"Are you FUCKING KIDDING ME!" Allison shouted while Delilah stared in shock and Bruno dropped his face into his hands. "A lich? Your teacher was a gods damned LICH?!"

　　"Come on, you didn`t need to tell us that part,`" Bruno said. "Work with us here, we`re trying to find reasons not to kill you."

　　"For the record," said Delilah, "moral relativism is all well and good for a philosophical discussion, but when someone says they live by it, it just means they`re evil and they like philosophy."

　　Jeremiah held up his hands. "No, I know! I knew it then, too, but believing him meant I had a teacher. Although, when I was with him at least, he didn`t do anything that struck me as evil. Kept to himself, mostly."

　　"How about all those bodies in the moat? You`re telling me they came voluntarily?" Allison spat.

　　"Actually, those were deliveries," said Jeremiah. "Every two months, we got a visit from some folks with a caravan loaded with the recently deceased. Now, I know what you`re thinking, but I sorted a lot of those bodies, and they all looked like they passed from natural causes. Sick or elderly types."

　　Bruno eyes flashed. "That`s what the Grey Market is doing?" At his friends` confusion, he explained. "It`s a real hush-hush thing. Someone dies, and the family`s too poor to give him a proper burial. These Grey Market guys pay a good price to take bodies off your hands. They give final rites as well, they`re a standup group. At least, that`s what I thought before I knew they were being funded by a lich."

　　"He was picky, too," said Jeremiah. "Once, a different group showed up with hundreds of skeletons. It looked like they pilfered a whole necropolis. Flusoh listened to their pitch and next thing I knew, every one of the skeletons jumped out of the carts. Killed all the men in about two seconds. I got the feeling he didn`t like the idea of grave robbers. Maybe hit too close to home."

　　"Clearly he`s a paragon of virtue," Allison said. "Now are you finished with your story? Because for your sake, I hope you`re not."

　　Jeremiah continued.

　　True to his word, they began with biology. Jeremiah was forbidden from summoning even a spark of magic. Flusoh proved to be a demanding but patient teacher. Jeremiah was always challenged, but never out of his depth.

　　He dissected humans, dwarves, elves, orcs, gnomes, and a whole assortment of other creatures. Once he overcame his aversion toward seeing a once-living being disassembled on a table like a puzzle, Jeremiah realized how similarly humanoids were built—adjusting for size, the bones, musculature, and organs were near identical between the races. Animals, on the other hand, threatened to overwhelm him with their variety.

　　He studied the function these structures served in life from dusty books with remarkably detailed illustrations, some stuffed into the pages by Flusoh himself. As the months stretched beyond his first year, Jeremiah learned more about the construction of a body than he`d ever imagined there was to know.

　　Time not spent studying saw Jeremiah performing chores to earn his keep about the castle. Aside from the standard servant chores of sweeping, polishing and dusting (Jeremiah suspected Flusoh made him do these simply because he thought that`s what a student ought to do—the castle didn`t look like it had ever been cleaned before Jeremiah`s arrival), he was also tasked with sorting and cleaning corpses, retrieving components from the swamps, and researching esoteric information in the vast library.

　　Jeremiah had one day to himself each week. Distractions were sparse in the castle, but he made the most of them. He discovered a small collection of fiction in the library. Classic stories of underdogs overcoming great evil through acts of heroism. He read them over and over again, their presence was a conundrum Jeremiah never solved.

　　He also spent considerable free time in the armory, where there was always a zombie to practice against, though it was docile enough to present more of a target than a sparring partner. Jeremiah had quite a bit of fun acting out dramatic adventures and climactic battles, once he got past his discomfort of hacking into a humanoid body.

　　"Alright!" Flusoh burst into Jeremiah`s room in the darkest hours of the night, a year and a half into his tutelage.

　　Jeremiah sat bolt upright in bed with a shout, but Flusoh kept talking. "Tomorrow we`re gonna start the magic stuff. Get ready to learn some fundamentals!"

　　Jeremiah, brain addled from sleep, was slow to respond. "But I already know the fundamentals."

　　"You don`t know anything, kid! We`re gonna drill those fundamentals till you couldn`t do them wrong if you tried. Without strong fundamentals, even the most powerful arch-mage in the land is useless unless conditions are perfect. Ever hear warriors talk about balance? Fundamentals are your balance—if you`re off balance, you`re dead!"

　　And as suddenly as he had arrived, Flusoh left, slamming the door shut behind him.

　　When Jeremiah mentioned fundamentals and balance, he noticed Allison absently nodding along. He decided to skip past the hours of meditation and making coins spin and candles flicker to talk about something she might relate to. "So, Flusoh decided that I should undergo something called pain training."

　　Delilah looked at him with shock and pity. "He tortured you?"

　　Jeremiah hesitated. He couldn`t keep characterizing Flusoh as evil without reflecting poorly on himself.

　　To his relief, Allison came to his defense. "Pain training isn`t torture," she said. "It`s a valuable conditioning exercise!"

　　"Exactly," Jeremiah said. "The ability to act even when you`re uncomfortable is how you survive real world situations. I had to wear a briar shirt so th-"

　　"Oh, that thing is awful," said Allison. "I couldn`t sleep a minute in the briars."

　　Bruno glanced between them. "Did you two go through the exact same thing?"

　　"Warlord Uuba`s Torment," said Jeremiah. "It`s a brutal protocol, but it really does work."

　　Allison nodded. "Actually, you and Delilah could do with some pain training yourselves. It`s great for your fundamentals."

　　"Pass," Bruno said. "Can we get on with it before Allison starts drawing up a training schedule?"

　　Allison reassumed her rigid posture. "Continue," she said, but Jeremiah thought her furrowed brow looked forced. The sharp edge of her anger had been blunted against the armor of camaraderie.

　　He continued.

　　For a long time, Jeremiah performed no magic he could call necromancy. He did learn a number of utility and minor combat spells, and he learned to channel his focus under so many levels of duress that he was convinced he could cast while unconscious.If you come across this story on Amazon, it`s taken without permission from the author. Report it.

　　Finally, it was time to turn his attention to the signature technique of the necromancer: reanimation.

　　Flusoh met Jeremiah in an open-air courtyard. In the middle of the overgrown floor lay the corpse of an old human man, still dressed in bedclothes.

　　"This is going to feel pretty strange when you get it," said Flusoh. "It`s no use trying to describe it, so just give it a try."

　　Jeremiah paused to absorb the magnitude of the situation. After months of rehearsing the words and gestures in preparation for this moment, he was about to animate a man&no, not a man. The man was at rest. He was about to attempt to animate a body and attach it to his will.

　　Jeremiah began speaking the words of reanimation, his fingers and hands moving deftly. He finished the spell by laying his hands on the corpse`s icy chest.

　　Something was trying to invade his mind with nonsense. Concepts flooded his consciousness: laying down, hardness, sky. He winced and stumbled backwards.

　　Flusoh steadied him with a hand on his shoulder. "Easy now! What you`re feeling is a piece of your consciousness attaching to the zombie."

　　Jeremiah was struggling. It was like he kept remembering something important he had to do, then forgot it again, then remembered it again.

　　"Don`t fight it, just let it run. Now, I want you to try and move the zombie. Just impose your will toward that sensation in your head. It`ll pull everything it needs to know to follow your commands without you even noticing."

　　Trying not to fight the sensation was like trying to ignore a song stuck in his head. With difficulty, Jeremiah isolated the sensation into a distinct section of his mind, where it persisted like a little bubble. That was better. He then focused on the bubble and urged his will be done.

　　Rise.

　　Slowly, the zombie stirred. First just a twitch, then a spasm, but then it jerked on the ground and pushed itself into a sitting position. It clambered to its feet, and Jeremiah noticed how natural the movement seemed. The zombie`s eyes were still clouded, its skin still pale, but it moved for all the world like an able-bodied man getting up from a nap.

　　"Well done!" said Flusoh, clapping Jeremiah on the back. "First try, too."

　　"It moved so smoothly!" said Jeremiah. "Did I make it do that?"

　　"Eh, yes and no. The body remembers what it often did in life. It`s called muscle memory. Keep that in mind, fighters make great zombies!"

　　Jeremiah was elated. His first real spell! He turned to Flusoh, grinning so wide his cheeks hurt, and saw from the corner of his eye that the zombie had copied his movement exactly. When he turned back to it, it resumed its normal stance.

　　"Oop!" said Flusoh. "Looks like you`ve got a one-to-one connection there. Totally normal for a novice necromancer. We`ll work on it until the minion enacts your will without direct input."

　　Jeremiah found the creature fascinating. He embraced the one-to-one controls to experiment. He made the zombie touch its nose, wave its arms around, and step forward. He tried jumping, but the zombie just bounced.

　　"Yeah," said Flusoh, "zombies aren`t great for running or jumping. Bit too dead for that, even fresh. Wait till you control a skeleton though, those things can jump five feet straight up!"

　　"Even though they don`t have muscles?" asked Jeremiah.

　　"Yup! Skeleton strength comes from magic, but their frames are so light that they move like the wind. Zombie strength is from their musculature, so while they`re actually stronger, they don`t move as quick. One day I`ll tell you all about enhanced skeletons and zombies, ghouls, wraiths, ghasts, abominations, vexons, all sorts. This fella is just the beginning! So, what are you gonna name him?"

　　Jeremiah considered this odd question for a minute before Flusoh laughed. "I`m kidding, I`m kidding! Never name your minions, that time of their existence is over."

　　Jeremiah continued playing with the zombie. It was already becoming less strenuous and more fun. He decided to push himself and focused his will to instruct the zombie to walk without walking himself.

　　After a moment or two of concerted effort, the zombie took a couple of shambling steps. Flusoh looked on silently, but started moving his jaw back and forth a little, which Jeremiah knew meant he was thinking.

　　"Interesting. That`s very interesting," said Flusoh, uncharacteristically subdued. Then, with his usual exuberance, "All right! Go ahead and sever that connection. I don`t need you getting ahead of yourself before you`ve got the basics down. This part`s easy, just pop that little bubble in your head."

　　Jeremiah did, and the zombie collapsed, completely limp.

　　"Great, now chuck that body in the moat."

　　Jeremiah began dragging the corpse toward the front hall. "Can`t we reuse it later?"

　　"Nope!" said Flusoh, "Necromantic energy burns out a corpse. Once you cut the connection, you can`t pick it back up. But I`ll teach you how to maintain it in a minimal state. Uses less head space, you`ll see."

　　As Jeremiah practiced, the knack of reanimation became second nature. Within a few weeks, he could separate his minion`s movements from his own, and began to command them while carrying out his own increasingly complex tasks. He learned to raise a body from a distance, as long as he could see the target, although this technique required proportionally more focus. When he managed to use a zombie to chop a cord of wood while he, Jeremiah, dissected a dwarf half a castle away, Flusoh deemed him ready for the next step.

　　"Two undead at once!" Flusoh said, indicating two lifeless bodies on the ground. "This will feel just as weird as the first time, maybe weirder. It`s like having several of those bubbles in your head, and the more bubbles there are, the less room there is for you."

　　They stood in the same courtyard as his first ever reanimation. Jeremiah was buzzing with excitement. After a lifetime of mediocrity, necromancy was something he was actually good at, something that just made sense. The visions of himself as a powerful mage were more concrete than ever. He imagined his army of minions defending against wave after wave of monsters, a village of grateful citizens cheering his name. After today, he would be one step closer to that reality.

　　Jeremiah cast the reanimation spell and the first zombie stood.

　　"Alright, I want you to make a skeleton out of the second one," Flusoh said.

　　Jeremiah had never animated a skeleton out of an entire corpse before, only bones. He looked to Flusoh for guidance.

　　"It`s the same thing, but animate just the bones when you touch him. Give it a little more energy too, things are gonna get gross."

　　Jeremiah did as instructed, focusing his will into only the bones of the corpse. The body spasmed, its flesh warping, then the skin split and turned runny. Muscle fell away, and the skeleton burst forth, sloughing off its previously mortal husk and emerging wet and red, like a newborn baby. Jeremiah had dissected every humanoid there was, but the sight made him feel sick.

　　"Aw yeah, it`s just awful," said Flusoh, "I never get over how gross that is. The extra energy melts away the-"

　　"I get it," Jeremiah croaked. He averted his eyes as he directed the skeleton to step away from the puddle of its excess. He then started, realizing he had two bubbles in his head at the same time, and had issued orders to one without affecting the other.

　　"Flusoh! Did you see that?! I controlled one at a time!" He immediately began trying to issue distinct orders to his undead, but now they only seemed able to follow the same command.

　　Flusoh laughed. "Distracted you, didn`t it? I love that trick! Alright relax, you`re turning all red for some reason. This is the trickiest part, but your fractured focus will help."

　　Jeremiah gazed dejectedly at the bloody skeleton. Then he had a thought, but Flusoh interrupted him.

　　"No, you can`t animate someone`s skeleton out of their body while they`re still alive. Their natural life force prevents it. To answer your next question, life force is derived from the soul. It`s very powerful natural magic, like medusas turning people to stone or dragons breathing fire. You can`t overpower it. Believe me, I`ve tried."

　　Jeremiah mouth snapped shut in surprise.

　　"No, I`m not reading your mind," said Flusoh. "You`re just not the first student I`ve ever had, and you all ask the same things."

　　Jeremiah swallowed his surprise. Flusoh had never mentioned any previous students. He never really talked about himself at all. "Have you had a lot of students before me?" Jeremiah asked, hoping to take advantage of Flusoh`s sharing mood.

　　"Not too many, no. Keep in mind I`ve been around for a very long time."

　　Jeremiah inspected his boots. "Sooo, if you were to rank me, you know just for fun, you`d put me, like, in the middle? Maybe a little better?" Jeremiah side-eyed his teacher.

　　Flusoh imitated a sigh. "Look, if you get caught up in shit like that, you`ll never stop. You`ll always be worried about how you compare, and it`ll mess up your training. The only person you should compare yourself to is the you from yesterday. Do you know more? Are you stronger? Smarter? Better rested? More determined? That`s all that matters."

　　"Right, of course, of course," said Jeremiah. "But&you know, if you were to rank me&"

　　"You are the worst student I`ve ever had."

　　Jeremiah`s stomach dropped. Tears welled in his eyes as Flusoh continued.

　　"Because all my other students were much older and more experienced than you. See how useless it is to compare yourself? Now, that`s the most you`re going to get out of me. Ask again and I`ll animate the layer of dead skin over your body and command it to fight you."

　　The threat didn`t land quite as intended. "You can do that?!" Jeremiah exclaimed.

　　Flusoh chuckled. "Kid, if you knew the things I could do, you`d kill yourself just to not be in the same world as me."

　　Jeremiah held his tongue, but only briefly. He was too curious. "Can I get a demonstration? A little one? I think it would be motivating for me to see what I could be capable of in the future."

　　Flusoh rolled his eyes, a motion Jeremiah never quite got used to. "C`mon kid. I know what you`re doing, I want that on the record. But what the hell. Come on, let`s do a demo."