The Good Necromancer

The farmer surveyed the heavy wheat stalks, their golden heads drooping like weary elders beneath their burden. Yellow and green gourds crowded his wagon alongside sacks of orange peppers and crimson tomatoes. As dusk settled, the horizon blazed in hues that matched his ripened harvest. Just a few more plump tomatoes from the center of the patch, then he would call it a day.

***

Within the darkening shadows, flesh invaded the silken sanctuary. Trespassers could not be tolerated in the realm of the Syleth. Strike swiftly, flood the wound with burning toxin! Their venomous kiss brought terror to all who wandered the wood.

***

Bren felt a sharp sting on his hand, but the tomato hung so close, nearly within reach. He grasped the fruit and lifted it for inspection, then noticed the twin punctures between his thumb and forefinger. The wounds wept a terrible mixture: scarlet blood swirled with golden poison. The farmer shook his hand frantically, as if the motion might dislodge the spreading venom.

“Oh no,” Bren whispered, his voice hollow with disbelief.

He yanked off his belt and wound it tight around his arm above the elbow, then squeezed the punctures, trying to force out the toxin. Another sting bit into his left ankle, subtle but unmistakable. He kicked the eight-legged nightmare skyward and let loose a scream. The tomato bushes sparkled like fractured gems, alive with countless arachnid eyes. The farmer fled.

His home rose from stones dragged by his great-grandfather from these very fields, each rock chiseled to fit perfectly within the walls. River sand mixed with limestone from the nearby hills formed the mortar. His father had expanded the structure, adding chambers for his children. For a brief time, three generations had shared meals beneath the same timber beams.

“Rive! Rive!” He shouted, fighting to keep panic from his voice.

The oak door swung open to reveal his wife, brunette braids framing her face, apron tied at her waist, dish cloth clutched in her hand.

“What’s wrong? Did you injure your hand? Show me.” Rive stepped forward, concern creasing her features.

“Syleth in the garden. They struck me.” Terror began clouding his thoughts.

“Bren, no. Please, no...” Rive’s face crumpled as she shook her head.

“Fetch Plaire. Send her to bring the crone from the grove,” he ordered, though he knew his wife would resist.

“She’s not merely a witch,” Rive protested.

“She understands herbs and healing as well,” he pleaded.

“That’s not my concern. She murdered your brother,” Rive shot back.

“We can’t prove that. There’s no one else who can help. It was a Syleth, I witnessed it myself. A second one struck my ankle.” His voice grew ragged with desperation.

“What’s troubling you, Mama?” a young voice asked behind them.

***

Plaire had been sprouting rapidly. Since spring’s arrival, her father carved fresh notches into the doorframe each month. Pressing an old nail flat against her crown, he would wiggle it back and forth, declaring, “You’re shooting up like a wildflower,” as she measured the gap between marks with her fingertip.

***

“Stay calm and listen carefully. Your father has been bitten. Go fetch the old witch Mawdy,” her mother commanded.

“Bitten by what?” Plaire asked hesitantly, though she suspected the answer.

“Syleth,” Rive breathed.

Plaire nearly shook her head in denial, but caught herself. Accept the truth and act accordingly. Thinking clearly now, she gathered her cloak, the oil lantern, and a box of matches. Darkness would claim the forest long before she reached the cabin in the grove. Her mother appeared at the door, clutching a cloth pouch while pulling the drawstring tight.

“Take this silver for payment,” Rive said, pressing the pouch into her daughter’s palm.

“And carry the spear, wolves roam at night,” Bren added. Rive’s eyes glistened with unshed tears.

Plaire approached her father and studied his face, trying to calculate how much time remained. His skin had already begun to pale, perspiration forming a sickly sheen across his brow. She embraced him fiercely, forced herself to pull away, and bolted through the door, spear and lantern clutched in her hands.

Her boots drummed against the hard-packed earth. The main road stretched eastward, flat and safe, but cutting through the forest would save precious time. She scrambled up the embankment, using the spear shaft for balance when her feet slipped in the loose soil. Beyond the tree line, twilight had surrendered to darkness. She halted, drawing slow, measured breaths. Steady your hands to avoid dropping the match. Another calming breath to stop the trembling. She touched flame to wick, extinguished the match, and ground it into the moist earth, well away from dry leaves.

Move carefully now, quiet steps to avoid stumbling or drawing attention from prowling beasts. Her brother had led her here countless times to spy on the witch, daring each other to peer through her windows. Never in darkness, but she knew the path. The shadows remained still.

Moonlight draped the moss-covered shingles like a burial shroud. Somewhere in the darkness came hollow knocking sounds, branches swaying in the wind? The scarecrow in the garden slowly turned its head toward her. Plaire froze, muscles coiled to run. Candlelight flickered behind the warped glass of the sagging cottage. She forced herself forward, her reluctant legs carrying her toward the door.

The door creaked open, revealing a face weathered like ancient leather. Candlelight flickered in her gnarled hand as sunken eyes studied the intruder, then swept the treeline for hidden dangers.

“You belong to Bren,” the old woman rasped, her voice creaky like bending trees.

“Yes, ma’am. We need your help, a Syleth bit my father. I brought silver to pay you.” Plaire extended the pouch with trembling fingers.

Mawdy exhaled slowly, weighing the possibility of deception. She worked her toothless gums thoughtfully. No point in questioning the girl; lies would flow easily if enemies lurked nearby. The woodland sentries remained silent, offering no warning calls or chittering alarms. Perhaps any conflict would occur far enough from her cottage to spare her the trouble of rebuilding. Skilled carpenters had grown scarce in these parts.

“Very well. I’ll gather my supplies. Come inside and assist me,” she said, beckoning with fingers twisted like old roots.

Plaire stepped across the threshold, following the witch deeper into the cottage. Floor-to-ceiling shelves lined the walls, not filled with books, but with countless skulls of every size and shape. The urge to scream rose in her throat, though politeness held her tongue.

“What a... distinctive home you have,” she managed, her voice strained.

Mawdy released a rich, throaty cackle. She paused her gathering, turning with eyes that sparkled with amusement, her smile splitting her face like cracked bark.

“Such exquisite manners, child,” Mawdy said with genuine delight.

Various jars and a spoon carved from pale, unfamiliar bone disappeared into a canvas satchel.

“We must hurry. Syleth venom shows no mercy,” she warned, making arcane gestures in the air.

What Plaire had mistaken for furniture suddenly stirred to life. Quilted cushions tumbled aside as skeletal forms rose from their resting places. Bones clattered and teeth clicked with anticipation as the undead warriors assembled in formation, ancient axes gleaming in their fleshless grips. Plaire’s breath seized her chest, her eyes widening with terror at sights that defied all reason.

Mawdy recognized the expression immediately—complete mental fracture, the kind of horror that spawned nightmares within nightmares. Best to remain patient and still; most recovered within moments. Though there was that one scrawny fellow who toppled over, his life extinguished like a stopped clock. Fortunately, Mawdy possessed specific skills in restarting clocks.

“What are those things?” Plaire cried out.

“Old friends,” Mawdy’s grin revealed empty gums, “who will guard us. The forest harbors wolves, you know.”

Plaire walked alongside the witch as three skeletons followed in perfect formation, their feet lifting in time with mechanical precision. At the forest’s edge, Mawdy swept her finger toward the undead guardians, then pointed downward in silent command.

The trio straightened their backs, standing at attention, though only two stared vacantly into the distance. Across the field, the stone house blazed with lamplight streaming from every window. The third skeleton turned its hollow sockets to watch its master depart, then gazed toward the distant dwelling. His featureless face somehow betrayed a sense of familiarity.

Plaire sprinted ahead and burst through the door. Her mother wept openly while young Tanze sat beside their father’s bedside, clasping his hand. All eyes turned toward her, desperate for salvation.

The old witch appeared in the doorway, her tattered garments hanging loose on her skeletal frame. Weeks of neglect had left her white hair matted in tangled clumps. A wool shawl, fastened with a tarnished brooch, draped her angular shoulders.

“I’ve come to offer aid, if you’ll permit me, Rive,” she said quietly. Rive’s face twisted with reluctance before surrender.

“Please... save my Bren.”

“Clear this table immediately. I must assemble the spell.” Mawdy’s tone brooked no argument.

The witch placed her satchel down and settled onto the wooden bench. She reached upward as if grasping an invisible shelf, her fingertips disappearing into nothingness as they pierced some hidden realm. A massive tome bound in cracked leather emerged, its vellum pages yellowed with age. The book stirred with unnatural life, opening itself and rapidly turning pages while Mawdy shook her head in disapproval. Finally, she nodded approval, and the ancient pages settled into place, falling dormant once more.

***

Mawdy had undergone her transformation one hundred and eighty-one years past, her flesh and spirit reshaped to embrace the wizard’s path. Her powers traced their lineage to Yexam, whose necromantic arts earned universal revulsion, knowledge pilfered and perverted against the very father of sorcery.

Woglow had been weaving an intricate enchantment to purge his siblings’ memories of the terrible magics he had birthed. He recognized that, regardless of his precautions, they would pilfer his secrets and forge them into instruments of destruction. Only by erasing all knowledge of such possibilities could he safeguard existence itself.

But Yexam intercepted fragments of this working, twisting them against their creator to shatter Woglow’s recall. The incomplete spell fractured his consciousness into scattered shards. Most days found him lost in catatonic slumber, though occasionally pieces of his former self would surface. These fragments alternated control, sometimes he awakened mid-conflict, primed for annihilation; other times the brilliant artificer emerged; frequently he became trapped in endless cycles, repeating meaningless words and gestures.

This abhorrent sorcery could obliterate a mind while preserving chosen fragments. Victims became worse than slaves, reduced to living tools. A laborer clutching a spade might be compelled to excavate without pause for rest, sustenance, or wounds, and within the thrall’s consciousness existed only the imperative to dig. The most horrific consequence manifested upon death, when the enslaved corpse developed a singular new hunger: slaughter and consumption of living flesh.

Yexam later discovered that this corruption functioned equally upon the deceased. A creature’s essence remained tethered to its mortal remains, allowing the soul to be summoned back and magically reanimated. The necromancer would methodically dismantle the consciousness, preserving only desired elements while discarding the rest. Warriors retained solely violence and fury; servants kept their skills while losing self-awareness, identity, and cherished memories. Yet without constant restraint, all such creations eventually sought to tear apart the living.

***

Her spell book existed simultaneously across multiple planes, portions inscribed in the material realm, others etched within the ethereal. Like facets of a complex gemstone, they formed a single unified tome. Mawdy focused her consciousness through astral sight, selecting components beyond physical perception. Her material and spectral hands moved in harmony, assembling the intricate machinery of magic. Beneath the ethereal plane lay another dimension of the multifaceted cosmos, where raw energy from the void could be channeled through spell matrices and shaped to the caster’s will.

Silver motes streamed from Mawdy’s fingertips, swirling like luminous fish. She guided the conjuration into her patient’s body, where the energy sought out poison coursing through his bloodstream. The remedy should have worked swiftly, the enchantment possessed considerable strength, yet the darting magical constructs, starved of sustenance, withered before her otherworldly vision.

She consulted her tome again, verifying each component. A second matrix took shape, larger and more robust than the first. The witch drew quadruple the void energy into her working, spinning forth ten times as many aquatic seekers. But upon touching Bren’s flesh, they vanished like raindrops on scorched earth, crumbling to dust instantly. Two additional variations of purification magic failed, as did a fourth spell she crafted spontaneously.

Dawn’s first light clawed at the eastern horizon as Bren’s complexion turned ashen. Golden fluid leaked from his eyes, while his breath carried the stench of spoiled milk. Every surface of his body had become tender to the touch, and hours had passed since perspiration ceased. When Rive attempted to offer him water, he immediately retched it back up.

“Maw...dy,” he wheezed. The old witch leaned closer from her chair.

“I’ve exhausted my options. This affliction has claimed you; it’s beyond my power to reverse.”

“The harvest... must be finished.”

“You lack the strength. I’m truly sorry.”

“I can manage if you transform me like my brother, just long enough to complete the work. Without it, my family will starve come winter. Please, Mawdy.”

***

In her youth, the old necromancer had churned corpses by the thousands, her undead legions transforming the southern coastlands into abattoirs. She had harbored dreams of empire until the Vulture King crushed her ambitions. Creating undead who retained their memories and essence would violate even her withered conscience.

Fragmenting the souls of the deceased offered only temporary respite. The shattered pieces would eventually dissolve into dark currents and rejoin the eternal flow. For those burdened with guilt, having their memories obliterated might even prove merciful. All would become whole again, given time.

Yet the atrocities they would commit if she preserved their intact souls would cling to them as they approached the white tower. No deity would accept spirits tainted by the abhorrent art; they would remain unclaimed and tumble into the endless war. Perhaps, though, a compromise existed.

She could weave a curse upon the entire bloodline, delayed magic that would transform them into undead upon death. As such creatures, other walking corpses would recognize them as kindred, shielding them from the instinctive loathing the dead harbored for the living. Then she would strip away all of Bren’s memories save his knowledge of farming.

The clouded eyes of a desperate father pleaded while she worked her toothless gums, contemplating without resolving. No verdict emerged from her deliberations, and there was no weighing of consequences, morality, strategy, or intent, whether malevolent or benevolent. She despised such paralysis, so she would act purely to escape this wretched state of limbo. Inaction preserved infinite possibilities, which felt identical to indecision itself.

***

“Very well, you fool,” Mawdy hissed.

The necromancer returned her implements to the satchel, secured the cover flap, and slung the strap across her shoulder. The tome vanished to its hidden realm; she wouldn’t require it now. These particular enchantments dwelt always within her grasp. Shifting into astral sight, she programmed the conditions and began marking his soul like a surgeon sketching incision lines.

When she entered the main room, Rive and the children remained awake, too consumed by dread to find rest. They gazed at her through bloodshot eyes, raw from weeping. She began weaving her spell while they watched in bewildered silence. No purpose would be served by explaining their altered destiny.

“Nothing can be done. This venom came from no ordinary Syleth. I cannot fathom who would employ such methods against a simple farmer. I’m sor...” Mawdy faltered, startled by her regret. “...sorry. I exhausted every remedy I possess. But there’s more, I’ve committed something terrible.”

The ancient necromancer seemed to wither before their eyes, wrinkles deepening like canyons, eyes yellowing like old parchment, teeth blackening to stumps, hair thinning to wisps. The guttering candlelight flickered normally again as she exploded into a writhing mass of bloated carrion flies, their obnoxious buzzing filling the room before they vanished up the chimney.

The corpse sat upright with mechanical precision. The children’s faces reflected shock and hope. Was their father recovering? He stared vacantly ahead, his eyes already clouding to milk-white. They called his name, but he showed no recognition, instead shuffling toward the door to begin his labor.

He reaped wheat beneath the merciless sun without rest or pause. The scythe continued its work through the evening, in darkness, he kept going, seeing without light, without eyes, because maggots ate them. Spilling out, falling into his breast pocket, wriggling until they died of dehydration.

He gathered the harvest into the barn and began threshing the stalks. When the cordage snapped, he shuffled to his workshop for repairs. Plaire observed, clinging to the hope that the nightmare was merely a dream. Her voice had abandoned her that morning from unceasing, involuntary screaming. Daddy!

She grasped his arm, but he pulled free, not even looking at her. She wrapped her arms around his waist as he labored, oblivious to her presence. She pounded her fists against his back and sobbed until Rive dragged her inside. They restrained her until she fell unconscious from exhaustion.

Darkness had fallen when she stirred again. Her throat blazed with pain, eased only slightly by water. From the barn came rhythmic sounds, steady, measured, relentless. Whump... Whump... Whump. There he stood, hollow eye sockets gaping, lips withering and splitting like dying earthworms. She watched, struggling to comprehend. Words formed in her mind, but only whispers escaped her ravaged throat.

Plaire had already begged and pleaded, but nothing stirred within him. Now she confessed all the regrets she kept secret, wishing she were a better daughter. She spoke of her dreams, the handsome suitor who would someday sweep her away to his grand estate. Then she was angry that he would never see his grandchildren. He needed to return to his family and stand beside Mother and Tanze, but he remained deaf to her pleas. Daddy, please come home.

With the grain processed, he moved to harvest corn. His nose, blackened and slimy as a rotten mushroom, was soon picked off by the crows landing on his shoulder. Then his ears and cheeks were bare. The greedy blackbirds stripped the little meat there was from his scalp. The shambling meat was unconcerned.

When the final bundle was secured in storage, the monster turned to look at his house with vacant eyes and crumbled to dust.

Each night, Plaire jolted awake screaming, haunted by visions of her father’s animated remains. Her cries emerged not as wails but as strangled gasps, panic stealing her very breath. Her arms flailed not in trembling but in desperate motions, swimming through terror or reaching for embraces forever beyond her grasp.

Mother would wake moments later and slip into the room, cradling her daughter from behind until sleep returned. Near dawn, after Plaire’s tears had dried to crystalline tracks, Rive ventured to the woodpile. Mawdy waited there, the ancient necromancer wrapped in tattered black robes, their hem ringed with damp moss.

“What do you want, hag?” Mother spat, her fingers itching for a log to crack the witch’s skull, though fear of magical retribution stayed her hand.

“I sense her tormented dreams, and I grieve for it. I’ve maintained vigil over your household since that cursed night, shielding you from harm. Yet easing suffering lies beyond my abilities,” the crone replied.

Mother’s rage faltered as she recalled her husband’s desperate entreaties, his pleas that she accept this horror so his family might survive another winter. Fury gave way to sorrow as her eyes began to burn with unshed tears.

The witch continued, “Eventually the girl will seek me out, demanding...” Her voice faded as though captured by distant memory. “Demanding to confront her tormentor. She despises my actions yet craves understanding; her spirit burns fiercely and bright. Fear not, mother. I shall not harm her when she comes. Perhaps her mind will find healing, or destiny has grander designs.”

Tears flowed freely now as Mother pressed her apron to her eyes. When she looked up again, the old witch had vanished. Rive turned back toward the house, then paused; she’d forgotten the wood entirely. Everything felt impossibly difficult now; even simple thoughts required tremendous effort. She stood motionless in the morning light, staring at the woodpile in bewildered silence.

Tanze took her hand, guiding her back inside to the table. She sank onto the bench without thinking. Her son returned carrying an armload of split logs. He prepared tinder and kindling with practiced movements, then arranged the wood within their iron stove. Flames danced bright and orange. As water began bubbling, he added oats, salt, and a dollop of butter, stirring with gentle care.

***

Milking the cows had fallen to him now. Yesterday, while he’d worked, that thing had delivered fresh hay exactly as Father once did. He’d leaped from his stool, nearly upsetting the pail, muscles coiled for flight or confrontation. The creature had dropped its burden in the feeder and shuffled away as though he didn’t exist. Mad curiosity had overcome revulsion, driving Tanze to follow at a distance. The shambling form bore Father’s shape, but wasn’t him. Father had died in his bed two nights past. After watching until boredom set in, Tanze had returned to finish his work. The sooner the chores were complete, the sooner he could rest.

Father was gone, Tanze reminded himself, but dwelling on that truth served no purpose. Mother and Plaire were drowning in sorrow; they needed his strength now. He could almost hear Pa’s familiar words: ‘You’re the man of the house now,’ the phrase he’d used before every trip to town. Staying busy with tasks helped prevent dangerous reminiscence.

Rive gazed at the porridge her thoughtful son had prepared. Such a considerate boy, she couldn’t let his efforts go to waste. She forced the oats past lips so parched they could barely part. The food sat heavy on her tongue until saliva finally responded to the salt and butter. Her stomach, which had felt like cold stone for days, began to stir with the first taste of nourishment. She drew a deep breath, the first real breath in an eternity. As her body awakened, so did her mind, along with all the grief she’d been too exhausted to feel.

When the tears subsided, she managed another spoonful. Weep, pause, breathe, recover. Each cycle grew shorter. There was nothing left but to rejoin the rhythm of living.