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~~*~~
The Necromancer
~~*~~
LORD KRIRANKOS ZANNIX descended the tower stairs like the spectre of death. He glided more than stepped, his footfalls inaudible. At the bottom waited his assistant,
“Did
you sleep well, Master?” asked the small man, offering a simpering smile.
“Quite.”
“Very
good, Master, very good.”
He
made his way toward the dining hall. Ajax
tagged annoyingly along.
“Do
you not have duties to perform?” he asked more politely than he usually would.
But he had slept well last night, and he enjoyed his work, and was looking
forward to getting back to it. A little leeway to his underling seemed apropos.
“There
… there is a small problem, Master …” said Ajax in a voice to match his stature.
Krirankos
stopped. He glowered down at the little man, who shrank even more.
“What problem?” he demanded. The emphasis
on “what” made his assistant squirm.
“The
zombies, Master … they … well, some … it’s hard to say … some … that is to say … Gjojerius says …”
“Out
with it!”
His
bright mood was gone.
“Brains
… they’re very high in calories, Master. Gjojerius says … well, some of the zombies are … well, they’re
getting quite fat, Master.”
~~*~~
He
ate his breakfast, snarling the entire time. His household staff worked quietly
around him, seeing to his needs, until he roared at them to leave him alone,
whereupon they scampered out of the vast dining room.
As
he stared down the long table, he considered the many problems he’d faced
raising a zombie army.
First
was the matter of finding a sufficient number of corpses to reanimate. He started
by offering money to living relatives of the interred by means of signs posted
on the doors to churches at surrounding villages:
NEED
CASH?
LOCAL NECROMANCER IS PAYING
GOOD MONEY FOR
YOUR DECEASED RELATIVES’ REMAINS!
CONTACT YOUR CONSTABLE FOR
MORE INFORMATION!
LOCAL NECROMANCER IS PAYING
GOOD MONEY FOR
YOUR DECEASED RELATIVES’ REMAINS!
CONTACT YOUR CONSTABLE FOR
MORE INFORMATION!
He
had some takers, but not nearly enough, which surprised him, for most villagers
were quite poor, even destitute. He thought they’d jump at the chance to earn
easy money.
Bribing
the villages’ officials came next. When that didn’t work, he tried reasoning with
them. “Reasoning with them” meant, of course, the threat of horrific death.
Those
tactics proved much more successful.
When
the villagers who’d chosen to remain poor instead of getting paid learned that
their relatives’ bodies were removed anyway, they strung up the officials and,
wielding torches and pitchforks, came to burn his castle to the ground.
He
tried to reassure them that their dearly departed were being treated
respectfully. But mobs, as mobs are wont to do, wouldn’t listen.
Which
was a mixed blessing. Because he was still quite short of bodies, and mobs by
definition are full of them, albeit in the wrong condition.
Which
was remedied shortly after.
Not
that he enjoyed taking life, he considered as he shoveled scrambled eggs into
his mouth. But they were more than willing to end his, not to mention his
innocent household staff and his not so innocent but hardworking assistants. He
took umbrage at that. After all, what was their actual beef? He’d returned any personal effects the corpses had on
their persons; he needed only their bodies! No one ever visited their dead
relatives anyway, so what was the big deal?
He
snorted in derision and took an impatient sip of orange juice.
He
got nothing for his efforts at civility and kindness but those angry
torch-wielding mobs.
In
the end it was six of one, half a dozen of the other, so in a way it all worked
out. He sent Ajax
and Gjojerius to retrieve the bodies of the mob-executed officials, which was a
small consolation bonus.
He
had the unanimated corpses preserved and stacked in the dungeon, where the
still cold served to keep them fresh. Over many months he garnered enough of
them to constitute a small army of the undead. Things started looking up.
The
means for reanimating dead flesh were ready to go. So were the means to grow a
constant supply of brains in an adjacent lab. He’d worked on that formula for
years.
One
by one he began zombifying the corpses. As per his unheard but oft-repeated promise
to the villagers, he kept them (many of whom were former villagers) in large, spacious cages deeper down, ones
built specially for them, with padding over the cold stone walls and fresh
straw at their feet, which made clean-up easy if one dropped a body part, which
occasionally happened. Occasionally one would simply fall apart completely, and
Ajax or Gjojerius
would have to wade in there and get it, armored against attack. The phenomenon
came to be known as LHS: “loose hamburger syndrome,” a term he dreaded hearing,
for it meant that another undead soldier had been lost.
And
now this problem. Fat zombies.
Was
there a way to grow a fat-free brain, one that could still deliver the
necessary calories to the zombies without taking away from the taste? Would
they know the difference?
He
finished his toast, wiped his mouth, and stood. He angrily tossed his napkin on
the table.
A
fat zombie army simply would not do.
If he wanted to rain a horrifying and ravenous zombie apocalypse down upon his enemies,
then his undead throngs would have to be trim and fit.
He
made his way down the steps towards the dungeon, resolve firmly in hand. He was
determined to make this a good day, despite this latest challenge.
~~*~~
It
turned out to a much bigger challenge than he expected.
The
zombies refused at first to eat the products of his efforts. He managed to grow
brains with only half the calories and fat as normal ones, but they had a weird
industrial smell and were a bit runny and green to boot. The undead would sniff
at them with interest, then heave them at the wall, moaning and groaning and
stumbling about in anguish. No good.
He
managed to remove all the fat, but to make up for the lost calories he had to
add various expeller-pressed oils and something Gjojerius came up with called
“xanthan gum,” along with processed salts, dyes, monosodium glutamate, and corn
syrup. Many of the province’s farmers were more than happy to sell him the corn
syrup, making a pretty penny in the bargain.
At
first it appeared he had met with great success. The zombies loved the fat-free brains, despite the
fact that they looked plastic. But against all his studies proclaiming
otherwise, they got even fatter. Some started looking like undead bowling
balls. Loose hamburger syndrome became more commonplace. Some got so fat that
instead of falling apart they exploded, wiping out many others in the process.
This came to be known as catastrophic hamburger syndrome (CHS). It took days to
clean up the mess. Several zombies exploded on a single night in the same pen, a
chain reaction that ended up wiping out almost a hundred undead and
compromising the castle’s foundation, which had to be shored up at enormous expense.
He
needed to find a solution quickly.
He
started using all-natural ingredients and removing the corn syrup, which
greatly upset the farmers, who showed up wielding torches and pitchforks, which
worked out nicely, as it made it easy for him to replenish the lost stock. The
new farmers he bought the all-natural ingredients from appreciated his business,
and he liked them better. They treated their livestock like he endeavored to
treat his zombies: not as production units in a faceless factory, but as living
(or, in his case, unliving) beings worthy of at least a modicum of respect.
He
found that if he sliced his all-natural brains thinly and baked them at a high
temperature, then gave them a light coating of sea salt (another new and
profitable alliance formed with the sea salt miners on the coast), the brains
became very light and crispy, which overcame another hurdle, as brains in their
natural state were heavy and spoiled very quickly, making them difficult to
transport into battle.
The
zombies loved them. He put his organic brain-chips in colorful bags, which they
tore apart with moaning, stumbling glee. Eventually he flavored them further
and gave them exciting names: “Zesty BBQ,” “Nacho Cheese,” “Luscious Lime and Pepper,”
“Jalapeno Cortex,” and, just the other day, a new one: “Cinnamon Synapse
Sinfulness.” He knew the zombies didn’t bother to read the bags (could they read? That might suggest a
future experiment!) before tearing them open, but that didn’t concern him. He
took data on their favorite—either “Nacho Cheese” or “Zesty BBQ”—and then had Ajax and Gjojerius weigh
them.
Success!
The zombies weren’t gaining weight. Some were actually losing weight! He investigated and found that those who were
consuming the most of “Jalapeno Cortex” were the ones losing weight. He started
adding hot spices to the other blends.
~~*~~