It was a cold and rainy morning. The darkness of the pre-dawn seemed to be clutching at the corners of the world and desperately attempting to hold on to those last remaining seconds before what little light that breaks through the clouds banishes it. A cold jolt struck the back of his neck and caused his whole body to spasm. 

“Damn water. Always drips right in front of the door just before I can get inside,” he muttered to himself. Every rainy day it seemed to him, he could never get the key into the lock and the door opened before a drop of water splashed down and struck him. As miserable as the day was already looking, he was actually in good spirits. It had been over a month and no new corpses had been interred. His was a special job in this city, one no one envied him for having, but one that everyone was grateful existed. A city with almost three thousand people calling it home. When he had first moved there it had seemed enormous. It was enormous compared to the tiny village he had been born in. After all the years spent in the city though, it was beginning to feel too small. There were no bigger cities though. A few of the same size, perhaps, but they already had their own corpse tenders, so why would they want a second?

With a sigh, he set down his small satchel and took off his cloak. Stretching out he hung it over the single peg in the entrance room, used only by him and often only seen by him. Most people never entered the gate house, let alone the necropolis itself. Yet everyone who had entered the gatehouse seemed to know exactly how it was all laid out. A single entrance room which opened to a hallway with three doors: one to a large office, one to a small kitchen with an even smaller bathroom, and the third which was much more nicely decorated and ornately appointed. That was the door no one but he walked through.

“Best get started with the rituals,” he commented to no one but himself. He enjoyed talking to himself. He never had company, so why shouldn’t he pass the time conversing aloud? By rituals he of course meant getting his morning cup of coffee and taking his patrol through the necropolis. The coffee was the easy part for him, boil the water, spoon the coffee into the filter, then pour it all into a large sealed cup. It only took him a moment, but he enjoyed the process immensely. Feeling the warmth of the kettle as he poured the water. Smelling the freshness of the coffee grounds as they settled into the filter. Hearing the burble as the water took on the flavourings and dripped into the cup. It was all a very nice way to start the day.

Placing the lid on the cup, he went to the front of the gate house and picked up the whistler. It would make a noise when someone approached the house and knocked, even when he wasn’t there. Kind of a miracle bit of technology, he thought. Useful to him, but not to most others who would never need to be far from their offices. Striding with confidence and feeling the warmth beginning to seep through the walls of the cup, he approached the ornate door at the back of the house. With a flick of his wrist, the door was unlocked and with a soft tug, it opened up revealing the necropolis behind it. It never rained in the necropolis and why that was he could never explain. The world outside of it could be having the most terrible storm and he would never know if he was in here.

It was an important job, to tend to the dead and to ensure they remained rested for all time or until they were called upon. That was a process he, like those that had come before him, was familiar with, but as far as he could recall had been unnecessary for a very long time. All it would take for him to begin, would be a call from the Council. After so many years, the response from the necropolis might be overwhelming for them if they did ask for his aid. He supposed that it was important to be prepared just in case, but it was probably quite nerve-wracking for the citizens of the city outside the necropolis to consider just how many lay here awaiting their return to serve.

His job was simple today, as it was most days. Walk the avenues of the necropolis and make sure that nothing was different. It had never been different as far as he could tell, and he did not think anything would be different today. The necropolis wasn’t all that large, but he guessed there were around three hundred buildings housing perhaps thirteen hundred sarcophagi. That sounded like a lot of corpses when compared to the living, but it was so neatly contained that it never felt cramped. Unlike the world outside.

He knew that “different” was subjective and had never received a satisfactory answer from the tender before him as to what it meant. He knew his job was to inter and to raise, but what was he to do if something was amiss? The procedures there were only circumspect about the need to “re-inter” and calm the necropolis. Calm the necropolis? The place was nothing but calm and had never been excited as far as he had seen. Perhaps it had happened once thousands of years ago and the practice had been kept.

His patrol was over at the same time it was every day: just as his cup was empty of coffee. He was looking forward to his second cup, when the whistler sounded off.

“Someone’s here? Why?” He asked himself. Puzzling occurrence that was, usually he got a letter before anyone actually arrived. Walking inside, he locked the ornate door again and passed through the house as if gliding. What if this was the call he had always been expecting? Could it be that a need had finally arisen, and he would be required to raise for service? He opened the door in front of him and saw no one at eye level. Looking down, he could see a girl. She couldn’t be more than fourteen.

“Hello, little one. Lost, are you? You don’t want to come inside here. You know what this is, right?” He asked her. The rain had seemed to stop for the moment, and he was glad. She was drenched through, as if all of the water had been sucked to her. His mind flashed back to thirty-nine years ago. He was fourteen himself. Something had compelled him to leave his village. He walked through the night and in the morning had knocked on this same door. The memory filled him with sadness and fear. He knew all too well what was happening and how she was now feeling. He felt shivers fall from his neck and down his spine. Concern filled his face and a profound sadness filled his stomach with a lump.

“Oh no,” he said with a sad voice. “Not you too.” She looked at him with eyes full to bursting with tears and he knew he had understood what was happening. She was to be a corpse tender like him. He would train her for the next four years. On her eighteenth birthday he would simply cease to exist, and she would have replaced him. This was how it was before and he suspected, but hoped it was not true, that this is how it would be after him. One day, he hoped, the need for the tenders would diminish and fade into obscurity, never to be called upon again.

“Come in then, got to get you warmed up,” he beckoned. She walked in, still silent and taking the smallest steps, as if she was absolutely terrified of where she now found herself. Taking off her jacket, the man grabbed a towel from the small cupboard in the entrance and wrapped it around her. He then guided her into the office, where he had a small couch that he indicated she should sit on. Without complaint, she did so, and he walked away. He returned in a few minutes, this time with two steaming mugs smelling very different. One smelled like a burnt coffee since he had apparently run out of the good stuff. Of all the disappointments, not having decent coffee ranked highly to him. The other smelled more of a calmer mint tea. This was the one he handed the girl.

Taking a seat on another chair in the office, he waited patiently knowing she would speak when she was ready. When he had come here, the old corpse tender had sat there so calmly as to himself almost a corpse. It took until both mugs were almost empty before she began. 

“I-I woke up this morning and heard a call. It to-told me to get up and get dressed. To-to start walking. It never said where to go. I ju-just left my house and walked straight. Why me? Why now?” She stammered. As she asked the hardest questions he had ever heard, she began to cry. No loud screams, but quiet sobs accompanying tears rolling down her cheeks. He passed her a handkerchief for the tears and waited until her sobs subsided. The handkerchief was special, since it belonged to the necropolis and not to him. He remembered crying into an identical one when he first arrived. It was burned by the old tender and since then, he has been sewing this one for whomever replaced him. He shook his head and looked at her with kindness and warmth, despite the tightness in his neck.

“Kiddo,” he spoke slowly. “There is no reason why. None that any one of us that came before you could figure out. It just happens. You turn fourteen and bang. You get the call from Death. Death sounds different to us all too. Sounded like an old woman to me and sounded like a little boy to the tender before me. We’re different, you and me. Different to all of them out there. Living their lives, knowing that if it comes to it, they can rely on us for help. But they don’t want our help or to have us around them. We scare them. And rightly so I suppose, since we tend the corpses.” He replied to her with words used by the corpse tender before him. 

“You ready to hear this? It won’t be easy and I don’t like to repeat myself,” he asked her and waited for her acknowledgement. She glanced down at her now empty cup and then nodded to him. He was, in actual fact, always going to be willing to repeat himself for her but he wanted to try and keep this clear for her. He took a deep breath and started to speak. 

“It’s not fair and it’ll never be. You’ll get looked at weirdly, but no one will disrespect you. Not once you take over the job. We are called by Death to do Death’s work and when we have done our duty, Death will call us down and another to replace us. That’s how it’s been for as long as any of us can remember. But know too that because we were called by Death, until we complete the duty set to us by Death we cannot die. It happens that I’m the youngest corpse tender in over eight hundred years to get my replacement. The oldest tender was one hundred eighty-three when he was finally called. I replaced the tender before me when he was ninety-two and that’s a lot closer to the average,” he paused taking the final swallow of his coffee. With close to one hundred as the average, it was no surprise there had been eight of them since that poor tender that had only lasted five years before being replaced. He shook his head once, it was not a reflection of the job they have done, it was merely Death’s choice. With a deep breath to steady his nerves he continued. 

“There’s time now, to teach you all that you need to know about this job, but none of that makes today any easier. You have a lot to learn about this job, I have four years to teach it all to you, but there is one other person you can ask for help from. The Priestesses have a similar situation. They also hear a call, but not from Death, from Life. There are always three Priestesses, so if you do truly find yourself with need, you will always have some help from them. Know too, I won’t rush you into the job. I’ll give you a week to adjust to just being here, but after that you will have to learn. Did you understand all of that?” He finished, his throat feeling strange after having talked so much. 

The senior priestess was a fantastic woman. He had only spoken to her once, but she seemed eminently capable. The two others, the priestess and the junior priestess, were present in the room with them, but they had remained silent. Perhaps that was their lot in life, to remain silent until promoted? He didn’t know, but he was confident that they would always be there so long as there was a corpse tender too. 

The fourteen-year-old girl reached out with the now empty cup and handed it back to him. He took it from her and placed it down upon the desk. Slowly, her back straightened and she set her jaw. This one would be a fierce corpse tender, he thought. Times are about to get hard. They had been easy for him, his predecessor, and his predecessor’s predecessor. She steeled her eyes and seemed to peer into his very soul. He shivered at the look.

“I am ready.”

-----

It was a cold and rainy morning. The darkness of the pre-dawn seemed to be clutching at the corners of the world and desperately attempting to hold on to those last remaining seconds before what little light that breaks through the clouds banishes it. A cold jolt struck the back of his neck and caused his whole body to spasm.

“Damn water. Always drips right in front of the door just before I can get inside,” he muttered to himself.

“Still talking to yourself?” His successor asked with a smile. He was glad to have had her around for these last four years. She brought joy to him, almost as though he had raised a daughter.

“You know that I do. I spent twenty-one years alone. A total time of maybe five hours talking to other people before you showed up. Why shouldn’t I be a little eccentric?” He replied, turning the key in the door and pushing it open. Together they walked in and followed the same steps they had for the last four months. It was nice to have found a routine that they were both comfortable in. He knew, in the back of his mind, that this comfortable time was to end. Tomorrow, he would cease to be the corpse tender and she would take up the mantle until she too was called by Death to descend below. 

He watched her as she made them both their warm drinks in the kitchen. She had learned his chosen method for making coffee and his chosen coffee roast. He smiled at this and was glad that the timing worked out well, such that there was almost no coffee left. She didn’t drink coffee and it brought warmth to his heart that she still prioritized making his drink over her cup of tea.

“Here you go,” she quipped. Holding out the cup of coffee to him, she smiled at him. Together, they had grown to understand each other. He had been right too about her. She was the fiercest tender that the necropolis will have seen in well over a millennium. They hadn’t been called upon to serve in any capacity. There was simply no need. He reached out and accepted the cup from her with a smile. He gestured with his hand towards the back door of the small building as if to say, after you. She looked at him with a start, he had never offered her to go first. In a moment, the steel in her spine straightened and her eyes took on the sharp look he had seen gleaming their very first meeting. She opened the door, exactly as he had taught her.

Following her lead, he entered the necropolis. It was different and that may not have been a good thing. What had always been a very simple grey cemetery filled with sarcophagi and mausoleums had now become something so much brighter and warmer. He was struck dumb by the green growth that had never before been there, with grasses, flowers, and trees lining the pathways he had walked for decades. She too seemed startled by this strange new development. They shared a glance at each other in worry.

“No, I don’t know what’s going on,” he preempted her question. “Do you know what the date is though?” She looked at him with confusion as though his question was the least of their concerns.

“Tomorrow is our fourth anniversary together and your eighteenth birthday,” he said with a sigh. He hadn’t wanted to remind her like this, but what else was he to do? 

“Whatever is going to happen, will seemingly happen soon. I should have been more forthright with you. You have a strength and a determination that I didn’t see in my predecessor and I don’t see in myself. There is a book in the study; you know the one. It’s the one I haven’t let you read. That book contains the notes and writings from all the tenders before you. It stretches back almost four thousand years and encompasses the sixteen wars that a corpse tender has been called to support. I have marked the pages in a note on the desk for you that you must read since we have no more time,” he sighed. “But come, you are in charge today, lead on and spot all of the differences.” This was it he was sure. Things were changing.

She stared at him for a long while remaining silent and cool in her expression. She turned quickly back to the path and led them both on the same route they always took. Together they marched the wandering path between thousands of markers indicating burials. She was quiet the whole time, until they reached the last leg of their patrol, when she stopped suddenly and gasped.

“That’s not the same,” she pointed out, looking at the symbols etched into the third last mausoleum. She was right, those symbols had always been the same, reading out two names with dates of birth and death and small symbols below them denoting their chosen affiliation in life. The first name was normally affiliated with the builders and should have borne the symbol of the hammer, while the second was normally affiliated with the caretakers and should have borne the symbol of the caduceus. Today, both bore the symbol of the resurrections, a skeletal hand.

He approached the symbol and was about to trace it with his hand, when he paused and beckoned her over instead.

“This is your duty. You know what you are obliged to do as part of it, though I am glad that I shall be here to help you if you need it. Begin,” he ordered, standing tall and willing protection over her. As always, she was resolute in her actions. With a careful hand, she traced the symbol with her index finger and spoke carefully.

“Where once we committed this body to the ground, to return to ashes and dust as once before it had been, we call with the voice of Death for the soul to return and within this body be reunited. In the triumph of Death overall, we ask for Death to deign acceptable this return to the mortal world in our hour of need,” she intoned. As soon as her finger had completed the tracing, the symbol glowed with blue-white light. She repeated herself on the second symbol. He had always wondered what would happen and what would be different if he were to ever see something and now, he knew. She looked at him and he smiled with reassurance, she had done exactly what she was supposed to. She rushed towards him and hugged him. Though he was paralyzed for a second, he returned the hug with ferocity. He could feel her laboured breathing against his chest, and he knew that she had to be scared.

“It’s alright, you did brilliantly. If Death is forgiving, he’ll let me stay another day to help you with tomorrow. If not, you know the procedures and you always have the priestesses. Come on now, we have a few steps left to complete together,” he reassured her. Putting his arm around her shoulders, they walked the remaining steps in the path back to the necropolis’ gatehouse. As they entered, the shrill whistler alerted them there was someone at the door.

Taking a few strides down the hallway, he opened the door to be greeted by a member of the Council and the middle priestess.

“Hello Master Tender, might we come in?” Asked the council member with trepidation.

“Certainly you may. Be welcome here,” he replied. He closed the door behind them and bid them follow him to the office. They entered one at a time, for the doorway was small and both of the guests seemed taken aback by the presence of another corpse tender. He waved them into the seats before the desk while he pushed gently onto her back, placing her in the chair behind it. The four of them sat in silence waiting for the others to speak. Finally, the silence had dragged on long enough and the priestess broke it.

“Good morning to you both. I can see that, like us, you have been made to transition the task. I became the senior priestess this morning,” she began. She shook her head as the tenders made to offer their condolences.

“No, no. It’s quite alright. But I’m sure you have sensed it too. Things are happening, and it is time. We need your help,” she said concernedly.

“It’s the big one, we’re sure of it. We received the reports from the other cities a few weeks ago, but since then both have gone completely silent. We sent couriers out to get new information from them, but none have returned. Not one and I cannot think that likely,” the council member continued for the priestess. This confirmed it all then. He was to be called away and replaced the day before a corpse tender would be needed. He supposed he should be glad that one wasn’t needed for so long, but he felt disappointed too that when one was needed it could not have been him.

The two corpse tenders, outgoing and incoming, looked at each other, their eyes meeting, and in silent agreement, he remained by her side as support while she took charge. She brought her fingertips together, forming an arch and stared towards the, now senior, priestess and council member.

“How serious is this and how soon should I begin the resurrecting?”