At the hearth, there sat a man weep­ing.

A man with a farmer’s brown hide and the grey-green eyes of a South­ern­er. His lips, quak­ing, traced silent peti­tions. Rosary beads passed between his rough fin­ger­tips. Tears rolled over the worn knuck­les, over the stone beads, dashed them­selves to steam on the ashy hearth.

Anoth­er man neared, placed a hand soft with age on the farmer’s shoul­der. “Albous,” he said.  He with­drew the hand, tucked it into his black Vic­ar’s coat. The fire flick­ered, too, in his down­turned eyes, min­gled with some mix of com­mis­er­a­tion and anx­i­ety. “The Coro­ner is here,” he warned, soft, and Albous qui­et­ed. In his coat, the Vic­ar gripped tight the sil­ver hastel­la * of his own rosary.

Out­side, there came a clap of thun­der. At the win­dows splat­tered the unend­ing peal of sum­mer’s-night rain. Albous looked to the cot­tage door, where, backed by the down­pour, stood a tired woman with an umbrel­la and a heavy doc­tor’s bag. Her hair was bunned mess­i­ly, and her eyes were red.

“Be wel­come, Doc­to­ra.”

“Albous,” the Coro­ner set down her things. Con­cern creased her brow. She neared the hearth with open palms. “My dear Albous. What has hap­pened? The Father came to my door, say­ing only that your poor girl had gone.” She looked to the Vic­ar. He nod­ded. “But, for­give me, is she not already pre­pared for rest? Why do you need me, if her body is con­se­crat­ed and safe? Are we not to hold ser­vices come the morn­ing?”

Albous low­ered his head. His throat worked as if he might vom­it. “She,” he start­ed, hic­cupped. “Was lain there.” He indi­cat­ed a heavy table, upon which rest­ed a small, lace-cov­ered cof­fin. Can­dles sur­round­ed it, gut­ter­ing low in pools of red wax. “I prayed for her all the day. But when I depart­ed to take in the flocks for the night, she was…” He pulled a hand to his mouth, ges­tured plead­ing­ly to the Vic­ar.

The Vic­ar winced at the com­ing sobs. He fin­ished for the farmer. “She was gone, Doc­to­ra, so Albous tells me. The door was open, the bur­ial shawl was thrown aside, and salt had been scat­tered from the cof­fin.” He indi­cat­ed large grains of steely grey salt which still lay amidst the can­dles. **

The Coro­ner’s eyes sud­den­ly livened. “Lord pre­serve her soul.” She has­ten­ing to the cof­fin. She turned through the bur­ial dress­ings and salt, frowned. “You are sure no ani­mal came and took her? There are wolves in the hills. No paw­prints, no mud?” She looked to the weep­ing farmer, fear­ful.

Albous shook his head. “None,” trans­lat­ed the Vic­ar, pat­ting him.

“No scratch­es at the door? No smell of sul­fur. Per­haps a ser­pent?”

“Noth­ing. It was as if she sim­ply stood up and left.”

“Wait,” put in Albous, unsteadi­ly. “Do you sug­gest my lit­tle Con­so­la­ta is alive?”

“No.” The Coro­ner stood, approached. She hung her head. “Please, Albous, do not take false hope. What I fear is worse than if she had been mere­ly dead.” She knelt, took the farmer’s rough hand. “Please, can either of you tell me if the girl had received bap­tism?”

“No.” Albous shook his head. He shook, cov­er­ing his face.

“She had not,” said the Vic­ar. 

“She would have been,” sobbed Albous, ges­tur­ing vio­lent­ly. “Only she had been sick for so long.”

The Coro­ner paled. She went imme­di­ate­ly to the door, where­upon she shut it hard and bolt­ed it. The drum of rain qui­et­ed. Thun­der rip­pled, flashed blue in the nar­row stone-framed win­dows.

“What is it you fear, Doc­to­ra?” the Vic­ar said, sus­pi­cion stain­ing his tone. 

“I fear…” The Coro­ner met his eyes, held them. “Do you recall the his­tor­i­cal prece­dent for bap­tism, Father?” At this, the Vic­ar’s eyes widened, his lips part­ed in rev­e­la­tion.

“No!” Cried Albous, hands out­stretched as if in sup­pli­ca­tion. The rosary shook in his grasp. “No, please, Coro­ner. It can­not be so. It is a myth. It must be a myth!” he cried.

“Believe me, I hope it is a myth. I hope I am wrong. But even if I am, noth­ing can be done for now, save wait and pray.” The Coro­ner swept to the win­dows, shut­ting them and pulling the drapes closed.

She went to Albous, knelt. He looked at her, plead­ing. She took his hands, wrapped them tight in the holy beads. “Albous, your girl is gone. All we can do is pray for the Lord’s pro­tec­tion. For her. No mat­ter what. Yes?”

He nod­ded mis­er­ably.

“No mat­ter what you hear out­side, you must pray. We’ll join you.” She looked to the Vic­ar, who nod­ded grave­ly. He placed a hand on the mis­er­able farmer’s back. “Even if you hear cry­ing. It is not your daugh­ter. She is not there. Yes?”

Again, he nod­ded. 

“Good.” The Coro­ner pro­duced her own tal­is­man: A wood­en rosary She shut her eyed, bowed.

“Let us pray.”

Ravens wheeled in the rud­dy dawn. Hun­dreds, spi­ral­ing and div­ing to dip their beaks in the still-wet gore in the clear­ing below. There, on an oblong hill clear of trees, lay sev­er­al dozen crum­pled men and women, their bur­gundy uni­forms blotched and dark­ened with claret. White, cold flesh and soaked cloth squished between avian claws and gave way under their stab­bing, jerk­ing beaks.

A clat­ter of steel near­by. A bur­gundy sol­dier labored among the fall­en, puff­ing in the metal­lic air. A grunt and anoth­er clat­ter of met­al as she tossed anoth­er gun on a her grow­ing pile of sal­vage. A sabre, next. Then a can­teen. She shooed crows off each body as she searched them, rolling and pat­ting them down. A bird flew up in her face, fling­ing bits of red and brown from its talons. She cursed and swung at it.

Over the rau­cous croak­ing of birds, there was a sud­den spat of cough­ing, as of a sick­ened dream­er wak­en­ing from sleep. The sol­dier perked, raised her mud­dy head. “Some­one alive?” Anoth­er cough. A sec­ond, clear­er breath.

The sol­dier spun around for the sounds of life. Quick, she spied him: A Piper with a feath­ered shako, col­lapsed over the bag and splayed flutes of his pipes. He coughed again, chin scrap­ing the mud­died ground, strug­gling.

“Hold on, Car­ri­er! I’m com­ing to help.” *** She scram­bled over, slid­ing on mud and gore and send­ing up crows. Shad­ows of wings mot­tled the red sky.

“Oh, Ail­wise. It’s you,” she grum­bled as she approached. “Can’t believe you made it,.” She knelt beside the Piper, who had got one elbow up to lean on. He hacked. Tex­tured chunks of what might have been lung scat­tered on the mud­dy grass. 

“Shit, how are you still alive? I checked you a half hour ago. You had no pulse. Shit!” she said, behold­ing his wounds as he rolled over: A great mot­tled, holey rent in his right jack­et breast, filled with a mush of flesh, wool, and an enor­mous clot of blood. He coughed again, chest buck­ing. A con­fused help­less­ness rolled in his eyes.

“Shit. What kind of luck is it that it’s you I sur­vive with, eh? Hon­est­ly, I always thought you were a git, Ail­wise. Awful sense of humor. Stu­pid squin­ty mug. Of all the peo­ple to get a sec­ond chance at it, I swear,” she sneered. “Come on. Sup­pose I bet­ter dress that.” She offered an arm. Ail­wise frowned, con­fused, and did­n’t take it. “Come on. Don’t be an ass. Take it–”

She broke off. Ail­wise had lurched up, eyes screwed shut, and teari­ly embraced her.

“Shit, mate. Is this a joke?” The sol­dier mut­tered, and moved to throw him off, but paused, notic­ing the man’s tear­ful, relieved laugh­ter and his sin­cere embrace. “Thank you,” he said, muf­fled. “Who­ev­er you are, thank you. I thought I’d drowned. I thought I was alone.”

“Ail­wise, come off it. You know who I am.” She held him at arms’ length and balked, agape. The man was grin­ning, despite his wrack­ing, bloody cough. His eyes not squint­ing and sar­don­ic but creased with a smile of real relief. 

“You don’t look like your­self at all, man,” she frowned.

“What’s your name?” said the bloody piper. “And what was it you called me? I seem to have for­got­ten.”

“You real­ly don’t know?”

“No,” he gig­gled. “Hon­est­ly, I don’t mind. I’m just hap­py to be alive!”

Resurrection

Folk are well famil­iar with the liv­ing dead.

Famil­iar with plague and its res­ur­rect­ed, skele­tal vec­tors. Famil­iar in the same way they know syphilis, typhoid, and can­cer. As an endem­ic hor­ror, but a known one.

They are aware of what a grue is, even if they’ve nev­er see one, thanks to the good of pub­lic health efforts span­ning cen­turies. In the rare event they do see one, they will be hor­ri­fied, unnerved, but not sur­prised.

They are pre­pared. When they see a scut­tling, black­ened agent of human fes­ter, they will know what they are look­ing at before they die.

Folk are not, how­ev­er, pre­pared for the dead who res­ur­rect inex­plic­a­bly, autonomous­ly. Not as mon­sters, but as peo­ple. As strangers.

As revenants, phys­i­cal­ly whole, but fun­da­men­tal­ly changed.

revenancy

There exists in the cells of some humans a rare genet­ic quirk. A sur­vival mech­a­nism mutat­ed seem­ing­ly at ran­dom and with­out hered­i­tary pres­i­dent, so rare that it is prac­ti­cal­ly unknown to sci­ence. It is expressed only after appar­ent death.

A corpse with this mech­a­nism will, after hours or per­haps days, auto-res­ur­rect, a revenant. Rise, gasp­ing, back to con­scious life. Con­fused and in pain, still bear­ing what­ev­er wounds, only bare­ly ade­quate­ly healed, that trun­cat­ed their first life.  

Some res­ur­rect, crow-picked and corpse­like, on bat­tle­fields, sur­round­ed by the dead. Some wake in the dark, already buried, doomed to a slow, sec­ond death. Some awake on their deathbed, sur­round­ed by stunned fam­i­ly, just min­utes after their last breath. Oth­ers, wheeled into a hasty cre­ma­to­ri­um, nev­er rise at all. †

All awak­en the same: Changed. Still in pos­ses­sion of their skills, their pro­ce­dur­al and seman­tic mem­o­ries, but lack­ing names, belong­ing, or creed. That is not to say they lack per­son­al­i­ty: Revenants uni­form­ly sport demeanors and dri­ves direct­ly oppo­site those they held in their pre­vi­ous life. An antithe­sis of their for­mer selves.

Invert­ed souls. The gen­er­ous, the self­less become the greedy, the self­ish. The wise become the fool­ish. The suave, the awk­ward. The ago­ra­phobes, socialites. Mur­der­ers become saints.

And saints, babes, and good folk, become raven­ing, con­fused preda­tors. Lost, rage­ful, remade, emp­ty revenants. Vio­lent trav­es­ties.

This is the trait for which revenants are best known: unmit­i­gat­ed vio­lence. Often, can­ni­bal­ism. Though they are rare–for only the tru­ly good and inno­cent ones invert so hor­ri­bly, and there are over­all more neu­tral, sim­ply self-involved folk than pure­ly good ones– these are the sub­jects who are remem­bered, who define the unfor­tu­nate folk­lore and his­to­ries sur­round­ing reve­nan­cy. It is from these killers that myths of preda­to­ry revenants, includ­ing blood­suck­ers, super­nat­ur­al slash­ers, and drau­gr, are drawn.

Most com­mon­ly, the worst revenants are chil­dren. Babies, often. Blank slates save for some essen­tial empa­thy, that are so ter­ri­bly coun­ter­mand­ed by reve­nan­cy into crawl­ing, hun­gry hor­rors. A human child, its basic affec­tion replaced by pri­mal mean­ness, becomes the pupal stage of even worse, human mon­sters.

baptism

Though most would not know it, the his­tor­i­cal basis for Avethan bap­tism lies in the pre­ven­tion of reve­nan­cy.

While most hold bap­tism as a sole­ly reli­gious rite, the cer­e­mo­ni­al bathing of babies and young­sters in med­icat­ed holy water has real and prac­ti­cal func­tion, if for­got­ten. In addi­tion to like­ly being a baby’s first dose of plague-pre­vent­ing griso­date, what­ev­er mix­ture of oils and salts com­pos­es holy water has the effect of cor­rect­ing what­ev­er genet­ic quirk caus­es reve­nan­cy in humans.

Thus, myth will tell you that it is the woe­ful­ly unbap­tized who rise, mis­er­able and hate­ful, from their graves to prey upon the good liv­ing.

purpose

The few schol­ars to have sur­mised a bio­log­i­cal func­tion for reve­nan­cy believe it to be a sim­ple evo­lu­tion­ary quirk: Human muta­tion, in a ran­dom few, tries some new func­tion to increase sur­viv­abil­i­ty. If one mode of behav­ior fails to keep a per­son alive, they sup­pose, why not heal and try the oppo­site instead?

Of course, this is near-impos­si­ble to prove, as reve­nan­cy has no observ­able hered­i­tary car­riage and no reli­ably good out­comes. A human, res­ur­rect­ed ran­dom­ly by their own latent phys­i­ol­o­gy, is most like­ly to find that they, a sad amne­si­ac or per­haps a new-made patho­log­i­cal fiend, no longer fits into soci­ety as they did before. They are cast away, impris­oned, or killed, and do not improve their lot in life at all.

Some say instead that reve­nan­cy is an ancient human func­tion, now rarely seen to reemerge in mod­ern human­i­ty. They sup­pose that the bru­tal human of pre­his­to­ry, ani­mal­is­tic, was more like­ly to ben­e­fit from such harsh and un-nuanced behav­ioral adap­ta­tion.

Though it can­not be known what pur­pose reve­nan­cy serves, it can be known what becomes of mod­ern revenants.

Most, indeed, become out­casts, nat­u­ral­ly and sad­ly removed from a social niche where they once belonged. Revenants tend to drift into new, con­fused lives. As sailors, sol­diers, and, more often than not, cut­ters.

Lives where they might eas­i­ly find a sec­ond, per­ma­nent death.

Note

In the Incunab­u­li sys­tem, you’ll find a char­ac­ter sort called the Revenant Sol­dier. It’s proven to be one of the more pop­u­lar and enig­mat­ic char­ac­ter back­grounds to choose. I’ll like­ly make a few more like it.

There’ll be a new main-feed arti­cle soon, as well. I’m work­ing on a long one, a request. Cheers.

If you like Incunab­u­li, share it! Fol­low on Red­dit and bluesky.

Con­sid­er becom­ing a sup­port­er of Incunab­u­li on Patre­on.

⁂