The Warmed

Overview

Crimson Resurrection Fraud forces warmth, pulse, and movement into a dead or dying body. It is not resurrection, and it is used for deception: a court hides its ruler's death for one last command performance, an heir is named, a treaty sealed. The Warmed are the bodies so kept, and above all those kept too long.

Appearance

At first a Warmed lord looks like a sick one: pale, propped on cushions, warm to the touch, the pulse steady at the wrist, the eyes open. It nods and lifts a hand when the blood-worker behind the curtain bids it, and does not speak, or speaks only a few words in a voice like breath through a reed. The longer it is kept, the worse it looks. The skin flushes too red, then mottles; the warmth becomes a fever heat that smells of hot iron and spoiled meat; the eyes dry and stop following anything. Perfumes, braziers, and closed shutters fill the rooms of a court that is hiding one.

Habitat and Range

They are found where power passes by inheritance and a death at the wrong moment would cost a house its claim: the great houses and lords' courts of the Human cradle-web, a merchant family's sickroom, a war camp whose commander must be seen to live until the battle is done.

Behaviour and Temperament

A Warmed body has no will of its own; it moves as the blood-worker forces it. But the fraud wakes the dead's remnant, and when the working runs long, the remnant begins to stir in the warmed body. Then the Warmed does things it was not bidden to: it turns its head towards a hated heir, grips a hand and will not let go, speaks a word no one gave it. Courts that kept a lord warm for a season have found him walking the corridors at night.

Abilities

Kept, it is a puppet with a pulse. Gone wrong, it becomes a hostile remnant in a body still warm, with the dead's grudges and none of their restraint, and with the blood-worker's vitality in its veins. It burns those who touch it with a dry fever heat. It can be ended only by letting the body die properly: the working broken, the rites said, and the death declared.

Uses and Dangers

To a court, they buy time. They cost the blood-worker dearly, since stronger workings draw on vitality and lineage, and they cost the house its honesty. Discovered, a Warmed lord ruins a claim: every act sealed in his presence is disputed. The danger to the household grows with every day the fraud lasts.

Lore and Belief

Human courts tell of a king who was warmed so long that he outlived the blood-worker who kept him, and went on ruling a hall of terrified courtiers until the hall was burned. People say a ruler too long unseen must be warm, not living, and princes are known to demand to see a dying father's tears, since the Warmed cannot weep. Whether that is so is argued.

Rival houses pay spies and poisoners to learn whether a lord behind the curtains is living or warmed, and more than one succession war began with a servant bribed to touch the old man's hand.

Where It Appears

• Overview: The Risen Dead