Author's notes: Well, here we go. This is another story featuring my favorite necromancer, Aurion Whitebone. It takes place approximately fifty years before the events discussed in my other story "Brother Sun, Sister Moon." However, although there will be sporadic hints of those events, this story can be read alone.

There will be guest appearances of other known characters, like Feranion, but apart from a certain priest, don't expect to see much of them.

This story sprung in my head while I was writing Chapter 54 of the above-mentioned story. You will see why.

Warning: There will be gore, violence and probably some adult stuff of homosexual nature, although this last part will be far from graphic. If any of this offends you, then you might want to go and read something else.

Auto da fe: Portuguese, meaning "Act of Faith". It was the term given by the Inquisition to the burnings of the -alleged- heretics and witches.

The sun was setting on the horizon and the people of the small sea side town were finishing their daily chores, returning to their families for a night of rest. Lut-Narak was a peaceful establishment, one of the few towns where the tribal population had accepted the Dorian settlers. There was no love between them but there was no open hostility either. And this spoke a lot for the natives.

Gerthen, the old shamaness, stretched her legs and her aching back, seated comfortably outside her hut, enjoying the warmth of the setting sun. The herbs that were hung to dry above her head filled the air with their spicy scent and she felt relaxed and content, much like her tabby cat that was dozing off beside her. But then her muscles tensed, seeing an aging man approaching. The cat, sensing her tension looked up, saw nothing of interest and continued her nap.

The man approaching the shed was in his late sixties, dressed in the common brown robes of the priests of Marpotilla, the Dorian Goddess of Land and Hearth. He was the appointed priest at the town shrine and a man revered among the Dorian townsfolk. But Gerthen had no love for the priest, knowing that, like all of his kin, he had orders from the High Priest to convert as many heathens as possible. Poor Kunellus was hardly a diplomat and he had failed this task dreadfully. And although he had long abandoned his attempts of conversion, the shamaness still spat on the ground every time he walked by. To her, he was the representative of the Order who had pursued her brothers and sisters for more than two hundred cycles.

Kunellus walked by the hut on his way to the shrine for the evening rituals. He reluctantly bowed his head towards the old woman in a futile gesture of greeting and she spat on the ground in contempt, as she had done every night for the last fifteen cycles. Then she got up and walked inside her home, followed by the drowsy cat. She prepared her humble meal, gave her thanks to her Matron Daemon Plumina, the protectress of her tribe and retired in her bed, while the cat left to indulge in her feline habits.

Gerthen closed her eyes and surrendered to a peaceful slumber.

When the waxing moon was high in the sky, she woke up by a scream.

She jumped out of her bed, aware that this meant nothing good. And then she sensed the change at the night air. Evil was at work that night. Stumbling, she put on her clothes and left the house, followed by a cat that was hissing and spitting at every shadow with no apparent reason. Many of the townsfolk had been awakened by the same scream and she followed the fearful crowd to the edge of the town, outside a wooden house.

Gerthen knew the residents of this house well. They were a peace-loving Cunane family. The father was a fisherman, being away at the sea for days at times, while his wife broke her back over their small vegetable garden, struggling to provide for her children. The oldest son was helping his father with the nets while the third child, also a boy, stayed with his mother due to his young age of six winters. And then there was the daughter.

The girl was a pretty creature of fourteen winters, intelligent and apparently strong in magic. The shamaness had hoped that she had found an apprentice in the girl, but her parents had objected to her training. Another pair of hands to work at the fields or the nets was more vital. And Gerthen knew well that the servants of the Daemons slept hungry at nights much too often. The offerings and the gifts for the healing and protective charms and blessings were as humble as the lives of the people of Lut-Narak. So the girl stayed with her family to lead the life her mother had led before her.

But it was her scream that woke everyone up that night.

The shamaness approached the house in caution, while the crowd parted in her passing. Frowning, she saw that the priest was already there. She didn't mind, though. If evil was at work, she could use all the assistance she could find, even the help of this sorry excuse of a priest. Poor Kunellus was pale and obviously frightened, like the rest of the townsfolk. And what Gerthen saw made her feet tremble as well, but she was determined not to show it.

The woman was on her knees outside the house, holding in her arms the bloodied remains of a young boy's body and crying. A few feet away, Gerthen saw the lifeless and mutilated body of a man. The woman cried in anguish, with her younger son clinging desperately on her stained clothing. The girl was nowhere in sight, but Gerthen saw crimson footprints leading away from the house and into the barn. She approached the man's corpse carefully. It was ugly. It seemed as if he had been torn from the inside, with his bowels hanging out of his shredded flesh and with an expression of unspeakable fear in his glassy eyes. And his heart was missing.

Another scream shattered the uneasy silence of the night and several people ran away in terror. The priest looked as if he had wetted himself and Gerthen felt her blood freezing. The unearthly sound had come from the barn. With shaking hands, she approached the wooden building and attempted to open the door. As she touched the handle, something out of the night reached out and touched her mind.

It was cold and vicious. It was determined and hungry. It was dead. And it had somehow possessed the girl that had sought refuge in the barn after having attacked her own family.

Gerthen knew that her skills were no match for this challenge. She bolted the door and strained her brain to recall the invocations to Sadatix, the Death Daemon, the ones she had learned in her youth. With her mind trying to overcome the limits of age and time, she searched the house until she found the only thing she knew that could restrain an angry spirit; a bag of salt. Mumbling the ancient incantations, she walked around the barn thrice, sealing the area in a ring of salt.

Exhausted, she sat on the cold earth. The people were already returning to their homes, and the grief-stricken woman and her son had found refuge in a relatives' house for the night. But the shamaness' work was not over. After consulting with the elders and requesting to make sure that the ring of salt remained unbroken, Gerthen gathered her travelling gear and departed for the capital city of Lut-Plumin.

She could not deal with the dead, least alone this kind of angry spirit. This was the task for someone who had spent a lifetime in the service of the Great ripper.

This was a Necromancer's job.