Mortuus Ortus

Chapter 10

The dawn had broken over the horizon of Aurum, the capital of Amissa. And of course, I was wide awake.

I was currently sitting on one of the chairs that wasn't broken whilst trying to decipher what this garbled mess of words written throughout the book could mean.

It turned out that the book that I had picked up during my last job was absolute garbage. In fact, after cleaning off the front cover I uncovered it's title: "De historia venatores spiritus".

Great, so I found a book and it wasn't even in my language. So far I could guess that spiritus meant spirit and that historia meant history, but after that I was totally lost.

"It means The History Of Spirit Hunters," said a voice behind me, nearly scaring me to death. It was Mortem.

Turns out that after the whole 'emotional breakdown' incident he had just decided to stick around. I mean, I wasn't complaining, at least I now had company.

Turning to him I asked, "Thank you, but how exactly did you know that?"

"Oh, I know Latin." He replied with a shrug, as if it was as ordinary as what he had had for breakfast that morning.

"And may I ask why you know Latin?" I pressed on, extremely intrigued.

"I mean, you could ask." He said before sitting down in the chair across from mine. "But I think that the more appropriate question would be: Would I translate this book for you?" He finished.

Seeing that I was getting nowhere, I sighed before asking him, "Would you please translate this gibberish for me? Please?"

"Alright," he complied with a suprising lack of fuss.

"But," he began. "You must give up your position on the bed so that I can sleep on it from now on."

There it was, the dreaded 'but'.

I weighed up my options before conceding.

"Fine, it's all yours." I said with a huff, extremely miffed that I had lost my comfortable sleeping arrangement.

This book had better be worth it.