My Cause

 

            I tried to run, I didn’t know what else to do.  We were victims, I ran, we ran, but only I escaped.  No, I did not escape, the pains I feel are not those of fortune and safety.  I hear the screams, I think they may be in my mind but still my ears are pierced with all to real shrieks.  She fell behind but I did not stop, they had her, they took her, she screamed.

            I did not understand at the time, who could.  Hunted, we are hunted, always.  Fangs and claws seek us, this I do understand, but our own kind?  Not our own kind, that cannot be right, what I saw had no blood left to be shed, no breath to run ragged in chase no mercy for the pursued.  It is hard for me to say it, no one that badly mangled should be allowed to walk or run.  They should not have been, nothing like that should exist but they do.

            These pages, my hand to paper, my cause.  I want to set down for others who are unfortunate enough to find themselves on my path what they need.  To find a way so that they may know what else might hunt them, to make victims of them and leave scars of terror in those who survive.  I may be a fool for trying, a short lived fool.  Know this, no one was there for me, I had nothing, let me be there for you.

 

What I Found

 

            What I wanted to know and record is a subject that is even denied of existence by much of my kind.  I can only gather so much from others, stories, recollections, tales that may only be partially true or altogether fictitious.  I think my prying has raised more than a few questions about my intent and my place of trust is in jeopardy.  I have to leave, there must be other places I can go to discover more.  First, however, I will set down my material.

            Life is everywhere.  In the soil and above it, in the air, in the water.  Everywhere there is life there is also death, an end.  What I saw that horrid day was dead to be sure but not at an end.  They were like me once perhaps, with their own troubles and joys.  They became my greatest trouble and took from me my greatest joy.  In many ways I feel as dead.

            To exist in such a state, are they victims too?  How did they come to lift themselves from the dust and seek life and blood?  Why?  What I have been told paints only a hazy picture for me.  I can see no pattern, some who die stay dead, but a very few find a new life in death and walk again.  I can only hope there is some sense behind it, something I can predict.  Some mechanism that by its nature I can know and undo its work.

            The stories I am told commonly involve the death of another in very twisted ways.  Could the method of death be a key?  Some stories involve many deaths in the same place and a few of the fallen rising again.  Is there some quality in this method as well that contributes?  The activities of the these beings varies wildly from tale to tale.  Some are wrathful, others melancholy and I do not see any connection why.

            I have to leave.  I will make my way elsewhere, somewhere I am not known and perhaps where my questions will not be so suspicious.

 

New Places, New Stories.

 

            Already I find my journey interesting.  I left my home, a larger settlement than many and made my way to some of the smaller ones.  The smaller they are the less secretive they are about death, the dead and what else may come of it.  In my upbringing the subject was shunned and still it is difficult to write about it, as if I am censoring my own words.  Here and there they speak of the “returned” with some amusement rather than dread.  Some entertainment is taken from the tales and some art in the telling.  A very refreshing change from the strained conversations from my home.

            To these people those who return are as varied as the living and perhaps just as colourful at times.  While the ones that spurred me into this project were murderous a few notable stories mention cases of ones that were capable of speech and reason.  Perhaps we were just unlucky that day, or perhaps this variety is very rare.  The notion of speaking with a being returned evokes a mix of emotions in me, such that I cannot pen them.

 

To be Helpless

 

            I knew they were dead when I saw them.  The flesh of the living does not look like that or smell like that.  I ran because I did not understand.  I ran because I was frightened.  Death was looking at me and chasing me, hungering for me, for us.  I ran because I felt there was nothing else I could do, to turn and fight would only mean suicide.  Or did it?

            The returned are not invulnerable as I had first thought if what I hear is right.  While they may have died and survived to some extent, they are still vulnerable more to some things than others just I as would say I am.  There is actually a body of knowledge that holds information on this very important topic.  There were methods to defend myself, ourselves?  If only...

            I understand there are many bits of common wisdom inherent in any area and culture that people swear by.  That a tea will taste better if water is boiled a certain way or a certain time.  That crops will be better if worked by hand.  That spreading joy to others will make you lucky.  That sappy wood can kill the returned.  Can this ridiculous claim be true?  Can a simple bit of fresh cut wood best what destroyed my life?  This and more are agreed upon by independent sources as I continue to ask and listen.  Iron, salt, silver, wood, all these and more are kept in these small homes for good luck if nothing more.  They say it is to preserve their lives should someone return but I will not accept this simple talk without proof.

            They look at me as if I am daft when I seem unconvinced by their words.  While none so far claim to have successfully fended off attack themselves they do say they “know someone who has”.  This someone usually turns out to be great grandparents who are no longer around to give me first hand recounts.  As silly as the concepts are I will try to learn more and perhaps find some way to separate what I can use as tools and what I can use for tale-spinning.

 

Where to End, Where to Start

 

            I have no reason to dispute that the returned exist.  I also have a deep interest to discover why they exist.  Not every corpse is unwilling to stay down, not every lost person resists the grave.  Why?  This very important question has found very little in the way of solid response.  A stammer, a puzzled look, the spark of a new question in the eye of my would be teacher.  Some just did not think of it.  Returned simply “are” and that is that.

            Even back home we knew, we understood in our own quiet way that there were rare individuals capable of dragging back the dead into our midst.  They did not want to admit it, I do not want to admit it.  To know that death is not the ultimate escape, that the woes of life might continue to plague us even worse in perpetual bloodless existence is often to much for decent people to admit.  Is this my answer though, are returned caused by others, created for purpose I can not guess at?  Why?  Why would I, we, have been targeted?  We did no one harm, nothing to deserve what happened that day.

            If I find any person alive responsible for what happened to us I will not leave enough of them to feed the jixx.

 

The Dread Might of the Pen

 

            It was not a step of brilliance on my part.  I have come to understand more and more that those I thought were performers and technical specialists are in fact workers of a very strange craft.  The “Art” I have come to know it as, a method to make alterations to reality to favour the one using it.  Constructs of light, flickering flames, objects hidden from sight, all this and more were shown to me by those claiming to “dabble” in the craft.  I was permitted to examine the effects myself and I can say that I am personally convinced there was manipulation of reality.  I held an object I could not see in my hand.  I could feel its shape, its weight, but could not see it.

            These less than devoted workers of reality had much to tell me, but sadly not enough.  They tell me there are forms of energy and force that are not perceived by us that can be manipulated by the knowledgeable to work their craft.  They have been so good as to tell me that returned are connected with some facet of this unseen power and if I want my answers I will have to look further into it.  I need someone more informed, trustworthy.  It seems my search has taken a strange turn yet stays on course.

 

The Novice, The Master

 

            A dabbler can find a wealth of assistance in a truly devoted craftsmen.  What other sensible course did I have but to contact the teacher of a pupil I had discoursed with?  Gibbs.  My best hope for answers was named Gibbs.  I admit I expected a more exotic name but what did I know?

            Gibbs was not about to toss me headlong into what he practiced but seemed inclined to talk shop.  I really could not ask for more.  The forces and energies I heard about, could he lay them clear?  I did not know what to expect so I was ready for anything.

            Gibbs went on at length, explaining how this or that, while imperceptible, did in fact assist in maintaining reality.  Not much of it made sense to me fully but I did latch on strongly to one topic in particular.  He spoke of two forces, one creative the other destructive.  It is the latter that I was transfixed upon.

 

Unfortunate Truths

 

            A primal creative force and opposing it a destructive one.  Both infuse reality in many degrees and forms and are a natural part of order.  Endless repetitions of creation and dissolution are played out even in the short span of our lives.  I have seen these forces working but did not know them for what they were.

            As uneasy as I am with the notion it appears that this entropic power caresses our living bodies at all times.  Why do we weaken, changing with age?  A slow deterioration that none of us escape, this force is the cause.  We resist for years but eventually we are undone as surly as we were begun.  It is at the point of death that I was told the most profound event occurs, an event strongly associated with my project.

            The entropic force collects and flows through every living creature at the time of death!  This was my key, this is my true beginning.  Even as Gibbs spoke my own thoughts drowned him out.  The implications were obvious even to my simple understanding.  If this energy exists all around us, within us, it stands to reason there would be places and times at which larger amounts would be present to be drawn up.  More death in an area would draw more and more of this power to the location, making each death channel increasing amounts.  It is this momentary infusion of what he called “death energy” that triggers the formation of returned.  Zelengorsk he called them, the proper term.

            Ebbs in local power over time, places with an affinity, or certain individuals.  All these could influence just what the result of a death will entail.  Workers of the art draw upon this power all the time to varying degrees, but Gibbs assured me any well used methods have protections set in place to shield the user from what this death energy can do to an unprotected creature.  Those who focus in this sort of craft all called necromancers.  I knew the term, and associated it with the zelengorsk I sought to undo.  Gibbs corrected me.

            Necromancy is the manipulation of this associated power.  It appears it has many applications, only one of which is the formation of zelengorsk.  It seems entirely possible that a necromancer could complete a life of work and ever put his craft to the creation of such beings, but not likely.  To omit that part of education entirely would be unlikely for a anyone truly devoted.

            The zelengorsk.  Created by chance or by the will of another.  Just as we are born into the world so to are they, just as natural or as unnatural as I am.  It is just unfortunate that there are some people who choose to tip the scale in one direction for their own purposes.  Gibbs has told me much, but I need more.

 

Winding Path of a Cemetery

 

            Where would I look for a scholar of decay?  Where would you?  It is not easy to find someone who has more use for the dying than the living.  Now as you might expect I could very well find such a person hidden away in amongst the dead in a cemetery.  In this respect you are right, this is what I did.

            It was no small task to track down someone of this sort, but the time invested would prove to be worth it.  What I feared was words with one who made his life in the place we all expect to be laid down, taking from the helpless for his own gains.  I found someone who was far from it, and perhaps closer to myself than I thought at the moment.

            He asked me to call him Nate.  Nate was for all my scrutiny a very simple fellow with a very simple job.  He was a groundskeeper for a cemetery and made his wages tending the place we all do not hope to visit very soon.  It is a quiet job, a solitary one he told me.  When I let him onto why I had sought him out he just smiled and shook his head but why I do not know.

            Nate and his family had kept this cemetery in respectable condition for ages, eventually being laid down in it themselves.  Only one member of each generation was put to the task but still it was kept in the family.  I had thought that perhaps Nate’s ancestors had experimented in their spare time to develop what he was going to show me.  My fears were once again quashed.  It was a simple fact that working for generations in a place the dead lay would at times call upon some methods to protect ones self from the tenants.  It would be reasonable to assume that if zelengorsk do occur naturally that eventually at least one would pop up from its grave.  As such a place was where Nate worked day after day he would likely be the first victim should it be hostile.

            I guess that is why Nate and his family have the job.  They knew enough to prevent themselves from falling prey to newly risen zelengorsk where others might have.  A family tradition of methods and knowledge that most people have no need for.  I smile to myself in knowing that it is perhaps people like Nate that are the first line of defence for those ignorant as I once was.  Is there a groundskeeper back home that had a stroke of bad luck and perished that failed to stop the zelengorsk that attacked me, us, that day?

 

Learning to Late

 

            Nate was willing enough to impart to me what he could about his methods.  I followed him around as he went about his routine, lending a hand as I became familiar with his tasks.  What Nate knew was much different from what Gibbs explained to me.  While Gibbs spoke in very scholarly ways, Nate had the mentality of a farmer, well versed in method if perhaps not why the methods worked.  I found myself very comfortable around Nate even though he had a very morose sense of humour, but his easy going attitude was soothing in such surroundings.

            As I heard some time ago, wood, iron, salt and silver are indeed effective tools.  It is not simply the act of having them around that protects but the way they are employed.  Nate familiarized me with these methods and when they would be effective, much as I would expect from a farmer.  The zelengorsk he knew of were either physical like I was familiar with, or insubstantial.  This last category had not heard of as was quickly beginning to fear.

            To deal with a zelengorsk requires a mixture of defence and offence.  One or the other will not be enough as I would learn.  Defence was the first priority.  Nate made no small fuss over the fact that if I were not protected somehow even the weakest zelengorsk would steal my life away and then nothing else would matter.

 

Unlikely Armour, Unlikely Shield

 

            The iron and salt were the defence, they did not seem like much at all but Nate assured me of their effectiveness.  I was inclined to believe him.  The iron is rendered into a powder or filings and used to draw out a circle or other contiguous shape.  Inside the circle is placed the salt and in this a form of trap is set.  It would seem that the energies driving zelengorsk interact with the iron and salt and begin something amazing.  The salt rises from its rest into the air and spins.  Any zelengorsk within the iron boundaries becomes trapped, unable to pass the iron and likewise unable to touch the salt.  I do not know why and neither did Nate.

            The salt will slowly disintegrate so this will not last to long.  Nate seems to like leaving “traps” like this all over the grounds he cares for to at least buy time.  As the trap will not hold them long an offensive must be taken.  The solid ones are heavily harmed by fresh cut wood while the untouchable ones are harmed by silver.

            The last part is the one I will have trouble with.  Nate stressed greatly that no one who values his health should allow himself to come into contact with a zelengorsk because of their life taking properties.  Nate himself has a curious protection from this effect, a small portion of a finger tied to string about his neck.  He does not know why it works any more than I would, but its been in his family for generations much like his job.  The finger protects him from all but the most grievous harm, and he took some delight in showing me the scars from such wounds that just did not heal right.

            The finger, the defence from whatever death energy the zelengorsk wield makes no sense to me.  Its just a bit of old flesh and bone, why would it preserve life?  Nate took my questions as an invitation to tell another story.  A grandfather of many greats is attributed for obtaining the finger.  He had come across an intruder as he came to work one day, one not welcome by any society.  A true man of the dust, a necromancer in his cemetery.  Wood and silver are well and good against zelengorsk, but a hand cannon works very well indeed against more conventional problems.  Caught at a bad moment with a cannon his way, the necromancer made a simple offer for his release.  The finger, something to protect him while he worked to keep his grounds safe.  As the necromancer was wearing it himself at the time it was thought it would not be harmful at least.

            The offer was accepted and the finger proved to be genuine.  The rake of putrid claws did not leave the lasting marks they would in anyone else and many members of Nate’s family survived where no one else would have.  While what Nate had told me was of exceptional quality, the finger seemed even more wondrous.  To think that with a sharpened twig and some old bit of bone I could have saved us...

 

The Path Continues to Twist Deeper