A Two-Step Process

            Harrick knew that he should be furious. Three officers had been forced to pull Sydow off of him when he announced that enforcement was going to cooperate with the Militia regarding what had been termed the “Sweeney Situation.” It was no secret that Sydow had been drinking non-stop these past few days, which was already enough to be mad at him, and now, with this assault…

            He’d been sent home to cool off. Harrick might have had his badge, but as of yet he had not decided to cross that threshold. He understood where Sydow stood, even if it was a hopeless cause.

            Harrick picked up the picture frame that had been smashed when Sydow knocked him into the shelf. It wasn’t his favorite picture – just some photo of him and Judy outside the old house – but it had been there for nearly fifteen years.

            The mood around the department was understandably grim. He’d given a general order for everyone to shut up about it, but he knew that he couldn’t simply ignore the problem. One of their officers had been a draugr all along.

            In all the stories, the draugar were depicted as walking corpses in full rot, not even able to speak, much less fool anyone into thinking they were one of the living. The Icelord was cruel indeed to put someone like Ana Sweeney among them. She was among the best in the department. Everyone seemed to like her. She made the perfect sleeper agent.

            Is that what you believe? That’s all Ana was?

            Hope was a dangerous thing, especially when there was such a great rumbling of danger. There were more and more reports of sightings. An enormous stitch had been destroyed in the middle of Port Sang. The undead were growing bold. The Icelord would want people like Sydow –someone who could not accept that a friend had never been a friend at all, and who would fight on behalf of his enemies.

            Which was not to say that Harrick could blame the guy. Ana had been Harrick’s favorite. If it were not for Harrick’s burden to protect Port O’James before anything else, he imagined he would have indulged in these fantasies on Ana’s innocence.

            Whisky seemed quite the attractive option at the moment.

            There was a knock at the door. Harrick groaned quietly to himself. “Who is it?”

            The cool, canned voice of the Bone King’s representative answered. “Mraxinar. May I come in?”

            “Yes.” Harrick shuddered. The skeletal construct bowed his head as he ducked under the doorframe. He was surprisingly flexible for a being made of bone, but then, Harrick reflected, the living had bones as well.

            “I know that I am the last person you want to see,” said Mraxinar.

            Yes, “Person,” thought Harrick. “What is it?”

            Mraxinar settled down into what might be called a sitting position. “I have been speaking with Mayor Harlaw. The situation regarding the… compromise within Enforcement has caused him great concern.”

            “You aren’t the first person to tell me that.”

            Mraxinar gave a half-nod in affirmation. Harrick was struck by how strange it was communicating with someone who could not make subtle facial movements. Conversations in person with these things were very much like speaking over the phone. “I understand that your department must be going through a… crisis of faith, in a sense. You do not know who to trust. It is this exact kind of situation that I believe the Bone King sent us here to resolve. We are experts in undeath, and you must now find a way to tell the difference between the undead and the living. The Mayor and I talked at great length about this, and we agreed that it will bring great peace of mind to both the department and the community as a whole if we can begin screenings.”

            Harrick considered the proposition for a moment. “These screenings, would they be…”

            “We would begin with City Enforcement, and any government employees. From there, at the discretion of the Mayor, we could begin screening the general populace.”

            Harrick rubbed his chin. “And the militia?”

            “We have not yet proposed this to Ranger-Captain Lisenrush. For the moment, we are focusing on the town itself, though I assure you, I will strongly advocate for the application of these tests to the defense force as well.”

            Harrick leaned back in his chair. “I hope you appreciate the irony here.”

            Mraxinar nodded – again, one of these quick, small nods that substituted for a smile or some such gesture. “The undead being used to sniff out the undead, yes. But you must also realize that the Bone King’s form of necromancy is quite different from that of the Icelord. We are as similar to the draugar as you are with an insect, which is to say not very much.”

            “I don’t know that the general populace will be willing to make that subtle distinction.”

            “It will not be theirs to make. The orders to begin the screening program have already been signed by Mayor Harlaw.”

            Harrick frowned. “That might have been something to let me know about earlier. I talked to Ted just yesterday, and he said nothing about this.”

            Mraxinar pulled a piece of paper from his robe and handed it to Harrick. “He signed it only this morning.” Harrick read over the document. It seemed legitimate.

            “When do you intend to begin?”

            “We will not be set up to screen the entire department for another day or two, but if you would like, we could perform yours right now.”

            Harrick stood up. “My screening? You’ve got to be fucking kidding me, right?”

            Mraxinar rose slightly as well. “Detective-Inspector, please understand that this is not an accusation. We have no reason to believe that you are one of the Icelord’s agents. However, I believe that if you are the first to be tested, it will restore a great deal of confidence in your department and will help acclimatize your citizens to the tests.”

            Harrick frowned. You have nothing to fear, don’t you? “Fine. Do it.”

            Mraxinar turned back to the door. “Captain Bergen, would you please come in?” Jane Bergen quickly entered, dressed in somewhat more formal business attire than Harrick was used to seeing on her.

            “What is she doing here?” asked Harrick.

            Bergen stepped forward. “As a member of the Maritime Authority, I am here as witness to the screening, on behalf of the Mayor’s Office.” It did not surprise Harrick in the least that Bergen would want to be involved. She had been vocal about the threat the Icelord posed since the Ostrich had come into port.

            Mraxinar retrieved a set of tools from his cloak, held in a black silk bag. “We have determined that a two-step process will provide an accurate result. First, I will need to take a small blood sample.” Mraxinar retrieved a small vial connected to a tube with a syringe.

            “Right,” said Harrick, and he rolled up his sleeve. He hated needles, but given all the tests his wife Judy had been going through, he knew he should not complain.

            When the vial was mostly full, Mraxinar pulled the needle out and put a piece of gauze on the hole. “Hold that there, if you don’t mind.”

            Mraxinar put the vial in his bag and then retrieved a strange brass web-like frame. It branched out from a central hub that had a large white crystal set in the metal. “This part I should probably explain. The Icelord’s method of necromancy requires the re-binding of the spirit to the physical body. In most normal, living creatures, the spirit simply receives information – perceiving the thoughts processed by the brain. The spirit has its own senses, in a way, that can compliment the information the brain processes, but it cannot influence the body – thus behavior in living beings is purely based on neurology. However, in some instances, most notably in the case of the undead, in order to gain control over a decayed system, the spirit must be bound more… solidly to the body. The brain is no longer functional, and so the spirit provides the required functions, governing movement and even control over so-called involuntary actions such as heartbeat and digestion, though in the case of the undead, these functions are essentially performed out of habit, as the spirit can control an entirely non-functioning body with a surprising degree of agency. Even when the undead are under the control of some more powerful individual, such as the Icelord, in most cases the spirit re-bound to the body performs the mundane actions - the necromancer tells the body to walk forward, and the spirit puts one foot in front of the other.”

            Harrick tried to process Mraxinar’s unexpected lecture as the bone construct fitted the brass web around his head, adjusting it to align with his nose and temples.

            “So, the undead have free will?” he asked.

            Mraxinar shook his head. “Not with the Icelord. Even if he is not in direct control of his subjects, the spirit can still be conditioned in various ways to act against its desires, usually involving positive punishment.”

            “Positive punishment?”

            “Pain, typically.”

            Harrick tried to make eye contact with Bergen, but she did not seem as troubled by the horror Mraxinar was describing.

            She just wants to know if you’re a stiff.

            “So what is this thing on my head?”

            Mraxinar took his hand away. “Ah, yes, forgive me. The spirit is utterly undetectable by any means, but the process of re-binding the spirit to the body does cause some physical distortion in the brain tissue. This device, to put it simply, scans the brain for such signs.”

            “How long does it take?”

            Mraxinar took the device off. “It’s already done. If it had detected anything, we would have heard a sort of buzz.”

            Bergen stepped forward. “Mraxinar, may I have a word?”

            The bone construct bowed in agreement and stepped away to speak with her. Harrick’s arm was sore from the needle. He pretended not to be listening.

            “In the future, we should not set the precedent that subjects will receive their results immediately,” whispered the captain.

            “May I ask why?” asked Mraxinar.

            “If we find ourselves in a situation, gods forbid, in which we have detected another draugr agent, we do not want to arouse suspicion that he or she has been detected until we know what measures we are going to take.”

            Mraxinar nodded, though oddly, Harrick thought he looked troubled.

            Bergen approached Harrick’s desk again. “Well, that’s all taken care of. Thank you, Detective Inspector. You will receive a schedule for the department’s screenings either later today or early tomorrow.” Then she walked out the door.

            Mraxinar paused, then turned to leave as well. Harrick stopped him. “Mraxinar?” he asked.

            “Yes, Detective Inspector?”

            “You see troubled.”

            The bone construct tilted his head to one side. “I did not mean to give that impression. I expect these screenings will do a great deal of good for your town. I should be on my way, the mayor expects to hear about the test.”

            “One last thing, though, before you go, if that’s all right,” said Harrick.

            “Yes?”

            “What was the point of the blood test?”

            Mraxinar turned back. “As I’ve said before, there are many forms of necromancy. As one of the undead myself, this distinction is very important to me. The Icelord’s ‘draugar,’ as you call them, are truly dead bodies. There is no life left in them, and they are in a state of cellular decay at every level. A vial of blood with dead cells inside would not necessarily be a signature, but a vial of living blood cells would rule him out as the necromancer.”

            Harrick sat down, idly noticing a shard of glass from the fallen picture frame he had forgotten about. “How many necromancers are out there, raising the dead?”

            “You would be very surprised,” said Mraxinar.

(Copyright Daniel Szolovits 2012)