When the sun burned off the mist, a shocking amount of light made it into the huge open cavern. Many of the torches got put out since they were unneeded. Kriti realized an east facing cavern has its benefits. Nicely warmed now, especially when so much bone friction always fussed around. The cucumber sandwiches proved perfectly balanced. Nettle declared the cake scrumptious. He and the necromancer had been delighting each other with stories of bad clients.

  Nettle had given a woman only two shoes when she had eight feet while the necromancer once refused to deliver an hour earlier because he’d found a funny smell in the backroom that turned out to be a whole family of adorable muskrats.

  “Naturally, I brought them home as pets. They died in a cave in. One of those manager types told me. Best way to liven up a burial chamber is to kill it a little.” His face fell.

  “I must say,” Nettle admitted, “it seems unfair that they keep calling your mine a burial chamber. That seems like bad luck.”

  “Oh, yes. Since I’m a necromancer everyone had all these wild claims about tombs or catacombs depending on who’s blabbing. Or maybe the crypts? Why would one spend time there? The only bodies I find outside the catacombs are those unlucky enough to be trapped by a cave in. Just because the ore goes behind all those graves doesn’t mean I rob them too. Although I could, I just don’t need to. Why would you though?”

  “Actually, I’m in search of an ancient item. This might be a long shot, but have you heard of-“

  “That one sword?”

  “Ah, no.” Nettle hesitated.

  “The chest. The room of gold. The horn of plenty?”

  “Just anything Fae or anti-Fae perhaps.”

  “Why would you want that?” he squinted then lifted his eyebrows. “Oh, you’re trying to find that. That’s a player character quest. Your seeking ‘smudged text’?”

  “I am.”

  “Wow. You know it’s a lot easier to ask me to look than decimate my whole party and then make me realive them all again later. So much faster too.”

  Nettle shrugged, “We could go look ourselves then?”

  “Don’t bother.” He pointed to the bones. “While I have no need for quest items, I can quite easily obtain it for you. The goldmens only respond to living things. The bones can get anything you want out of the crypts in a jiff. They do tend to lose their heads and arms, that’s why the backpacks. If you want them to carry, then you need a way for the big boners to do it.”

  The necromancer raised up a few skeletons, who’d been sitting once the third and final end table got built. The necromancer froze them and pulled from the heaping trash pile various items. They spilled out randomly over the cavern. Finally, he let the bones gear up with boots and backpacks, as well as a wooden shield and a sword. The whole tableau reminded her of a story she’d heard about off-worlders bundling up their kids to get on big yellow carts.

  “Why do they have weapons and boots?” Kriti asked, by now expecting an innocuous answer.

  “Oh, sometimes wolves get in and it’s a huge mess. So long as they have the boots, they’ve got a much better chance of escaping. The swords are to pry out gems and the wooden shield to block dust and falling rock from taking off bones. Once they get scattered, it’s terribly time consuming to get them back together again. That’s why I have them go in herds. Send one and you’ll lose it to the first booby trap down the hall. Send ten if you need five.”

  He quoted the last line like everyone knew this mantra.

  “Is it more useful to borrow the already interred?” Spoon asked. Day glowered behind him but remained quiet. They’d all been shooting her the “if looks could kill” eyes any time she tried to start a necromancer only argument.

  “Without an open graveyard, I have to dig ever so much and it’s not very enjoyable. People keep thinking I’m a graverobber, which I would never. The dead should keep their items.”

  “So none of them are to act like a graverobber or a body snatcher?”

  “Oh no, I’m definitely a body snatcher, but only if it wants to rise. There are those who just bring up anybody and I’ve always thought this rather cruel and rude. Unwilling bodies tend to be pretty aggressive with anyone they meet or consider meat. It’s all around a bad way. People like myself find willing participants and thus our herds are more controllable and less likely to storm villages and what not.”

  “You just uh, realive them and keep going?”

  “More or less,” he admitted. “Sometimes I keep a few about for company. It’s terribly lonely living by yourself all the time. I had several apprentices, but they all the dearly departed.”

  Laural gave him a leery expression. “What happened to them?”

  “One decided to become a barber. Two left for their own crypts. One to impact the wider knowledge of necromancy with research, one got married to the absolutely worst man I’ve ever met, and one died by falling into an undiscovered well.”

  Stolen story; please report.

  “A well?” Spoon had to admit that surprised him.

  “We were looking through an abandoned group of buildings. You’d be shocked at how many necromancers die by ‘rotten boards’. Not every old decrepit place is safe, you know?” He made a particularly sad face. She wondered how many necromancers died by improper flooring. Considering their favorite places to stay being so old and all, must be an issue.

  “That’s a lot of apprentices. How do you find them all?”

  “It used to be the dead would whisper about me, but now I’m less active in the community. Most people forgot about me. It’s amazing how one or two of your mates fall to working for a dark lord or an angry avenging knight, those pitchfork villagers, and people forget you all together. I don’t suppose one of you would like to become my apprentice? Everyone but the Chiro, she’s not safe.” His upper lip curled then he relaxed. “It’s much better with apprentices. I’m just so lonely now.”

  Kriti saw that his vulnerability and bluntness was not an act. He really did feel trapped here in the mine. Her guild contained mopes like this. Ordinarily she found it rather unduly maudlin, but this bone man had a much less fun and active job than her. Not even the thrill of the kill to sustain you. How sad for him and in such a dour place. No color at all. She adjusted her golden scarf. The sun motif blazed against her lime green blouse. Perfect for a place like this.

  “I don’t think we’re interested. But if we find anyone looking for a necromancer to apprentice too and they don’t seem too bloodthirsty, we’ll send them back to you.”

  “Would you really?” he perked up noticeably at them. “I’d be in your debt, and happy to get you scads of stuff from this crypt or from the mine. There’s a lot of stuff down there if you know which places to look.”

  “No need to pay us,” Bodi waved it off. He could move his joints and now saw on the table letting the five bone archeologists’ chip at his left arm. “We might need a favor from you in the future and if not it’s not a problem to just tell people where you reside.”

  “Oh, but please do vet them. I do so hate lugging around fresh bodies. All that mass of flesh on them makes it a terrible strain.”

  “On your left shoulder and lower back,” exclaimed Day loudly but nobody responded to her and she was shushed by the others.

  True to what he’d said, the skeletons returned dustier and with less parts. Only three of them tromped in, and one carried all the hands bundled up in his arms like corded wood. Within the chest cavity of another, darts and arrows rattled around, clearly it had sprung a trap.

  Kriti politely asked, “May I handle those arrows and darts or do you have use of them?”

  “Oh, you want those old things? I have a dross pit of them somewhere because I don’t want them to contaminate the skunk melons and mushrooms. Or any of my osmium refinery. The trash pile smells quite badly as well.” He pointed her to the trash pile. Unlike the fluffed clothing, a helpful skeleton move the red carpet off a very sturdy wooden door and revealed a lower pit of weapons. Kriti grinned gleefully, wrapping her hands in cloth to do the handling, but even as she gathered stuff, she kept an ear on the conversation behind her.

  “You have a lot of things in here that you don’t seem to want.” Laural still sounded skeeved out. The clothing pile did have a few blood stains around the edges. Multiple species colors meant red, green, and blue were present. All in fashionable, variable, dots or spray.

  “There are uneducated people who try to kill me on sight. Plus, a few enemies here and there. Then any traders who do run into me and do want to trade. Those are infrequent. Many of them are willing to give me whatever they have for all sorts of things I don’t need. It results in a bit of a mess. I like to talk with them and hate to turn somebody away empty-handed. But the things I need, well not everyone has them to work with. And even fewer of the good ones come by. Everyone tries to sell me stolen items. No, thank you.”

  That explains they had no security outside.

  Kriti felt aghast. “Aren’t you worried about people stealing from you?”

  “Why do you think the big fake graveyard out front is for? It can help scare some away. The thieves are quite clever though. Often the only ones who’ll chat at all. I can afford to lose few things. It’s more that they start disassembling the skeletons all the time and then I have to send new bodies off to work in the mine. That slows down my progress. But it’s just a terrible time dealing with all the prejudices of none criminals. That’s why I try to stick to working with others in the banned list. They often have the things I need anyway.”

  From her gloved hands in the pile of dirt nearby and collected arrows she finally asked, “You keep saying that. What do you typically need here? Gold?”

  “No that’s utterly useless except in trade, I’ve enough for my own needs. Usually I need fresh food, although I would take a horse or too that’s calm enough to work with the bone men. Donkeys are fine as well. Nobody will sell them to be in the towns. They keep assuming I’m going to eat them or otherwise use them for blood sacrifices. A single goat would be nice for the milk and to help tend the front graveyard. It’s all weedy right now.”

  “Well, that is reasonable.”

  “I’m free!” Bodi leaped forward and fell down on his face. They’d given him a huge mink skin moth eaten robe to wrap around himself, but his feet still had cement blocks. Effectively the skeletons removed bulk but they were finding joints and other areas harder to work with. Bodi had freed both hands and had two skeletons very carefully peeling down his neck.

  “Skeleton miners.” Nettle muttered to himself. “So helpful!”

  “More than that, look who’s back?”

  Another group of skeletons sent out earlier this morning had also returned. They cared with them a singular arrow. It had been snapped into three pieces.

  “Hmm. Hmm. Uhmm. Interesting.” He turned to them. “According to these skeletons, they found this all bashed up and in three very different locations. But with uniform sweeps they found all the pieces. Do you accept this quest item in exchange for say one dance?”

  Nettle’s eyes flew wide. “No! I mean, umn Spoon you do it. You do the quest.”

  “Oh, fine.” He offered his hand to Laural in one smooth suave move. She accept his hand and all his actual dancing proved horrendous.

  “Don’t vampires know how to dance?”

  “Yes, I’ve been training for years.”

  “Uh with who exactly?”

  Spoon stopped stepped on her toes and asked, “Enough.”

  The necromancer winced. “Yeah, don’t accept any dance quests again. You’re, you’re something else.”

  “Thank you for the quest item,” Kriti took the pieces to go with her other collection of goodies. “Bodi are you mobile?”

  He grunted from face down on the rock floor. Nobody had gone over to help, nor did they plan too. His fault for jumping into the largest Quicksand.

  Unfortunately, the sun had begun to set before he was released by skeleton power and the necromancer offered hopefully, “Anyone want to stay the night?”

  They did and it made for a very pleasant night among the dead.