(37) Life of Death

The snow was crisp, cold to her knees as she sank, a pure white that hid away so much of the pure evil that inhabited the treacherous peaks of Icecrown. It did nothing to comfort the suffocating warlock. She clutched at her throat, trying to breathe, to cough, anything, but she could feel life leave, stolen in increments by the violet energy that snagged her before the altar, making her flail and twitch like a throttled rag doll in the snow. Frantically, she tried to realize her mistake—was Icecrown too defiled by the Lich King to be a proper ritual choice? Had the offering been wrong? No, everything had been right, been in its place. Annaliese was always thorough with rituals, and she had gone over the preparations over and over just yesterday. Static voices went off somewhere, she could hear a woman screaming her name over a radio, but it was all very far away against the hum of dark energy. This was her wish, her granted boon: death was the cure for weakness. Beautiful ribbons of necromantic magic tore away her ability to reason, leaving her to a cold, silent darkness, frigid as the falling snow.

‘May the darkness embrace you!’

Almost silent.

Her own cry echoing against the stone walls abruptly woke her to attention. Eyes snapping open, she sat up, rigid, her chest heaving, though no breath came to make her move so. Even her heart was still—she knew it would be hammering were she alive. Vision blurred, she peered down, and noticed the blanket of white she lay in. Scrambling up to her feet, she realized the whiteness was not cold snow but soft flowers--millions of them, strewn across a white bed. The fragrance was overpowering to her senses, and she struggled to ignore it and remember what had last happened. And why she was trapped in a mausoleum of sorts…

After a few minutes of swimming in explanations and scenarios, Anna steeled herself against it all, her glowing eyes searching the small room she was closed in. She had to first escape from her tomb before she would get any answers. The inability to breathe gave her also the ability to be calm in what could have been a dire situation, she noticed. Flower petals drifted down from her as she paced against the walls of the room, pleased that she could see so well in the darkness. Finding the slab of wall outlined by a frame, she placed her small hands up against it, and pushed slowly. Again, she was amazed by her own strength. She hardly had to put any effort into the door before it began grinding open against the cement ground. To her dismay, more darkness greeted her on the other side of the door. A tunnel lined in torchlight stretched up, and she followed it without question, recognizing the smell of corpses as it grew stronger.

Master Apothecary Faranell was in quite high spirits today. The day’s experiments had yielded very interesting revelations, batches of plague and antidote were shipped off on their scheduled times, general paperwork was topped off, and the latest shipment of spare parts had been delivered on time. He hummed along as tomorrow’s batch of antidote was packed into its designated crate, and nodded at the last assistant.

“Label it properly and I’ll give you a nice bit of sediment to crunch on,” Faranell said, patting the head of one of the experiment subjects turned helper, a half-lobotomized dwarf. The Forsaken admired his thorough stitching at the back of the bald, clammy cranium as the servant obediently rolled out his package of sticky paper. The crate was half- covered, when the screech of a stone wall made the dwarf and Faranell whip around. The Apothecary’s jaw would have dropped to the floor, if he had had one.

The figure that emerged from the forgotten passageway resembled a phantom more than Forsaken, and Faranell dreaded the idea of having to be tasked to escort a lost banshee back to the Royal Quarters. A harder look, however, and the Apothecary realized who the spectre-like woman was. A low hiss escaped him, and he shooed the dwarf away quickly. Things were going so well without her around.

“Well. This is a surprise. Hm.”

The Apothecary made no secret of his irritation, and began setting the wooden top of the crate in its place. It agitated him further that she did not answer in return, nor did she offer to put the stone wall back into place.

“I suppose it isn’t such a surprise, given one of your…talents. Warlocks don’t often stay dead do they? If it weren’t for the damnable soulbindings, we’d all have a little less to worry about!”

Her eyes fell on him, impassive. He wondered if she had even heard him. Sneering (though no one could really tell what expression he wore), Faranell gathered up a few vials and beakers from the nearby table, and wandered to one adjacent to it where potions of every variety brewed and bubbled happily.

“In any event, what can I do for you? Lead you back to your resting place, perhaps? You are better off there you know.”

He eyed Annise sharply, pouring some vile liquid into one glass vial skillfully. He was so adept at potion pouring, he didn’t have to look while he did so.

“Where is…?” the forsaken spoke too quietly, and Faranell grew impatient with her apparent confusion. She had moved closer, and nearer to his work, which made him nervous.

“You’ll need to report to the base in Northrend, my dear. Though I suspect you’ve already done so before. Personally, I think you need more time to take this all in. Still too…human,” he explained disdainfully.

She was not listening, he knew. He grew further miffed at her disinterest in a superior, insulted.

“My husband…”


"What? Him? No, you don't need to see him. He is not your priority, now my dear," the Apothecary Master crooned coolly. He grinned as he poured the final ingredient of his newest batch into it's steaming vial, the bubbling fluid frothing over the glass. He snapped a gleaming, yellow eye up at the Forsaken woman.

“Quite frankly, he doesn’t need your attentions. The Medic has been on task and quite a help to the forces recently. How long has it been…? Hm, a few months at least. But then it’s not been the first time you’ve “disappeared” so suddenly, has it? Either way, he shut you up in there to forget about you, and I have to say things are much better without you to distract him. He doesn’t even come to visit.”

Faranell’s eyes gleamed in wicked fashion, knowing this hit a nerve in the newly risen one. He watched Annise wring her hands indecisively. How pitiful she really was. He would have to work to fix that one way or another.

“Now, go back and rest like a good girl. Perhaps tomorrow I’ll let you assist me here with our next shipment.”

"Only tell me where he is," her whisper came, clearer to the Apothecary’s ears as a result of her dark resurrection. "I'll let you alone, be gone from here, if you tell, I promise you that." The clinking of vials quickened as the Apothecary turned his back on her, forcing a sigh from his throat, which in itself was quite a feat. He had enough, and he refused to sugar-coat things for the forsaken any further.

“Look. You’re priority is your service to the Forsaken now, and we all have much to do. Zamboozle no longer needs you anymore, and neither will I if you keep acting like a whining child. I require obedience here, and you must prove yourself useful, which you’ve failed in doing so far. I can’t believe even in the time that you spent parading around as one of us you’ve not learned anything. Now. Shut up and help me or I’ll find a way to stuff all your pretty body parts into a fleshdoll.”

Something welled up in the ghostly forsaken, unbeknownst to the Apothecary. Showing no sign of outward anger, she obediently drifted to his side. Annise even smiled at him, and Faranell immediately grew more optimistic about her future.

“That’s more like it. Now then, give me that over th—“

He involuntarily shuddered as two vials of precious plague crashed and shattered on the ground. Annise stood with delicate fingers poised over the rest of his shipments. The smile still on her lips, her voice calm, soft, too sweet.

“I think you ought to tell me where my husband is, Master Faranell. Or we might have a little mess on our hands.”

Fuming, the Master Apothecary stormed over to the undaunted woman as she backed a few steps away, vials still in her gentle hands.

“How dare you threaten me! Get over here you little meatbag! I’ll make sure you’re ridden with maggot holes by daylight!”

He stopped as Annise’s eyes flared, her expression still sickeningly sweet. The crate of antidotes went up into flames at her behest.

“Are—are you completely insane?! You can’t do that!”

“My dear Master Faranell, I am quite sure I can and I have. Tell me where I’ll find him, or I’ll make sure everything you’ve worked on is destroyed before the guard drags me away.”

“Ic…ICECROWN! For the love of all that’s unholy, stop it!” Faranell shrieked as he tried to put out the fire, trying to save what he could of the shipment. “Go and rot!”

“Thank you kindly, Sir. Do have a pleasant evening,” her soft voice answered. A trail of burning white flowers were left in her wake, the scent mixing with the ruined plagues and antidotes, choked the air.

“You tell him he has work to do when he comes back!” he screamed after Annise.