I've sent a zombi to masquerade as me to those daft villagers. That should salve their bloodlust. I've half a mind to infect it with the plague, but that's a jar of worms I know better than to open.
This whole incident has brought up a sore point for me. Why do people insist that necromancers are evil destroyers of life? It's ludicrous, a necromancer knows better than to kill people without an exceedingly good reason. A trait these villagers seem to lack. After all if we really killed people the way the stories go, we would be overrun by vengeful undead overnight. And there is precious little that even the best a necromancer can do against that sort of justice-from-beyond-the-grave case. And the people complain about our habit of animating the freshly dead. And its usually the man who stole the dead man's wife or his eldest son's inheritance who complains. I tell you it hurts the poor deceased much more to be cheated after death, than to lend his body for a little while. How do I know? I'm a necromancer, remember. And that brings up another point, what half wit came up with the idea that when we animate a dead body we use the spirit that once inhabited it. That would be an incredible waste of energy, not to mention the person would then do whatever he or she wanted. We use the little ghost fragments that wander the world, it helps keep them from fading and gives us a willing servant. It's a deal of mutual benefit, that's why its so easy even an initiate can waken a skeleton.
But what gets my goat the most, is when the supposedly educated declare necromancy as some how unnatural. As if gods sending bolts of lightning to smite unbelievers is the natural order of things. But they correct themselves, all magic is supernatural, but necromancy is even more unnatural. What is so unnatural? Death? No they say, undeath is what is unnatural. Ah, well let me tell you a story. In the town I was living outside of last summer a strange event occurred. I'm actually fairly fond of that town. They didn't burn my house down, just politely asked me to leave. (A few were even polite enough to keep their weapons sheathed.) This event involved the mayor's house being haunted by a vengeful spirit. It was causing a ruckus, spoiling the the household food, and the mayor's three daughter's had begun to take ill. A passing band of mercenaries agreed to purge the ghost. Fortunately they were brighter than most such bands, and investigated the spirit before attacking. They discovered the ghost was the eldest sister of the mayor's new wife, and that his wife had poisoned her sister's family as as she was doing to the mayor's family as well. After the poisoner was executed the ghost was never seen again. I came into town a few weeks later and gathered this from the tavern stories. The point, however, is simple. How can such a spirit exist if undeath is unnatural. Undead spirits have been around since the dawn of time, they are as natural as pigs, and a necromancer for dealing with them is no more unnatural than a pig farmer.
-Journeyman Harberes Nigres,
Necromancer, Order of Solitude
© 2001 Mendel Schmiedekamp