Maybe Chapter 2 - We'll See

"Who are you?" she repeated, unsatisfied with the cryptic answer.

"The Jetzyah are being rounded up, either by an individual or an organization," the skull-faced man spoke dryly, completely ignoring her question, "and that places you in grave danger."

She glared suspiciously at his almost absurd costume, "And how can I trust a man who covers his living face with another man's dead one?"

In response, he raised his hands and opened his cloak, and this time, she did scream, reflexively jumping back.  His mask was no mask at all.  His face was actually skeletal, as were his arms, his hands, and she could also see his rib cage through the torn shreds of the tunic he wore below his cloak.  The only part of him that still had flesh was a pair of eyes, looking out of place, perfectly preserved within the eye sockets.

"It is rare, my dear, that I wear another man's dead face, but I assure you that when I do, his death was far more recent than mine."

"But the liches were all destroyed in the last war!" she protested.

"Liches don't have eyes, Jetzyah," he fixed his piercing gaze on her with his profanely black, but very incorrupt eyes.

In horror, she found herself unable to look away from his face.  After a few moments of a silent stare, the truth – the horrible truth – began to dawn on her.

"A necromancer?" her fear betrayed her voice and the question trembled out as little more than a terrified whisper.

"The Jetzyah are being rounded up, either by an individual or an organization," the creature repeated, again ignoring the question, "and that places you in grave danger."

This time, she had no response that was fitting, so she cast her eyes to the floor and remained silent, humbled by the chilling presence before her.

"You are the only Jetzyah that I have thus far discovered who is still alive as far as I know.  That either makes you more willing to be found, or less skilled at concealing yourself.  I suspect the former, since no Jetzyah would be stupid enough to publish her address so that human admirers can send her gold.  Then again, if you are more willing to be found, especially by the fools who sent you their meager treasures, then your idiocy is already well established."

The insult aroused anger within her, which suppressed the fear she was crippled with, and she looked up at the skeletal face, again with steel in her eyes.

"Good," he hissed, "fear is useless.  Anger is something I can work with.  I'm glad you can respond the way I expect to my words."

Realizing she had been played, she became angrier.

"Well what do you want with me?" she demanded.

"You will remain here, in safety, while I seek out others and investigate what movement is behind this sudden aggression against the Jetzyah."

"You're imprisoning me here?"

"You were frightened by the lifeless night's sky outside this grave, Jetzyah.  Do you really think you can stand against whatever very conscious depravity seeks your life?"

"I wasn't afraid!"

In response, the necromancer waved his arm, and the lights all blinked out, swallowing the entire catacomb in complete blackness.

Her breathing immediately went fast and shallow, and she found herself stepping backward, trying not to succumb to terror.  She froze entirely, mouth open in a silent scream, when her back-peddling ran into something that was definitely not the wall behind her.

"Stay," the voice whispered directly into her ear close enough that his wintry breath seared across her neck, leaving an ice cold shiver all the way down her spine.

She crumpled to the floor and the lights blinked back, illuminating the room as before.  She raised her head to look around her, breathing heavily.  The entire hall was empty.  After one quiet whimper, the trauma proved too much for her.  She skittered as fast as she could to the wall, clung to it with her slender arms, leaned her head against it, and erupted into anguished sobs.

***

Back on the surface, the necromancer walked calmly out of the graveyard.  He feared no uproar from the humans walking along the streets.  As humans, they could not see him while they were still alive.  The conversation with the Jetzyah had, as expected, yielded no useful information about the whereabouts of her people.  The primary goal was to keep her out of the way of whatever was trying to take the Jetzyah out of his care.

That could not happen, no matter the cost.  He had saved the Jetzyah once before and it had cost him every single one of his liches, as well as the one sacrifice he never thought he'd have to make.  Such was the cost of power; in its most primal form, one could only possess it by giving up the ability to enjoy it.

But he'd be damned (literally) if he let all his work over the last three thousand years be undone by someone who seemed intent on supplanting his position.  Whatever intention may be behind such an ambition, the seeker of it was most certainly the world's greatest fool.

As he had been so long ago.