Raise the Dead by Starlight

Lester’s milky white eyes scraped open, and he gave a fetid yawn before stretching and sitting up. Right away he noticed things were amiss. Rather than waking up in bed, he was outside on the sandy ground looking at a starry night sky. His body was encircled with stones of various sizes, some holding burning candles.

“The Gods are good and so is wise Master Erdem. Arise Master and teach this Seeker your ways”

Lester turned with a jerk toward the source of the voice. A young woman kneeled before him; her light-colored cloak shone in the moonlight. “Thank you for heeding my call.” She bowed her hooded head in deference.

“I’m not Erdem,” he croaked; his voice sounded like he was speaking through a mouthful of gravel. “I’m Lester.”

“What?” the young woman’s head snapped up. Her eyebrows creased as alarm slowly spread across her face, “Who’s Lester? You’re supposed to be Master Erdem the Wise.”

Lester’s head loosely rolled around his neck as he took in his surroundings. It was after dark, and the deep purple sky was speckled with glittering stars. The land was flat save for a cluster of wooden buildings far in the distance. The buildings glowed warmly with torchlight signaling that there was life on the horizon.

“How did I get here? The last thing I remember…” he paused for a moment trying to recall but only finding blurry fragments of memory, “Actually, I don’t remember.”

The woman’s concerned face softened into an expression of pity. “You must have died suddenly.” Words hung in the air like smoke.

Sudden death could come about because of an accident like a carriage collision, or an oil lamp exploding. Or not so accidentally. The corpse trade was alive and well. Bodies are bought by medical schools and dark magi. When times get tough, body snatchers get creative. Rumor has it they will make a corpse if none can be found.

The woman fidgeted with the hem of her cloak looking sheepish, “Well, let’s get you back to town so I can get a refund,” she stepped forward and extended a gloved hand to help Lester to his feet.

Lester accepted the offer and when he reached his hand out to grasp hers, he saw that his fingernails had turned black, and his usually dusky brown skin was a greyish green. He wore no jewelry. Just a pair of raggedy pants and a filthy tunic. The zombie rose to his feet and a chorus of crackling sounded from his stiff limbs as they resettled. Still grasping his hand, the woman shook it slowly up and down.

“I’m Daciana. Necromancer.”

“Lester Hodge. I’m a cheese maker.”

The two turned away from the stone circle and began walking toward the buildings on the horizon. There were no dunes or hills. Just endless plains of sand dotted with rocks and patches of scratchy tall grass.

“I’m sorry to have brought you out here Lester. The guy I bought your body from said that you were someone else. An ascended master that I could learn from.”

They walked side by side. Lester stood about a foot taller than Daciana, except when his head lolled to the side.

“I’m sorry that I died. I remember liking the life I was given. I want to know what happened.”

Daciana looked at him and the way his head bobbed when he walked. Lester’s neck was crumpled and barely supported his head anymore. There was no blood on his clothes, no other visible injury. “Whatever it was that did you in must have broken your neck,” she mumbled.

Daciana looked at the ground. She wasn’t an experienced necromancer. If she was forced to tell the truth, Lester was the first zombie she had successfully raised after many attempts. The possibility that the corpse she reanimated might have wants and feelings of its own hadn’t entered her mind. Daciana felt a flush blooming in her cheeks. Shame.

“We can ask Mr. Jangles about how he got your body. Maybe he knows someone who knows how you died.”

“Who is Mr. Jangles?” the zombie asked, his voice sounding like rust.

“The bastard that ripped me off. I was at the Sand and Sun for a meal when I met him. He said that he could sense I had power, but that I needed a teacher.” She scoffed and shook her head. “Told me your name was Erdem, and that you had been a gifted magus and scholar in life. I should have known better than to believe him. My dad is always saying that I’m too gullible to be a necromancer.”

Lester kept an awkward jerking pace alongside Daciana. His mop of tangled black hair shook like leaves in a strong wind with every lurch forward. They were getting close enough to the town to hear sounds of life drifting toward their ears. Lester thought about the life he used to have.

“I wonder if someone killed me,” he mused.

“Did you have any enemies?”

The dead man made a raspy groaning noise as he thought for a moment about what to say next, “I didn’t have enemies, but I made people mad at me,” he faced forward as he staggered, “My beloved told me it was him or the cheese. I was behind on rent and owed some of my friends money. Maybe I ran out of chances.”

The sand path they walked on grew rocky as they approached the town. A stone wall encircled the small oasis. Beyond the wall, pale buildings glowed with golden torchlight. The smell of food cooking wafted through the air. A modest gate housed a sign announcing their arrival to Sommerest.

As they made their way through town they received a few curious looks, but no further scrutiny. The population was constantly changing with the ebb and flow of travelers grateful for a rest as they made their way through the cruel desert. Undead, More Than Human, Otherlings were not an unusual sight. The radiance of magically imbued lanterns placed along the main road cast an amber glow on all who traveled the road.

The Sun and Sand was a creaky little place in the heart of Sommerest. The bar took pride in that it was founded about a decade before the town was established. A place to quench the thirst of weary quarry workers and travelers alike. The sound of laughter and drunken singing spilled into the warm night.

Daciana drew her shoulder back before and mustered her confidence to confront the man that cheated her. Lester simply shambled after, as the worst had already happened to him, and he had nothing left to fear. She yanked open the heavy wooden door and together they entered the tavern.

The room was smoky but as their eyes adjusted, they could see that it was filled with people and others. To their right was a table seating four vampires. One of them held a thickly jeweled necklace as he regaled his companions. Four sets of spiked ears, four pale bald heads were thrown back in jagged-mouthed cackles. To their right was a family of magi with a father and two young children. The older boy was showing his brother how to chill his tea with a frost spell. Their father’s violet eyes glowed with pride.

Daciana scanned the crowd, and it only took a moment for her to find Mr. Jangles, and for Mr. Jangles to realize he had been seen. The tall man halfheartedly turned and ducked, but with his enormous mound of fiery red locs bursting from his head like lava from a volcano, he was hard to miss. Add to that every step he took jingled the bells he had sewn into his hair.

“Hey!” she stabbed her finger at his retreating form, “I see you Jangles!”

The man stood to his full height and lifted both of his hands in surrender as a wry smile twisted his lips, “What a pleasant surprise to see you again so soon,” he soothed.

“Is it?! You lied to me.”

“I know. I thought I would be gone by the time you found out the truth, but time makes fools of us all.”

“I want my money back,” she huffed.

“Wealth is fleeting, and all sales are final. Kid.”

“Ugh!” Daciana threw her hands up, turned on her heel, and faced Lester. Lester the former human. Lester the man that didn’t ask to be mixed up in any of this. She turned back around. “Well, what about him? Can you at least tell us what happened to him?”

The young necromancer’s demands had pricked a few ears. An open-air magical market depended upon word of mouth above all else. It would be bad for business if word started to spread that Mr. Jangles was a cheat.

“Right then, if you would kindly shut up about this ‘refund’ nonsense, I’ll help your little pet remember how all of that happened,” he said gesturing vaguely towards Lester’s hinging head. Mr. Jangle’s reached a hand into his pocket and pulled out a fist, in one step he was face-to-face with Lester. He held his hand flat in front of Lester’s face, revealing a light grey powder before blowing it into Lester’s into his eyes.

I lace one foot and then the other into my boots. Just outside my front door is a set of stone steps that connects my house on the hill to the main road. My wagon is full and I expect to do well today.

I set my right foot down and feel it slip out from under me and the world turns upside down. My body starts to fall before my head can right itself but it’s too late. I’m falling too fast, too close to the ground.

 I can sense that I hit the side of my head. But then I feel a wet snap in the back of my neck that reverberates into my jaw and behind my eyeballs and I feel nothing more.

Lester blinked the dust out of his eyes. His death had been an accident. Nothing particularly special. No conspiracy, or, plot, or curse. No point. He took a wrong step and it cost him everything.

“Dead man, do you remember how you died?”

“Yes,” Lester grunted.

“There now. All squared up,” Mr. Jangles motioned towards Lester, still reeling from newly recalled memories. Then he turned towards Daciana, leaned forward, and pinched her cheek, “Off you go before I forget how much you remind me of…me. When I was your age and eager to be a good little wizard.”

Outside of the din of the tavern, the cool night air eased the tension of their confrontation with the body snatcher.

“Are you okay?” the necromancer asked.

“My troubles are over. I’m not hungry or tired anymore. I don’t feel pain and I don’t have any grudges... If I knew I was going to die that day, I would have slept later,” Lester made a sound that might have been laughing, but it sounded more like a hacking cough.

The woman and her newly risen zombie meandered off into the desert night.