The moonless night had been stressful on Albie. He grabbed his chest feeling cats stab wounds clearer than he had in ages. The fact he had not slept in weeks was starting to catch up with him. He sat on the stairs of the hospital he had taken off his cloak. The harnesses and pouches he normally had where beside him. The bloody rags that had been his shirt when he stepped out had been discarded. It seems that the rats had taken the rags off somewhere.
A new moon meant no moonlight. He could not channel the moon to use his magic unless it was stored in a moonstone. There was plenty of moonlight in the stones but if he used it the way he normally did for his experiments he would run out in 3 days.
The mage had decided it better to not burn all his reserves of moonlight. Even if it hurt hi now it would be better to wait to resume his experiments until he had a little more lite and a few more test subjects.
He sat watching his creations fly about the building. Albie touched his chest. He felt like he was bleeding but as he touched where he thought the blood was dripping down his chest to find nothing. It was normal to feel Cats wounds if he hadn't drained someone of life force. Without moonlight he would not be able to leech the life from anything.
As he looked at his chest. His body had degraded. His ribs poked through his sides. The rest of his body had grown thin. His pants and boots where still on but he could tell that his legs where thinner. His arms had suffered the same. When he used his replaced blood stone eye to look at himself through the eyes of a servant, he thought he looked like a man dead from starvation. His one bloodstone eye bulging out of his head like it had been transplanted from a giant fly.
A coughing fit brought out the liquid unlife squirming in his lungs and stomach. The black liquid is spit on the floor where it squirms looking for some creature to drain of life. It finds only the stone floor and dies after a moment.
The mage recognizes his pail skin but not the faint grey in his veins. His diagnoses as a healer was that the unlife had spread to his blood and was growing. It was not strange for it to be spreading. How it had appeared in his stomach was a mystery in the first place. It had moved from his stomach to his lungs after a brutal series of stabbings. Perhaps some had moved to his blood then. It was also possible it had been there from the beginning.
The stuff was a mystery to him. It came about in the unliving and grew inside the walking dead. life corrupted might be a comparable name. It had a connection to the other side. A place the mage had touched to his displeasure. Creating more wights would require touching it again. The place where mortal folk left mortal feelings.
To touch it was to touch the last moments of everyone who had crossed over before. The longer one held on to the border the more deaths would experience. Few people passed on pleasantly. No living thing wants to die. The last moments of most men and beasts are spent struggling for life. Bleeding out or sitting in place dying of sickness was generally unpleasant. A persons last breath taken only because it was not possible to take another. Especially in Yourz a murdered city.
A grey woman appeared in front of the main entrance. The door had not been opened she simply appeared. The former lady of the house floated through the air. The door opened behind her and the former man of the house entered. He was a ghoulish thing a carved skull on top of a blackened body. Its body was seemingly liquid held together by magic. On his shoulder was an old man with a grey beard. Blake marks lacerated his body where the pail lurker had used to leach the life from the man.
"Take his limbs and find him a room," ordered the mage.
The dead couple nodded and moved off into the house.
A group of giant spiders entered with a number of cocoons in tow. Some men shaped and a large number of smaller cocoons.
"Men and birds!" thought the spiders.
"Birds to the lab," ordered the mage. "men can go to the rooms."
The spiders dispersed through the house. Ten men and fifty birds by the size of the cocoons.
That just left Albies favorite son to send word.
The dead priest walked into the house with an entourage of dead orange coats armed with muskets. They carried a set of reasonably intact bodies. One looked like he might have been the head of the mason's guild. The other was a lady wearing a horribly stained white dress.
"I think these shall make good wights father," declared the dead man.
"Excellent work," coughed Albie." Put them upstairs I'll begin once the crescent moon emerges. The spiders brought back some orange coats. You might be able to put their arms to use.
"The arms of musketeers," creaked the deal priest. "I believe I can put them to work father."
"Good," responded the mage. "They are in your hands. I am tired and will be until the moon returns. Do as you please and keep brand away from here."
"Of course father," replied the corpse. "Do take care of yourself. I shall be back tomorrow."
"See you then," responded the mage.
Albie saw the sun rise through the open doors. In the distance black smoke was rising. On the far side of the city the sun mage lord brand must have begun his grand arson of the city. The mage grabbed the crystal hanging on his neck. His beloved wife's heart was in his hand. He remembered his hatred that had faced of against a hundred deaths. His work was not yet done.