floor, however, Xavier said he needed to learn a
good deal more before being ready for that.
    “ The villagers are shunning me,” he said to Xavier one day after
learning the word. “They whisper about me whenever I pass. Even my
friends. Yesterday I waved to them and started walking, to tell
them what I was learning, and they turned their backs and ran
away.”
    Xavier looked up from the book he held. “People, for the
most part, are very small-minded. They