Unwillingly Summoned: Chapter 20 – Debating Evil

“James, this is Strix,” said Sig.

The mage had cheered up considerably since they’d left the alchemist shop, returning to his laconic tendencies rather brooding silence. Strix, on the other hand, left James at a bit of loss as to how to react. The man was extremely tall, thin to the point of emaciation, and had the pale, waxy complexion of a corpse. Add in the stark white hair and eyes that were a solid black from pupil to sclera, and James found himself wondering if the man was some kind of zombie.

“Nice to meet you,” said James a little uncertainly.

Then, as if to intentionally unsettle James even more, Strix responded with the kind of bright cheerfulness usually reserved for children’s show characters.

“Hi, James! Nice to meet you, too.”

“Yeah,” said James, drawing the word out as he tried to think of anything else he could say.

“I’m not a foul creature of undeath,” said Strix without losing any of his cheerfulness. “I mean, I understand. Look at me. How could I be anything else, right? But it’s just a curse. Once I break that, I’ll return to being a tall, lean, incredibly attractive man again.”

James found himself staring at Strix, wholly uncertain what to make of the man, his claims, or the situation in general. Finally, in a desperate need for clarity, he turned to look at Sig.

“I can’t tell if he’d messing with me or not,” said James. “Is he really just cursed?”

“His only curse is his personality,” said Sig.

“That wasn’t very nice,” complained Strix.

“So, he actually is a foul creature of undeath?” asked James, who felt like he really needed to know one way or the other.

Chrosan, Seiran, and Sig all laughed, while Strix patted James on the shoulder in what was probably meant to be a comforting way.

“I’m afraid so,” admitted Strix. “But I’m still a pretty good adventurer. I mean, think about it, I don’t eat, breathe, or need to sleep. I can’t bleed to death or get poisoned. So, as long as nobody is throwing around unrestrained holy magic, hitting me with fireballs, or dropping me into a pit of acid, I’m basically perfect for the job.”

“I guess that makes sense,” said James.

“But?” asked Strix.

“But I thought the undead would be evil,” said James.

“What’s evil?” asked Strix with a shrug. “Most undead aren’t self-aware enough to be evil. Evil requires conscious intent. Your average zombie or animated skeleton is basically a bunch of impulses superimposed on dead organic matter by some mage or necromancer. If anyone is evil, it’s the living magic users who raise the undead like that.”

“What about liches?” asked James, thinking about some of the anime he’d seen.

Strix thought about that for a several seconds before he said, “You’ve got me there. Those guys are usually pretty evil bastards. Mind you, it’s a lot easier to be evil as an undead. People tend to attack you on sight or drive you out of wherever you are, whether you’re doing anything bad or not. It’s not much of a stretch to think that you might as well be evil.”

“But not you?”

“People here are used to me now. It wasn’t like this at first. But, once you’ve hung around for a century or two without going on a murderous rampage or eating anyone, people just start to shrug off the whole undead thing. If I went anywhere else, though, I wouldn’t get a very warm reception.”

“Well, that’s a lot to think about.”

“I’m sure it is. Anyway, do you mind if I steal these three away for a minute? We’ve got some business to settle up.”

James glanced at the other three. None of them seemed in any way concerned or alarmed, so he shrugged.

“Fine by me,” said James. “I’m hungry, though. You can all catch up with me at The Verdant Field.”

“We shouldn’t be too long,” said Chrosan.

James had been keeping a close eye on Chrosan throughout the meeting with Strix. He suspected that if anyone was going to wear their discomfort on their sleeve, it would be Chrosan. Yet, the huge man still exuded his usual puppy dog enthusiasm. That made James a lot more comfortable with walking away, despite a lingering feeling of unease. The other three might feel fine about a conversation with an undead, but he hadn’t even known for sure that the undead were a thing in this world until a few minutes earlier. It was also painfully clear to him that it would take a while before his nonchalance about it matched theirs.

“One of the benefits of growing up here, I guess,” he muttered to himself. “You just take magic in stride. Including the evil magic.”

It took a moment before he realized that a few nearby people were giving him looks. He winced at their expressions, even if he couldn’t really fault them for shooting him the side-eye. He had been talking to himself. It seemed that was considered a bad sign in this world as well. Not that it did anything to alleviate this fresh discomfort, which only served to highlight the discomfort he’d already been feeling. Even though he’d recognized that earlier feeling, it took several minutes of walking before the reason for that become clear.

As upbeat as Strix had been, the guy was just creepy. It wasn’t anything he’d said. Nor did James believe he’d been putting on a show. It the little things. He didn’t move like a living person. There were no telltale changes in his posture from breathing because Strix didn’t breathe. He didn’t shift his weight from one leg to the other. Then, there were his eyes. It was impossible to read anything from them. The biggest thing, though, was that Strix didn’t feel like something alive. Living creatures gave off a, for lack of a better term, aura or presence. To James’s senses, the undead man had lacked that aura entirely. Instead, he’d registered in the same way that a rock or a post might. He was real. He was solid. But he wasn’t something that should be sapient and speaking.

James shook his head and tried to dislodge thoughts of the undead man. It was like his brain was trying to find a reason to create a problem. His own interactions with the man, to say nothing of the others’ reactions, told him that there wasn’t a good reason to go looking for a fight there. That response did, however, give him some insight into just why it was that undead were attacked on sight. If he’d just stumbled across Strix on dark and lonely road, it would probably have been his first instinct as well. It did disturb him a little that his mind went there at all, though. He’d never thought of himself as a kill-it-now, kill-it-with-fire kind of guy.

When he thought back on it later, he would say that those distracting thoughts were about fifty percent responsible for not seeing it coming. As for the other fifty percent, he could only attribute that to the relative peace he’d been living in since arriving. It had lulled him into a sense of complacency. It wasn’t that he thought he was living somewhere benign. Everyone had been very clear that there were monsters and other kinds of dangers in this world. It was more that he’d started to think of the capital as a place that was insulated from those dangers. And maybe it even was, but he’d forgotten that danger could come just as easily, if not more easily, from misguided human beings.

The only warning he got was hearing someone say a single word.

“Him.”

Something in the tone of that word alerted the part of him that handled things like fight or flight. He started to twist away more out of instinct than recognition of imminent danger. That meant that he took the blow on his shoulder. It was the armor enchantments on the coat that saved him from getting broken bones. His left arm still went completely numb in the moment it took him to go from standing upright to being sprawled on the ground. He tried to push himself up with his one functioning arm since he didn’t like his odds of defending himself from the ground. A heavy boot, or what he imagined was a heavy boot, slammed him flat against the ground again. This is not going to feel good, he thought.