Assorted Histories of Ashar: The Final Ritual

“For fifteen years, I have taught you in our arts, my dear child.” Ditam Gardel spoke quietly as he watched his young daughter pour a circle of black sand, the exact size he had drawn in the dirt with a stick. Following his orders, she drew the appropriate symbols at the eastern, southern, and western points of the circle. Her task done, she approached him and gave him back the bag, which he set on the ground. “You are almost finished with your training, Ashar.”

Ditam Ashar looked at her father and smiled at him. “I look forward to it, Father,” she answered, and her smile faded at the serious look he gave to her. “I am ready for the final ritual. Can you tell me what it is yet?”

“No,” the man replied. “Not yet.”

He watched his daughter and heaved a sigh. She resembled her mother a great deal. She always had, but these last three years had seen Ashar change from a small child into a capable young woman. Her father was sure that her mother would have been proud of her, proud of what she was about to become.

“You seem upset,” the young woman observed. Her pale eyes focused on her father, and he held her gaze.

“It is hard for a parent to admit that his child is grown,” Gardel said, though something in his voice made his daughter wonder if that was all that he mourned. “Now, for one final test before the ritual.”

“I am ready.”

“What is the one action that you are bound by duty to never commit?”

“I am to never take the life of another person.”

“What if a man should try to kill you?”

“I am not to take his life, even to defend my own.”

“What if a man who has killed innocents comes to you with a mortal wound?”

“I may turn him away. I did not strike that wound, and I can let him die.”

“If you ever take a life, what are you bound by your duty to do?”

“I must pass the tools of a Necromancer on to someone worthy, and I must take my own life.”

Gardel looked at Ashar, and she looked at him. He nodded a small bit and stepped forward, embracing his daughter for the first time in several years. When he pulled back, he kissed her on the forehead before murmuring, “You are ready, my dear girl. I need only one thing more from you before the final ritual.”

“I will do whatever you wish,” Ashar answered sincerely.

“That is precisely what I need from you. Until I tell you that you may choose your actions, you must do as I say, whatever it is I may say or do.” He paused, looking right into his daughter’s eyes. “Do I have your solemn oath?”

“I will not disobey you.”

Gardel kissed his daughter’s forehead again and whispered, “Close your eyes.”

She obeyed and stood perfectly still as he stepped back. Silently, he drew a knife, used before only for cutting meat, from his belt. He looked at his daughter again and drew a shaky breath. Without a word to her, he stepped forward and slammed the knife into her chest, into the heart. The force and pain jolted the girl, and she opened her eyes. She stared at her father, and he embraced her again until her eyes had rolled back and her body gone completely limp. He threw the knife to the ground and took the lifeless body into his arms. With the utmost care, he laid the young woman in the circle she had drawn, her head facing the unmarked direction of the circle. He opened her shirt enough to see the wound that he had made, and he removed a sash he had tied to his belt for this occasion. He tied the sash tightly around her chest, making sure that it was snug.

He then withdrew to the bag of sand and pulled a handful out. Gardel drew the northern marker of the circle with the black sand, and he knelt onto both knees in front of his daughter’s head. His hands shook as he loosened the silver ocarina from around his neck, and he brought it to his lips and blew a single note as his own eyes closed.

He opened his eyes, and he was standing in the first realm in the Land of Death, known to the Necromancers as Myret. A gate stood in the distance, and the only feature of the brown landscape other than that gate was the black river that wound throughout and past the gate. Gardel looked around, and he saw his daughter, standing by the edge of the river Hadele. She was crying, and her eyes became cold when Gardel approached her. She drew back, not allowing him to touch her arm.

Gardel did not argue with her, and he walked past her, nearer to the gate. He knelt by the river and looked at his daughter some several yards back. He spoke quietly to her, and his voice carried over the empty landscape. “Get in the river.” She did not move, and he looked over at her. “Ashar,” he scolded, “you swore to me that you would do what I commanded. Get in the river.”

She obeyed then, stepped into the current, her feet disappearing beneath the black water. It was too much, and she was thrown off balance by the rushing water. Her head disappeared under, and it was a few moments before she broke the surface again, fighting desperately to get back to the shore. Her hand was caught by her father as she was swept past him, and he pulled her from the water. She trembled once on the land again, and Gardel placed his ocarina again to his mouth and blew a single note as he shut his eyes.

He opened his eyes, once more in the mountain valley where his daughter had been born and brought back for her final step in her journey to becoming a Necromancer. Ashar was on her feet in the center of the circle, and she shuddered when her father looked at her. He did not say a word as he rose, but he laid the ocarina on the ground by the bag of sand and also untied a small, brown leather bag for coins and set it with the other items. He picked up his dagger, still stained with his daughter’s blood, and he regarded Ashar once again.

“They,” he motioned to the items, “are yours, and your actions are your own now. Travel carefully these next few days. Your wound will need time to heal. From this moment on, we walk separate paths.”

Ashar said nothing to him. She picked up each of the items that he had discarded, and she tied them to her own belt. Her hand felt the sash against her wound, and she looked at her father. He had not moved, and his eyes were on the dagger now. Ashar bowed her head just slightly before she turned to walk away. She winced after a few steps, but she pressed on.

After a small time of travel, she heard a cry of pain, and she knew that it was her father’s voice. She did not turn back, instead drawing herself up to keep her resolve as she continued walking. His actions were his own. He had taken a life. He was bound by duty to pay the price he had known he had to pay.