The Resurrection Men in the Mirrorlands
by
J. Edward Tremlett
"The way we tell it, hoodoo started
way back before everything. Six days of magic and mighty words
and the world with its elements above and below was made. And
now, God is leaning back and taking a seventh day rest.
"When the eighth day comes around,
He'll start to making new again..."
"Mules and Men" - Zora Neale Hurston
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Following the capture
and torture of Henri LeRoux in July of 1794, Paris' Hierarchy
apprehended most of the Resurrection Men almost immediately thereafter.
The Renegade group's Cells were caught one by one, sentenced
and then sent to the Forges.
While this occurred in the Shadowlands, the
Reign of Terror came to a halt. The French Revolution's old order
devoured itself in the Thermidor Reaction, and things collapsed
from there. So many of the Renegades went to the forges smiling,
or laughing at their captors; It may have been a Pyhrric victory
for them, but it was a victory nonetheless...
Once it was all done, and the Forges were
beating the last such criminals into useful goods, the Hierarchy
allowed itself a smile. It was declared that the Resurrection
Men were finished. One of the most widespread threats to the
Code of Charon ever encountered had been bested by the might
of the Parisian Hierarchy! Their woeful fate was long-upheld
as a warning to others, and no few Hierarchs were promoted, feted
and showered with accolades for their hand in the matter.
Of course, the Legionnaires were all quite
wrong.
Though he controlled the group, Henri LeRoux
didn't know every last one of his people, and so no few of their
number escaped the Purge. These went on to form Cells of their
own, and so the movement lives on. The Cells are disconnected
from one another, and nowhere near the size they once enjoyed,
but those who hid - or their students, at least - are still out
there to this day.
And then there were those who did not hide,
but fled...
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