Christabel's guide to necromancy and world domination

You think I did what?

There was light. I rolled on the other side, mumbling something that in my sleepy brain sounded like "Anna, I don't have to work today, five more minutes", and I fell into the freezing cold water.

In the few seconds I spent sitting up and fighting back a panicked scream, the reality of my situation came crashing back to my mind. Well, reality might have been a big word, since it involved falling into a dimensional hole conveniently located in a gym locker and ending up in a place that was one part Standard Fantasy Setting, one part Wonderland (because nothing made any logical sense, of course), and one part Tim Burton's movie. But not Alice in Wonderland – Tim Burton, Nightmare Before Christmas – Tim Burton.

I turned my head, and there they were. Skeletons. A lot of them, although to be honest, if you added up all the misplaced bits, you would end up with a lot less complete skeletons that they looked like. Still, quite an impressive sight to wake up to in the morning. The sun was shining right behind them, a ball of fire hovering just above the cliff... well, not literally, at least I hoped so. The view would probably be amazing, if I were not terribly afraid of heights. But I knew that I would have to risk taking a peek sooner or later, if I wanted to find out something more about my weird situation.

Which had probably gone even weirder, I realized when the last part of the night resurfaced in my memory. I had continued to read and translate the inscriptions on the stone for at least a few hours, until I had fallen asleep like an idiot. Honestly, what would you call somebody who falls asleep while surrounded by moving skeletons? In my defense, anyway, I had had a very stressful night.

The inscriptions. Right. I was almost sure that I had finished translating everything on that stone, before falling asleep, but there was something I was not sure about. In the last few minutes I was drifting out and in of consciousness. I tried to recap everything: the text was some kind of solemn oath for the soldiers who had found their death in a terrible and not better described war to come back to life and protect the world against a terrible and not better described threat that was apparently lurking on the mountain. Maybe the level of "standard fantasy setting" in my predicament was a bit more than a third. Of course there were a lot more words than that, but I was pretty sure I got the important bits.

My stomach grumbled, and I realized I had missed both dinner and breakfast. And I had not had coffee in too many hours. No wonder I felt so cranky. And of course sleeping on the ground and falling in a puddle of water had not helped with that... speaking of which, it was really about time I got up from the stupid puddle.

At least I had not frozen to death during the night, and now the weather was a bit warmer, but I was still wet and shivering. And dirty. And smelly. On the bright side, I was almost sure the skeletons would not complain about it. I decided that the best way to ignore my lack of food and, even more detrimental to my life, lack of coffee was to examine the other stones. Maybe I had just accidentally read the end of the story, and I was missing all the important parts, like what the mysterious threat was or what steps I had to avoid in order not to wake it up. Probably something that I had already done, with my luck.

I tried to take a few steps, and the skeletons moved with me. Right. They were still doing the imitation game.

" Okay, this was funny, but I am sure you have better things to do. Like going back to sleep? In the nice... comfy... soil?". Yeah, not very convincing. But at least now I had a feeling the little army of mix-and-match bones was not going to kill me. Or you could call it a desperate hope. Actually, was it me, or did they look a bit...friendly?

So much for being the asocial, introvert bookworm I always fancied myself. Just some hours without any social interaction and I was already looking forward to skeleton friends. On the other hand, I had always thought the skeleton in my Science class, back at school, looked adorable, so maybe I had always been destined to this special brand of craziness. Yay destiny fulfilled!

I took a step forward, towards the skeleton with the sword. Out of the bunch, it was the one with the most bones still in their place. It did not move. I took another step and raised my hand, trying to ignore the way I was shivering. I chalked it up to being, you know, wet and frozen from my morning bath in a mountain puddle. Which made perfect sense, and allowed me not to focus on the I am going to die screaming going on in the background of my brain. The skeleton did not move when I waved my hand in front of its face, so I took a deep breath and touched its forehead with a single fingertips.

If you were betting on a shock-wave on energy sending poor little screaming me back in the damn puddle, congratulations, you won the prize for the most twisted imagination. Also, the nice feeling of being right, but let's be honest, none of you was expecting that.

I sat up with a feeling of dejà vu, coughing and spluttering, my eyes squeezed shut, and I felt something splashing in the water next to me. Strong hands got me up and I was lifted in the air, taken bridal style out of the water, and then gently laid down on the grass. I opened my eyes. If you were betting on my savior being the skeleton congratulations, you were right, but this time it was easier so don't get too cocky.

My ears were still ringing, so it took a few attempts to realize that the skeleton was talking to me. The fact that it did not have any lips did not help at all, of course. Then reality hit me.

" Sweetie, are you feeling well?"

The skeleton was talking. In English, with a funny accent but still recognizable. Did nobody on this world talk another language? Except for the undead elves, but maybe they were just being snobs.

" I'm... feeling... confused. And wet.", I admitted, still spluttering.

The skeleton twisted her neck in a way that would have killed a living person and barked, loudly: " Boys! Get the girl something to wear! Quick now, you have done nothing for centuries, shake off that dust!"

And then I realized that the voice was... well... it was pretty deep, but it has a certain feminine quality to it. Which was quite weird considering that the being had no vocal chords or tongue, but Magic.

The skeleton snapped her head back towards me, her golden earrings shimmering in the early morning light.

" Sorry for this mess, sweetie. We're going to get you something warm now, hmmm? And then maybe you can explain why you called us back."

I opened my mouth and closed it. The skeletons thought I called them back, but I did not... or did I? If bringing the dead back to life were as easy as peeing on them in this world, archaeology was probably quite the fascinating discipline.

Less digressing, more cunning investigation, Christabel.

" Why do you think I called you back?"

Very cunning. Yeah.

The skeleton shook her head and took a deep breath. No, I have no idea how that was possible.

" I should have known it was not enough. We died on this damn mountain, all of us, and it was not enough, was it? It is back. We woke it up last time, but it was an accident, and we thought we had solved it. We had atoned for it. Damn it!"

" The inscriptions on those stones. Did you write them?"

" No, girl. They were already here when we arrived, years ago. We should have paid more attention to them, but we had no idea what they said. If we had known...", she stopped when two other skeletons approached. One of them was missing an arm, and the other one was headless. They were both shorter than me and quite stocky, just like the one I was talking to, and they were carrying a bundle of black fur between them.

I did not want to know where they got it from but it looked warm. A few seconds after, I was wrapped up like a miserable burrito in the soft warm fur, sitting in front of a dozen skeletons, and ready to finally have some answers.