The night was cool and damp as Puglith walked up to the gravesite, lantern in one hand, and a bucket of water in the other. He set both down, and shrugged off his pack. Necromancy was all about preparation, and that was a lot of work sometimes. He knelt down and opened the pack, pulling out his pipe and a few other things. There was a portable altar, which he set up on the grave and arranged for the working he was about to perform.

He opened a pouch and began to load his pipe with a blend of smokeleaf, seer’s root, and some other ingredients. He tamped it with his thumb, stuck the pipe in his mouth, then lit a candle from his lantern. Turning the candle sideways, he lit his pipe with it while doing his best to keep candlewax from dripping into the bowl, and mostly succeeding. He puffed at the pipe as he slipped the base of the candle into a holder on the altar. While he waited for the herbal blend to take effect, he produced a shot glass and dipped it into the bucket of water, then wiped it clean with a rag from his pack. Nobody wanted to make a deal with a dirty glass.

He began to feel his perspective expanding beyond its mundane, material limitations. He was in the world of the living, but he was also somewhere else. He filled the shot glass from a bottle of whiskey he’d brought for the purpose, and set it on the altar. He inhaled from his pipe, read the name from the grave marker, and spoke it into the smoke as he exhaled onto the altar.

Ermentrude Gant.

The liquor in the shot glass ignited on its own. The flame flared up for a moment, then died back and burned low, like a candle under glass, though it didn’t go out.

“Who are you, and what do you want?” The specter of an old woman in a shawl stood just in front of the grave marker, her arms crossed. Her voice sounded distant, and there was an echoing quality, to it, as if she was at the bottom of a well, or in a cave. She narrowed her eyes at Puglith. “You’re one of those rabbit-people. What do they call you, jim-goats?”

“My name is Puglith, and the word you’re looking for is ‘jackalope’. I brought you a drink, and I was hoping we could talk business.”

“It’s been a long time since a man gave me whiskey and asked me to talk with him in the dark. He didn’t really want to talk. Did you call me out here into the night alone for that sort of talking, rabbit-man? I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. Rabbits and men are both known to be quite fond of it, a rabbit-man must be doubly so.”

“That’s not what I had in mind.” Puglith replied dryly.

“Then tell me what you want. I don’t have time to hang around in a graveyard all night.”

“I can’t imagine you have too many people imposing on your social calendar.” said the jackalope.

“So I do have the time,” she admitted, “but that doesn’t mean I want to spend it with lonely rabbit-men. Now spit it out, what do you want?!”

“I’m a necromancer. I do my work with the assistance of spirits. There are a number of different tasks I could use your help with, what would you like in return?”

“Ha! You want me to be one of your shambling corpses? I spent sixty-eight years dragging my own body around. It wasn’t much, but it was mine, and it was alive. Find someone else to rattle around in your bones!” Ermentrude scoffed.

“It doesn’t have to be something as corporeal as that. There are plenty of times I need smoke phantoms to protect me, or a someone to keep an eye on my enemies and warn me of what they’re doing, or to whisper terrible things into their ears at night when they’re trying to sleep. I can find a task you wouldn’t mind performing.”

“If you’d let folk sleep you’d have fewer enemies to spy on or need protecting from,” the specter replied, “and I lasted it this long without making any pacts with suspicious characters I met in a graveyard, I don’t see any reason to start now.“

The burning liquor in the shot glass flared as the spirit consumed the rest of it. She took a last look around, then spoke again, “I thank you for the drink, but I’ll be making no bargains with you. One good turn deserves another though, so try your luck over there,” she pointed to an overgrown corner of the cemetery, “There’s a few brigands and swindlers planted that way, I doubt their afterlife has been so restful as mine. They may be more receptive to your offer. Goodbye, rabbit-man!” With those words, she faded and was gone.

“Well,” said Puglith to himself, “it’s not a deal, but I suppose it’s not nothing, either.” He took a swig from the whiskey bottle. “No reason to let the ghosts have all the fun.” He hummed a drinking song to himself as he picked up the shot glass and dropped it into the bucket with the water. He picked up his ritual paraphernalia, blew out the candle, and stuffed it into his pack. With another swig from the bottle, he started towards towards the graves Ermentrude had pointed out.

Halfway there, his ears twitched, and he heard a pair of voices in the distance. He crouched down and doused his lantern. From a legal perspective, he had license to practice magic in the service of the kingdom, and the documentation to prove it to any magistrate that wanted to give him a hard time. From a practical perspective, if someone found him sneaking around a graveyard at night they were more likely to put a crossbow bolt in him and sort out the legalities later than ask to see his papers. That was assuming, of course, that the individuals in question weren’t up to something nefarious themselves. That would probably also involve crossbow bolts. He pulled the cork from the bottle and took another swig.

The voices were getting closer, and Puglith could make out the glow from a lantern. He stashed his things behind a grave marker, with the exception of his pipe, which had gone out. He produced a match from his jacket, and crept up to a tree, watching as the figures with the lantern came closer. He struck the match, doing his best to contain the light from striking it behind the tree. The smell of sulfur and the burning matchstick mixed with the rekindled smokeleaf as he cupped he hands around the flame and relit the pipe. He pulled a knife from his belt and peeked around the tree trunk.

The people with the lantern had stopped. Shit! Did they see me? He hadn’t heard them say anything. The situation was getting dangerous. He needed to find out who these people were, and what they were doing.

Puglith stayed low, and began to creep towards the lantern. He wasn’t really much of a fighter, but he’d spent enough time in shady taverns to pick up a few things. Chief amongst them was that it was best to hit first and hit hard. Or bribe some ghosts with whiskey to do it for you.

He crawled up to a headstone, then pulled himself up into a crouch. Carefully, he poked his head around the stone, his long hears straining to pick up thing his targets might say. Then he froze.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Sergeant Bellamy was behind him, her bow drawn. “What do you think you’re doing, you little weasel?”

“I thought you were graverobbers, or night watchmen, or something like that. Gods above, Bellamy, this is the first time I’ve ever been happy to see you!” Puglith felt the tension drain out of him, and he slumped against the headstone. Sergeant Bellamy was unpleasant company, but she wouldn’t kill him without orders to.

“What’s going on over there?” called the person with the lantern. Puglith recognized Captain Lexington’s voice.

“That flea-bitten mongrel of yours thought he could get the drop on us!” replied Sergeant Bellamy.

“I did not! You didn’t tell me when to expect you, I thought you were graverobbers or something!” protested the jackalope.

Bellamy gave him a look. “I’d have thought graverobbers and body snatchers to be natural allies.”

“Oh, shut up.” he said.

“How is your new location working out?” asked Captain Lexington as they arrived at the hut Puglith had relocated to. “Do you have everything you need to continue the project?”

“The last location was much better,” said Puglith, “It’s a lot easier to contract with spirits when you’re working through a big, underground catacomb no one ever visits. This prowling around a graveyard at night with a lantern and hoping nobody spots you business is terrible. I can’t imagine it going on for more than a few weeks before I have to move again.

“As for the rest it, it’s fine. The hut is reasonably comfortable and secure, the neighbors aren’t too close, and there’s adequate room in the barn for ritual work. I keep it locked up, but again, the last location was more secure.”

“You can’t go back, if Goswin knows what you were doing there, there’s no telling who else does.” the Captain said.

“I know, and I won’t go back,” Puglith groused, “but I’m still going to complain about it.” The captain smirked.

“Glad to hear it,” Lexington said, “now, where are we on the ritual?”

“Let’s talk inside.” Puglith opened the door and stepped inside, holding the door for the two hussars. They followed him and found a pair of chairs around a circular table. Puglith put a kettle on the hearth, and tossed a log on the coals. He located a cast iron teapot, added some dried leaves, and placed it on the table, before rummaging through his things to find enough cups for the three of them. The water began to boil, and he poured it over the leaves. Then he sat down with Lexington and Bellamy.

“I am confident in my ability to perform the ritual,” began the necromancer, “assuming we wish to continue.”

“Assuming?” the captain asked.

“In a military application it could provide a decisive edge, but there are reasons to stop here.”

“What edge, exactly? Initial analysis suggested it was a novel way of raising undead, and we already know how to do that.”

“I can see why they would think that, but that’s not what it does. In fact, it’s not even necromancy, it’s vitaemancy.” The captain raised his eyebrows as Puglith continued, “It will imbue a target with vitality, allowing them to heal from mortal wounds almost instantly.”

“How would you know?” asked Sergeant Bellamy.

“I know you don’t think I do any actual work, but I do. I’ve been pulling the ritual apart to understand all the pieces and how they work together since I got this assignment, and that includes simulating and testing the effects. There’s a pile of dust and bones out back that used to be chickens.” Puglith replied. “One of them was briefly very hard to kill.”

“What’s the catch?” asked Sergeant Bellamy. “Even sorcerers don’t get something for nothing.”

“That’s why I said we might not want to continue. There are two problems with it, the two problems inherent in all vitaemancy. The first, what it gives to one, it must take from another. In this case, it preserves the life of one person by sacrificing the lives of others beforehand. That brings us to the second problem, this is a process explicitly forbidden by the Proscription of Malgero.”

“Malgero’s cult isn’t the law in this kingdom, they don’t get to issue edicts about what is and is not forbidden.”

“Supposedly this is what they send the Dahji to enforce.”

“Nobody has seen one of them in three hundred years. The Scaeptrians have been trying to scry them out, and they say they’re all dead.”

“What do the Scaeptrians have to do with this?” asked the jackalope.

“They supplied us with the ritual, supposedly it’s been sitting in one of their vaults for centuries.” explained Captain Lexington.

“Sounds to me like they know what it does.” remarked Sergeant Bellamy.

“They do, but we weren’t just going to take their word for it. They play their own games.”

Puglith nodded. “Being dead would stop most people, but I think it would be less of an obstacle to the paladins of the god of the dead. You’re the boss, and I’ll follow your orders, I just bring it up so you’re aware of all the risks.”

“I’ll worry about the Dahji when they have an army and share a border with us. The Agathocletians already do.” the captain replied.

Puglith sipped his tea.

“What’s the next step?” asked Captain Lexington.

“We find a lucky volunteer, and... five less lucky ones.”

“Five?”

“For the initial ritual it’s five. After that, it doesn’t matter if it’s one at a time or fifty, but if you want to go further than this, we’re killing five people.” answered the necromancer.

The captain stared into the fire in the hearth, his cup of tea cooling next to his hand. No one said anything for a while. Puglith got up and found a bottle. He pulled the cork and poured a couple ounces into the captain’s tea. Lexington gave him a nod. “Thank you.” He picked up the cup and emptied it in one go. Puglith proffered the bottle to Bellamy, who declined with a shake of her head. He took a swig for himself.

“I’ll go first,” the captain said quietly. “I won’t order someone to do something I wouldn’t do myself. We’ll be back in ten days.”

“I’ll be ready.” Puglith replied.

“One last thing,” Lexington said. He gave Puglith a brief rundown of Lepzighal’s report and description of the creature that started the fire, then asked the necromancer if he knew what it might be.

“It’s not something I’ve ever heard of, but that doesn’t mean much, it’s well outside my expertise. You could ask around at the University. I’d start with anyone who specializes in the history of the Fey, or more exotic forms of pyromancy.” Puglith answered.

“Do you think it could be related to the Agathocletians? I don’t know how one of their experiments would have ended up here, but stranger things have happened.”

“I couldn’t say, but whatever the case is, I wouldn’t want it running around where they could get their hands on it. If it isn’t one of theirs, it could advance their research, and if it is, we’re denying them that asset.” said Puglith. The captain nodded, then he and Sergeant Bellamy left.

“We’ve known each other for years, Candida,” said Captain Lexington, “can I ask you a question? As a friend, not your commanding officer.” The sun hadn’t come up yet, so they rode at a measured pace along the dirt track.

Sergeant Bellamy glanced over at him before returning her gaze to the road. Her face remained impassive. “Go ahead.”

“Once we take the next step, it can’t be undone. Are we doing the right thing?”

“Why are you asking me?”

“Your family have been in the service for what, six generations? Seven?” She nodded, and the captain continued, “You were born and raised in a tradition of service. The Bellamy’s have done more for Ostrogoth than anyone, arguably including the royal family. You’re at least as qualified as me to have an opinion on if this is something we ought to do for the country.”

Candida rode in silence for a moment. Eventually she asked, “Hudrich gave you orders to go through with it?” He nodded in the affirmative. “Then it doesn’t matter. You’re a soldier, you have your orders. Maybe you don’t like them, but you follow them until you’re the one giving them. If every trooper starts philosophizing about their orders before they carry them out, the chain of command breaks down, and the Agathocletian flag will be waving over the burning remains of Ostron by this time next week.

“Secondly, we already had this war once, and those fuckers killed, looted, and burned their way across half the kingdom. If we have to sacrifice a few convicts to protect the rest of the country, that doesn’t bother me. The Agathocletians would kill them anyway, at least we’re sacrificing them to achieve something worthwhile, instead of just slitting their throats and pushing their bodies into a mass grave.

“It’s an unpleasant business, but we have our duty, and whether they like it or not, so do those five. Plenty of good men and women have been honored to die for this country, these convicts should count themselves lucky to do the same.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Lexington said, “and I don’t see that we have any choice. Still, I feel like a bastard for doing it.”

“Maybe, but you’re less of a bastard than the alternative. Sometimes, that’s the best people can hope for.”

The captain rode in silence for a moment. “Some hope.” he muttered to himself.