Shadows & Sorcery Special #2
Hello everybody! Back when the 100th story came out in issue 20, I released a little personal top ten of my favourite stories, partly as a fond look back and partly to serve as a sampler of what I think are my best of the best pieces. Now that we’re 200 stories in (technically 205 now since this is releasing with #41) I wanted to do another. I’ll admit this isn’t really a proper top ten, as I tend to try and lead every new edition with a strong tale, but everyone’s read those, so I want to use some stuff not everybody has seen and which I’m really proud of. There’s a good few new readers since the first special and I’d like to show off to them, and to everybody, how unbelievably super cool this newsletter is.
I hope you all like this mini retrospective - if the stories intrigue you, remember that a subscription is only $2 a month for life, so even if I become a massive sell out in future, you’ll still retain that sweet sweet pocket change sub. This is bound by oath, after all.
Please give this a like or leave a comment on the site if you enjoyed this! Even if you didn’t! Especially if you didn’t.
The stories within are:
Drowned Wilderness
Ruins of the Giants
Church Undead
Untended Cathedral
Serpent Saints
The Cemetery of the King
Demon Dungeons
Fires of Old
The Old Steel
Graveyard Ash
Drowned Wilderness
From issue 21
The people had lived and toiled on the land for many generations, they had remained true to it, and so it remained true to them. The golden fields and lush glades supplied them with a veritable paradise, but it was a hard earned paradise, for the land gave back what was put into it. The people were bronzed with the sun, rich tones of earth and sky in their handsome of features, the mark of long hours in the fields. And when the sun began to wander past the mountains in its sojourn to the underworld, the people reaped their crop and slaughtered their beasts, and held a festival to celebrate their labours and their land.
Over the span of long years, the people began to notice that, though their work always produced a fine crop, the fields bounced back stronger after livelier festivals. As time wore on, more effort began to be focused on the winterdawn festival than the labours of the fields, and the festival itself began to take on a wild, perhaps even orgiastic fervour. Each new year brought a more virile landscape, and the people saw no reason to stop.
The wealth of the people is the wealth of the land. Healthy people beget healthy fields, but it was reckoned by traders that the aspect was now less healthy than it was virulent. The fields were ragged with weeds, the trees in the wide glades twisted almost as if animate, the grass of the warm steppe flowed like a mad torrent in rushing winds. The people lived outdoors, on the earth, and had begun to eat directly from it. They were little better than the beasts they chased and hacked to bits in the creeks.
After a festival one band of nomads were unwilling to describe, the sun left the sky for a time as winter set the world to slumber. But the fires of the people continued to burn for many nights. Come springtide, the sun shone pallid from behind a weary greyness. Storms had wracked the entire region for days on end, and when folk were able to venture outside again, one of their last stops was to investigate the people of the plains.
The priests had issued dire warnings at midwinter, and now it seems their words had come to some fruition. The once verdant countryside had been reduced to a cold, stinking bogland. Some folk made passive attempts at trying to locate the homes of the plains people, but the snaking vines and roots of the low, hunched trees made traversal in some places far too perilous. The soil was half-rotten and soaked with seeping, off-coloured water. Long spans of ragged grasses were intersected and interrupted by explosions of thick reeds with profoundly sharp tips. Streams seemed to slither of their own volition around the formless land, carrying the furtive shapes of creatures below their surface. Only a few mouldering hovels were ever spied from far off, and something about their aspect made searchers turn away. Whatever deity had tried to drown this vile place had only succeeded in making something worse.
Ruins of the Giants
From issue 22
When a stone in a monastery was knocked aside, during that fervent wave of renovations to the Old City, the fetid aperture revealed something more than a natural cavern. The monks and workmen were giddy with excitement and confusion, for not even during the construction of the monastery had such a thing even been known of.
Over the next several seasons, explorers into that lightless expanse began to bring back stories of something unbelievable. With them, after each expedition, they showed to the courts and colleges charts of corridors and impressions upon glass of worked stone vaster than anything seen under the sun. There was a civilization down there, or there had been. An unknown, and most likely non-human culture, which had dwelt beneath the feet of humanity since who knew when.
But only in hushed tones were other discoveries spoken of. Scholars gathered in closed rooms after dark, in the close light of the candelabra, and spoke with tremors of disquiet of the colossal skeletons huddled into corners, or sprawled in a chaos across the titanic ground slabs. The skeletons, they agreed upon with fluttering hearts, which looked human.
Even less spoken of, much less written down, were the horned skulls and taloned hands that dwarfed the tallest cliff-faces that lay in the most extreme reaches of the gargantuan darkness. These, too, were unfavourably human.
Months later, a missing monk brother was found huddled in his robes in a dusty corner of the chapter library that lay some few minutes from the aperture. In his hand was a hastily scrawled parchment scroll, upon which the archvenerates said was some rambling confession to a blasphemy, and did nothing more than bury him and light incense over the grave. But some monastery officials who were there, who found the fellow, will rarely admit that they saw that parchment before the abbot burnt it. Upon it was a desperate, cramped, fearful hand which wrote of something about the undefined nature of dark places, and what vile things they made possible. Only one monk saw the body properly, and he is now long dead, but wrote in a personal journal that the lifeless form of the brother, in the light of day, looked less than human.
Church Undead
From issue 24
For reasons still unfathomable to the priesthood, the dead continue to wake up within holy walls.
It has been a long-standing tradition in the body of churches that make up the national faith that certain person's are buried inside a church. Usually they're lords, virtuous figures, the rare saint or paragon, sometimes the extremely repentant are granted burial within a church. This has been happening for a little over a thousand years, since the Convention of Churches, and since that time church undead have been a continuous phenomenon.
Undeath is not a natural state. It happens in certain places because a sorcerer or the like kind has destabilized the flow of reason and order throughout the world. Such a force of will is uncommon, and always the concerted effort of a unique individual, or group of dedicated persons. But not so the church undead. They rise quite serenely from their tombs, now left loose for them to leave with ease.
Priests and sages have devoted many years to the study of their habits. Mummification and preservation with salt and oils are perfectly common practices, so the faithful are spared the sight of a decomposing corpse sloughing off its flesh in the church passages.
When they rise, their first inclination is to seek out the central ritual space from which a priest leads a mass meditation. They will then, for lack of a better term, guard it, and study any who approach it. Over time, a sense of familiarity or a level of cognizance arises, and they leave priests and regular faithful alone, tending merely to the well-being of the whole ritual space, clearing any debris, shifting fixtures, and so on. They can be seen kneeling and swaying slightly sometimes, but they do not speak any mantra, nor do they partake in meditations.
In times past, they have been armed to defend churches in holy wars and quite readily take to simple weapons. In peaceful times, congregations come to be comfortable around their church undead, perhaps even growing fond them. However it must be said that, regardless of how well-known the phenomenon is, it still gives some folks a start.
It's hard to give a reason for their existence. Perhaps they are holy people whose mission was not completed in life. Perhaps they did not find peace and seek it from beyond the grave. Perhaps they are an aspect of the grand order we have yet to uncover and understand. Whatever the case, the church undead will be there when we find it.
Untended Cathedral
From issue 27
This tale originally appeared on my writer's blog, but has been greatly expanded for this edition.
The Strictures stated that constant care must be taken between times of worship. The Veiled God, for it had no other name that was at all speakable by its cult, would appear behind seven Tabernacle Walls, intricate meshes of gold in which mediums had been entombed alive, that filtered and focused the deity's power into blessings bearable by human flesh. But still, the power of the god leaked through, raw, unrefined.
The cathedral was a colossal structure, part palace, part monastery, part temple. The Archpriest lived here, they who had endured the mightiest blessings behind the furthest seventh Tabernacle and came away half-divine, changed beyond recognition. The holiest order of monks dwelt in the cathedral, too, transcribing the whispers of the empyrean, and acting as sacristans, repairing the Tabernacle Walls as they sought out divine manifestations. Although considered a powerful augur, the monks have been taught since the founding that the souls of the layfolk simply aren't capable of beholding a divine form. And so blessed blades inlaid with gold scrape and cut away the things that grow in the corners, and under the pews.
Every corner of the cathedral, every wall, everything had a name, a purpose, a history, every minute section a deep theological meaning constructed over centuries as the faith blossomed. Built on principles of sacred geomancy transcribed by mediums, the layout of each room and level, and even colours used in he cathedral's entire structure, were utilized to disperse the Veiled God's power, though human construction pales in comparison to the mere descriptions the Veiled One has whispered. Only so much abating gold could be procured from across the realm, too. There was more gold in one Tabernacle Wall than in most king's coffers.
But alas, after the Reclamation, the place was nigh abandoned by its body of sacristans. The Archpriest, hidden from public view, had been spied upon by a sect of zealots who were driven to madness, and spread their awful vision to every town and village they could, before being thrown in some oubliette to be forgotten. But it was too late, and slowly but surely, the people began to turn back, secretly at first, to old gods of the rivers and trees, and then openly, as they stormed shrines and gold-plated relics of change were thrown into holy lakes. The cathedral was nearly invaded and the Tabernacle Walls cast down, before the entire faith was bid disband by a council of lords who learned things in deep, torch-lit chambers from captured monks that made them humble and stern.
Signs of divinity have overtaken entire wings of the temple. Some old monks returned to the faith in secret, decades later, when the hatred for its horrors was fast becoming a legend. These old folk live amidst the lightless halls choked by divine forms, and they know it won’t be long before Veiled God casts its shroud aside in the old untended cathedral. The Tabernacle Walls are grey. The mediums are dead. The almost tangible form of the nameless deity bulges from behind the seventh Tabernacle, ready to spill forth, reclaim its faithful, and spread its blessings across the whole of the earth.
Serpent Saints
From issue 28
Before the elven armies crusaded for the freedom of their adopted brethren, ancient humans lived under the domination of Dragons. In vast wastelands of fire and poison, small tribes eked out short, harsh lives, worshipping as gods the draconic tyrants who had awed and cowed man, who had but only risen from the clay in the wake of the Silver Great Ones, the elven ancestors. Dragons demanded sacrifices as shows of loyalty and fear, and their wrath was mountains blasted to ash, storms of poison raining agonies, and souls torn screaming into the bellies of the winged horrors.
But when the Silver Ones began their series of mighty battles against the Dragon Scourge, many of man's old and terrible gods fell, and humanity in its ignorance, stole away the gore they could to worship in hidden places, begging favour and forgiveness. These masses of torn flesh and blood in most places resulted in the first Dragonspawn, the wyrms and wyverns which are born from spilled Dragon blood, and which today still terrorize humanity. But certain quantities were required in order to birth these horrors, some cults had only a single scale or bowl of blood to worship, and from these came the first serpents.
It is known that constant exposure to Dragon blood, when not contained within some device of Elven or Human Art, causes sickness and eventually mutation. It is a danger that sorcerers who practice the stolen power of Dragonmagick are in constant danger of, and it is not unknown for certain wizards to develop patches of scales, short claws, or even forked tongues. The humans who worshipped the sloughed off refuse of a Dragon had no such protection, and the priests who led the cults invariably took on these draconic traits. But too were they fascinated by the wriggling forms which seemed as distant shadows of the masters, and in time, the serpent cult came together in contact with roving lindorms, the two-armed wyrms, the Fathers of Serpents.
A great exodus was led into a far-off waste by several lindorms, little more than beasts with a vile cunning, and their host of fawning, serpent-clad humans. There the lindorms lived as kings to the squalid tribes, and administered painful snake venoms to the high priests. Those it did not kill - and these were few - were rewarded with advanced draconic traits. In particular, these priests began to mutate into serpent-men, a distinct abomination separate from the Draconians, who are dragon-men birthed from the introduction of Dragon blood into unborn humans.
A city of squat stone huts began to spread through the dusty canyon the serpent cult called home. Throngs of humans prostrated themselves before piles of old scales and bowls of congealed, browned blood, from which thin serpents still sometimes crawled from. Although the serpent was less than even the Wyrm, the limbless living tails, the snakes which slithered about the crude streets were Dragonspawn, clear manifestations of their gods' powers. People freely offered themselves to be bitten, and corpses slumped in shadowed alleys were a common sight.
The serpent cult professed a dark wisdom of transcendence, of divine union with the Dragon Gods, through slow transformation into a serpent. Although most of that ancient city is long dead, the high priests and their lindorm kings have remained, having unlocked for themselves an art of immortality by shedding their skins, the empty husks of which creep about the empty streets, wrapping themselves around insane apostates who seek to rejoin the Dragons. They may be slain by violence, and forces of elves and humans have taken the task of eradicating the high priests, but one always seems to escape, ready to initiate another lost soul in some lost place.
The Cemetery of the King
From issue 29
It was one of the last vestiges of the old mythic spells, when the royal magician Alzared passed entirely beyond the veil and created, in the otherworld, an eternal soul-link that forever bound the spirit of heroic King Kyzandur to his descendants. One soul that reincarnated from heir to heir, unbroken, whomever it may be, wherever it may be. As such, the royal lineage is complex almost beyond understanding. Few aside from the most trusted allies throughout the lands know where the soul has gone, and even then, it seems the king holds onto the bodies of every heir in some way, until one takes the throne...but should they die, it would seem their successor had in truth been the latest vessel for the ancient lord. Some nobles admit to an unease about the whole thing, for when meeting a potential heir, none can shake off the feeling that there is more than one pair of eyes behind the modest lordling they bow before.
Because of this particular complexity, the bodies of the king's previous incarnations are interred in their own crypt. At times it's expanded above ground, where new gardens are created for public usage and contemplation, and at other times dead kings are lain far underground, away from prying eyes. The tunnels stretch for miles underneath the city, and houses built above them are highly prized, not due to any percieved status gained from the proximity, but because the lands are under the monarch's command. This is believed to manifest as a sort of protective presence or aura. Many temples are erected over known tunnels, and when old ones are re-discovered, for accidents have occurred, the structures above them - even far above them - gain great bargaining power.
Like the lands, the bodies of the king are also said to be under direct control of King Kyzandur's soul. It seems that this does not actually end after death and reincarnation. Stories abounded for centuries of burglars who slipped into the royal vaults to seek out old kingly relics only to find themselves backed into an alcove at sword and spear point by the desiccated remains of old lords. This became public knowledge when, three hundred years ago, when the Naarhon invaded, the bodies of every single ancestor of the king crawled howling from their tombs, clad in stained maille, and drove the army from the city and back into the mountains where even today they refuse to meet with the king whom they know was the very one who visited the horror upon them so long ago.
Demon Dungeons
From Issue 32
In the oldest quarter of the capital, amongst a tangle of deep, winding alleys, within the already half submerged under-town, there lies a small iron gate set in a long span of ancient, sagging wall that serves as minor foundation to a structure far above. It has been left to be forgotten as the dirty secret of the priesthood who serve the celestial lords of the Triple Trinity.
If one were to pry open this gate, barely allowing the entry of one person so thin is the passage, this trespasser would descend deep down hastily carven steps, hunched and breathless amidst the cloying, stale air. More barriers seek to stop entry and at this point, only the determined burglar, or desperate madman, would dare dismantle the rotting pile of barricades that blocks movement. What lies behind it is not shame, but weakness, something the sages of a then-new golden age couldn't bear to see released upon the world they had spent much blood to raise up.
A single sign hung from the ceiling by thick iron chains, written in an old tongue, reads thus when modernized:
"Turn back.
There is nothing of value here.
What lies below must not be disturbed, it must not be released.
Do not communicate with it.
The danger is to the body and the soul.
The danger will never go away.
This place is best left shunned.
There are demons below.
Turn back."
Theurges of the past thousand years have made incredible strides in the fields of metaphysical studies. Their greatest and most dangerous discovery was of the Maelstrom which thundered "just out of sight". It was likened to a raging whirlpool which impressed itself upon our world from some other place. Sometimes, it came through to our world. Specifically, it came through to our world through people. Upon the first sundering of that veil, mediums immediately began to appear around the Kyrion, the grand theurgical college-temple, and hold long communions with the spirit-things from beyond. The scholar-mages who conducted such interviews had no way of knowing it was pure evil.
No one really knew the extent to which the college became a tense, silent battleground, the stoic theurges isolating themselves within during a period of years that still sticks out as a black mark in the chronicles. None knew either of the audience chamber which had been host to such a vast number of extraplanar beings that it had taken on an actual physical aspect of that place and had been sealed forever. The old college now exists as an extensive, mostly shuttered cellar for the grander structure above. A costly but necessary addition, considering the steps that had to be taken.
There are places in the capital that have been accidentally revealed the open sky, or at least the open air, over the years. One of these is an extreme deep subsection of the old college tunnels which now form part of the tangle of alleys that lead to the nameless iron gate. The expansion of the under-town impinged upon this place and has made it accessible to the outside world.
Should one venture beyond that iron gate, dismantle the barricades, and push the warning away, one will find themselves in a pitch black series of roughly hewn tunnels. They undulate both with hasty workmanship and the influence what dwells within. The stone is slick with moisture despite the absence of natural aquifers or sewers. In places it is worked, with sagging brick and crooked cobbles. In places it is simply smoothed cave wall. There are cells set into the walls at odd intervals, and most of the black metal bars have been warped, torn, or otherwise burst open.
With light, a trespasser can discern the attempts of the ancient theurges to contain what they entombed here. The various scrawled and hewn wards are mostly shattered, but enough have retained their shape to dissuade the inhabitants from passing them. The deeper one goes, the less natural the dungeons become. The stone changes its aspect into a rough, squamous kind of surface, entirely unbroken where it appears. The ceilings overhead are vaulted, but in places simply vanish, and if the trespasser were to focus their eyes upon it, points of light may appear, suggesting that the vastness of the firmament was bearing down upon them.
What the theurges locked away here remains, and always will remain. The escape from their cells led to the intrusion of the other world through them and upon these deep dungeons. Simply put, the things locked away here are possessed by inhabitants of the Maelstrom, and haven't been human in a long time. The place they dwell in now is a microcosm of their realm of chaos. Towards the center of the dungeons does it begin to resemble less and less the world around it. There is a point where it passes into the Maelstrom, and the possessed squat upon its edge, peering and speaking into the other side.
The theurges couldn't banish them. They couldn't close the channels. Mercifully the human body is a poor conduit, and demons may warp the flesh only to a certain extent to further express themselves. But it's enough in great numbers to cause the corruption of an environment, and was enough in the dungeons to pierce the veil and allow some of the Maelstrom through. It leaks slowly still. The warding stops it, but no theurge even today dares descend into the dungeons to repair them. The hope of those tasked with maintaining order above is that the demon dungeons merely moulder in place, and perhaps fall back into their own world. Some scholars brood upon it, however, and wonder what might at any moment be worming its way through the venerable stone of a hard fought golden age.
Fires of Old
From issue 35
A red bolt fell from the heavens, and set the stone ablaze. It lit up the night, and kept the beasts from the camps. The humans took it upon great staves and explored the depths of the earth. But from that day forward, humankind learned that fire did not die, but continued to spread. After their torches were consumed, the fire set itself upon the air. Earth thrown upon it smoldered and smoked. Water hissed and was turned to a thin, wispy vapor in its presence. The only thing, they learned, that could consume fire was a greater fire. Thus fire became synonymous in many tongues with concepts of disease, leeches, and devouring.
Human enclaves were small and nomadic, spending most of their time in places far from the fires of old. Humanity dwelt in twilight, with mountainous infernos forever on the horizon, from which there blew baleful gusts of heat. To keep themselves warm in distant climes they let heat soak into boulders they fed to the fires of old upon return, fearing that the smoulder within their stones would leech into the lands that were mostly free of flame.
But fire, though all-consuming and mortally terrifying to humanity, had its benefits. It truly was all-consuming, and the correct application of it removed affliction and deformities, it healed wounds, erased traumas, and those that studied this art were pyromancers, folk who devoted themselves to using fire for the benefit of humanity. These same pyromancers knew, too, that their constant exposure would consume them, each one in a different way. Certain warriors were entrusted with the task of going out into the wilds to find consumed pyromancers, returning them to a fire of old. These warriors inevitably suffered the same fates, such is the life of one who touches flame.
The fires of old slowly creep across the earth. Several have already consumed each other, and only a few of the most ancient and unimaginably vast remain. Nomads tell somber tales of a time, in generations to come, when the world is eaten by fire, and man is eaten by fire, and finally all becomes one.
The Old Steel
From issue 36
Cloaks of gold and emerald billowed impressively in the winter winds that followed the warriors into the oval greathall. Calls and laughter boomed from them as maille clanked with their strides. A crowned figure glided from the depths of the hall, clad in burning cerulean, and embraced one of the warriors who called her mother.
"How went the quest?" she asked, glancing excitedly from the object of her affection to a towering fighter with bronzed flesh and cropped charcoal hair. A single word rolled from his throat, with a look and nod of admiration towards the youth who stood with puffed chest:
"Proven." Beaming, she took her daughter to the hall head where magistrates awaited her while the small company dispersed to various tables and couches where attendants helped them from their armour and delivered amber drinks.
In the leftmost arc of the oval hall. An old man sat behind a wide table, poring over scrolls. The crown of his head was bare, but an impressive silver mane fell down his neck and shoulders. From his chin there was a shock of long white beard, but his heavily lined lip and cheeks were bare, as per ancient martial fashion. He looked up at two of the warriors who came over to sit with him, and smiled before returning to his chronicles. The two relayed the quest to him in short, and he nodded along, still half engrossed in the rich pictographic illustrations. From the hall head then came the youth, raven hair a mess, her eyes weary but happy. In her hands she carried something, and as it was brought up, the old man glanced from under his bushy brow.
Tension suddenly filled his form and his eyes seemed to focus like pinpoints. It was a long handled axe, its blade was sheathed but could be seen to be of an old style, a single long, broad arc with a rounded edge and kind of short "beard" that acted as a hook against shields. A dark wooden sheath was richly detailed with a single long flowing design. From behind the main blade was a shorter protrusion, a bell-shaped kind of back spike or wedge that was sufficiently sharp enough to puncture even metal plate, and it was uncovered. He shot a look to the youth who needed only respond by raising the axe to the old man, who took it in his shaking hands.
"Grey like storm are ye still," he whispered to the weapon. His eyes, they now saw, held the same hue.
The others of the day's company began to look over.
"The old steel..." the voice was hoarse, like gravel, but was high with awe. "It's arc did not sing, but howled like a winter gale!" each latter word was punctuated as the old men stood up, studying the axe and its long shift. Though his flesh sagged and his scars shone gnarled, his stature was still one of a warrior.
"The old steel, this old steel! What flesh did it bite, what turn of history did it make? Where...did ye find this?" The raven-haired youth spoke up.
"In a barrow beyond the hills, amidst the tangled woods, a barrow...filled with shadows." The old man shot an inquisitive glance at the girl. "He...did not contest it." The old man looked back down with a frown. Others gathered about the old man now, and the magistrates at the hall head watched from their circle.
"I am glad it was ye who found him, and laid your hands on the old steel. But to claim it, you must know its bite. It can be drawn only in battle, never elsewhere, and once drawn...it must strike! Young quaestor," the old man took a step towards the raven youth, "would you feel its clash?" She stood and drew her sword without hesitation.
The old man smiled and rose to his full height, throwing off the axe's sheath. The warriors cleared a space around them, and her mother watched with her hand at her mouth. With a dash back and sudden lunge forward, the old man's grey mane flowed behind him, and he roared as the gale-wind arc of the old steel fell upon the flat of the girl's braced sword blade with a sound like a great tolling bell. For a moment, the old warrior pressed the axe down against her, and his storm eyes flared with lightning in their depths. But he stepped back, thumping the long-handle's pommel upon the stone floor. The girl slowly lowered her sword. Her mother smiled from behind her hand. The warrior swooped down and picked up the sheath. The girl set her sword down and took them with reverence. She could feel the axe shaking in her grasp. The sheath calmed it.
"He'd have been glad ye claimed it, m'lady."
Graveyard Ash
From issue 38
Two figures in dark cloaks crouched over an old grave. The earth was sunken in, the small obelisk at its head stood crooked and chipped, and large weeds half-shrouded it. But in the center of the grave, where the earth was partially split open, was the object of their quest. A handful or two of pale grey dust pooled in the depression. One of the cloaked figures produced a small trowl, and carefully began to siphon the dust into several small leather pouches, resembling simple coin purses.
Cloying, damp mustiness hung in the air, unobtrusive, but omnipresent. A grim odour freshly assailed the nostrils just when one was becoming too comfortable. The sky sent errant rain drops in threat of a downpour. Graveyards, by old law and custom, were sequestered away in unassuming places. They gathered damp, some of them were veritable bogs in the big cities where they've become completely forgotten in their little corners. But unlike the more open country burial grounds, urban ones were afforded little in the way of open space, and so between the towering walls, graveyard ash could gather.
The figures stood up. One pulled their hood halfway back, glanced about, and then fully removed it. A weathered old face, skin like gnarled oak, with a ragged shock of beard. He held out a withered hand and weighed the three pouches carefully.
"I've almost enough now. We're lucky, I don't believe we'd be able to smuggle the body itself from here."
"Does the body matter?" asked the second figure, a much younger, very thin fellow in octagonal spectacles.
"What do you mean?"
"What body it comes from."
"No, but it would be best if it call came from this graveyard. As far as I'm aware, no other like me have passed through this place. Only I know of it, and now you do, too. Sell the knowledge first if you can, and sell it for a good price." The old wizard ended with a short, nasty laugh. They poked and prodded with foot and trowel the haphazardly lain graves in heavy silence.
"So," the younger man asked, a light quaver in his voice, the search not going well, "what...exactly will you do with this stuff? And what is it anyway?" The necromancer gave a kind of thoughtful grunt.
"Fool the ghost into thinking it has a body. I don't know what the stuff is, but it gathers in graveyards, around bodies. We'll mold it into a human shape," he threw a look over his shoulder with a weird glint in his eye, "you and I, and fill it with family heirlooms. It will not be compelled to return, but the scent of familiar life will be irresistible." The wizard was looking around again so the young man couldn't see it, but he could hear the grin through the words.
The sun began to send the graveyard into shadow as it passed over and behind a great well to the west. The wizard had been pressing their progress sharper and sharper, stating in mumbled words how didn't want to be in the shadows. A second go over was almost done when the young man suddenly cried out and cursed. The wizard whipped around, and saw him lifting his foot out of the sodden earth, and rushed over.
"No no, stop! Stop, look!" The necromancer was crouched and examining the lifted foot. He let out a little laugh. "A forgotten grave, in a forgotten graveyard. A goldmine, it seems. Here's some more pouches, fill them. You'll have your answers very soon."