In Defiance of Death

[Mortimus Simul]

Some say that to truly atone
The soul must away to the beyond
While body shall wither to bone
And become just a memory most fond

The rasp of bones scraping together caught the attention of a field mouse as it crept through the underbrush. Even such a subtle sound sent the it scurrying the other direction, tiny feet padding quietly across a length of granite before they met cool earth once more. Only once safely behind a wall of marble did the creature dare to peek up and above the grass it hid within, ears perked in the direction the noise continued on in.

It saw a puzzle, bleached white, strewn across the ground. A hooded figure meticulously moved pieces back and forth, struggling to find the proper place of one of the smallest bones in the pile they kneeled before. The mouse felt a mote of curiosity form within the instinctual fear burning through its little body. It was familiar with predators and scavengers digging up the bodies of animals that the humans buried there, but never any humans returning to dig one up themselves.

Any curiosity the brave little mouse had was extinguished when the hooded one began to chant. While it knew no human tongue, there was even less familiarity in the utterances of the robed man. Once again, the field mouse darted off into the darkness. Pillars of slate and crosses of wood shook, the unholy incantation seeming to rock the very earth beneath the rodent's paws as it ran for dear life. One of the grave markers had long since fallen back onto another, forming a shelter of sorts that the mouse deemed worthy of hiding it from this most unnatural event.

An event that was over as quickly as it began. The figure spoke once more, but with a cadence more familiar to the mouse this time.

"Quercus, my dear boy. Is it really you?"

The answer came in the form of a rattling noise that caused the mouse's heart to race, similar to but not quite the same as a noise its own mortal enemies often made. A staccato of clicking sounds followed, like that of a guiro, and the mouse was unsure if it should remain tucked away or attempt to make a break for its burrow. It could hear cloth moving, and the repetition of familiar sweet nothings many human often whispered as they interred animals around the mouse's home. Heavy, human steps began to go in the opposite direction, providing the perfect opening.

"Quercus, no!"

Less than three hurried steps out from cover, the mouse felt its chest be pierced before it saw the boney jaws that snatched it up. The last thing it saw was its own blood dripping from the open space of the skeletal cat's lower jaw, before all was dark.

But those who shy from death
Will find no penance paid
Until they cease to draw breath
And in the earth are laid

[Mortimus Simul]

An ivory finger turned a page, hollow eye sockets fixed firmly upon the contents of the ancient tome. Its leather binding writhed and wriggled within Mortimus's grip, discomfort baked into the very act of holding the thing better yet absorbing the esoteric meaning of its cryptic texts. Words that shuffled and moved, letters than shimmered from one shape to another, passing along only the knowledge deemed worth giving the reader. Mortimus felt his skeletal chest rise, a breathless sigh that one's body followed the motions of regardless of the existence of any lungs with which to perform it.

It was the third day in a row of unsuccessfully unlocking any answers from the tome. The third day since he woke from the first reading, where it rent flesh from bone. Where it bound itself to him in a wordless promise of mutual destruction should the book come to any harm, all because he couldn't resist peeking into the cursed pages. Intentions be damned, he was granted forbidden knowledge and torn soul from body over what he felt was his duty as a researcher.

Rattling quietly on his lap, curled up in his robes, was Quercus. A gift from his sickly mother shortly before she passed, the kitten quickly became his dearest friend. When the local butcher's dog got loose one night, and Quercus was found mangled in the street, Mortimus was devastated. When the butcher used his familial connection with the mayor to get the issue handwaved away with less than subtle threats passed along if the issue was pressed further, Mortimus found a new feeling to embrace over the grief.

The butcher woke up the next day to his dog's body on his doorstep, the head gone. The mayor had the good fortune of finding that missing dog head on the desk in his study in the middle of the night, awoken by the sound of the broken window it was thrown through. Mortimus took on his new name, forgetting the last tie he had to his family entirely, and took on a new life under the tutelage of a reclusive scholar of relics long forgotten the next town over. A wrong righted, and a self forgotten.

Quercus was the first stop he made, once he calmed down enough after his transformation to realize the kind of unholy things he'd learned from the book. Spells that should never have been woven. Mortimus needed him back, needed to not suffer this newfound twist of fate alone and could think of no other that would unquestioningly accept him as he now was. The haunting attempt at purring was as comforting as a tender touch, removing any hint of regret or hesitation at the foul magics used to bring that purring back to unlife. It was all just further extension of a wrong being righted, and the self further forgotten.

So what else did he need to give the damnable book for it to answer a few more questions regarding how to get his face and soul back?

[Mortimus Simul]

Coricen was exhausted. It was hard work, running a butcher's shop, but when the old woman who lived next door woke him in the middle of the night asking for help, he obliged anyways. The crazed widow usually saved her tall tales for the daylight, but she seemed to be even more deluded, frantically begging Coricen to get the guards and chase away the monsters at her house. As if he was making that long walk for her madness at this time of night!

Candlelight flickered even through drawn curtains as he approached the home, and he shook his head disapprovingly. She was going to burn the place down at this rate, it wasn't the first time he'd seen her leave lights on while leaving the house. When a shadow passed between the light and the window, the way its form was cast against the curtains from outside made him laugh as he discovered the source of her night terrors before even opening the door. Some gaunt looking cat must have snuck in, likely through a window or door she left open in her confusion earlier in the day. All he had to do was chase it out and he'd be free to go back home and get some shut eye, hopefully without even waking his wife or children a second time.

Opening the door, Coricen froze, cold terror flooding his veins.

His scream never made it past his lips, a collar of bone closing around his windpipe. The skeleton of a cat stared with empty eyes up at him from just behind a ritual circle that was chalked into the floor, candles burning in a ring around it. Another fleshless creature skittered past it, some kind of small mouse, each step a click of bone on wooden floor. Coricen struggled against the tightening squeeze around his throat, an undead snake's ribs digging into his skin as he tried in vain to loosen its grip.

"You said you wanted more life in exchange for more secrets." A voice, hauntingly familiar but unplaceable all the same, spoke from behind him. Coricen was shoved roughly while trying to turn to face it, falling into the circle on the ground as spots formed in his eyes from the lack of air. "Please accept this gift, lowly as it is, and teach me more." The words came from death itself, so Coricen thought, as his fading vision landed on the robed figure that had shoved him. Even without eyes, he knew it was speaking to the book it was carrying as it looked down upon it, not him, and the realization was all the more horrifying. The door shut behind it, locking them in.

"I require a face. Perchance, if you do not need it, I could use his?" They were the last words Coricen heard from the living dead, before his very existence was undone.