Necromancer

The Necromancer is a story submitted by a user named Whiler. It’s about a mysterious hermit who practices black magic and has the ability to raise the dead.

Mad Henry was a hermit who lived alone in a decrepit mansion at the edge of town. Rumors were rife about the wild-eyed man. Some folks said that he was a black magician who called upon the powers of darkness to wreak havoc upon his neighbors. Others called him a necromancer who could restore life to foul corpses from the local cemetery. Everyone knew that he practiced satanic rites and occult rituals. No respectable citizen in town would have anything to do with Mad Henry.

Then one day, a new family moved to town. They had a lovely daughter, named Rachel, who caught Mad Henry’s eye. He showered the pretty girl with gifts. He gave her gold earrings, pearl necklaces and bunches of flowers. Despite the gifts, Rachel fell in love with someone else. Geoffrey was a handsome young man who had just returned home from university. A week after she met him, Rachel eloped with Geoffrey, leaving behind a stunned Mad Henry.

When Rachel and Geoffrey returned from their elopement, they threw a big ball and invited everyone in town. While Rachel was waltzing with her father, she heard a clap of thunder. Lightning flashed again and again. Suddenly, the double doors blew open and a breeze whirled in, bringing with it the smell of dead, decaying things.

Mad Henry loomed in the doorway, his pupils gleaming red with anger. He was followed by the grotesque figures of the dead, who came marching two by two into the room. Their eye-sockets glowed with blue fire as they surrounded the room.

Two of the corpses captured Geoffrey and threw him down at the feet of their lord. Red eyes gleaming, Mad Henry drew a silver-bladed knife and casually cut the bridegroom’s throat from ear to ear. Rachel screamed and ran forward, pushing through the foul, stinking corpses of the dead, and flung herself upon her dying husband.

“I can’t bear to live without him” she cried desperately. “Kill us both!”

But Mad Henry plucked the girl out of the pool of blood surrounding her dead husband and carried her out into the thundering night. Behind him, the army of the dead turned from the grizzly scene and obediently followed their master. The sounds of thunder and lightning faded away as the necromancer and his dead companions disappeared into the dark night.

Rachel’s father gathered together a small mob of brave villagers and followed the evil hermit, intent on saving Rachel. When they searched Mad Henry’s house, they found it completely empty save for a light, which shone from a series of mysterious globes that bobbed near the ceiling of each room. It seemed that Mad Henry had vanished.

Search parties scoured the countryside for days, but turned up nothing. Geoffrey was buried in the local cemetery and the dance hall was torn down. No one in town spoke about what had happened, and no one dared imagine the terrible fate that had befallen poor Rachel.

A year to the day after the ball, a timid knock sounded upon the door of Rachel’s parents’ home. When her father opened it, he saw a gaunt, gray figure huddled on the stoop. It was Rachel!

Her eyes were dull with exhaustion and pain. Her tongue had been cut out so she couldn’t speak. But when she produced a knife from her tattered garments — the knife with a silver blade that they had last seen in the hands of Mad Henry — the gleam of satisfaction in Rachel’s eyes told them that the streaks of blood that coated the knife were those of Mad Henry.

That night, Rachel died in her sleep with a peaceful smile upon her ravaged face.