THE BEAUTY AND THE BEAST
A story of Necromantra
By Aladdin
Edited by Christopher Leeson
Written 2005
Revised 06-30-2022
AUTHOR'S NOTE: The back story of Necromantra, a supporting character in MANTRA Magazine (Malibu Comics), is rich and complex. Ultraverse fans remember Necromantra as the Ultraverse’s most powerful and outrageously evil femme fatale. This novella, The Beauty and the Beast, continues and concludes the four-part Necromantra miniseries published in 1995.
Necromantra, the Arielles, the Tradesmen, the Darkur, and the Aerwa, are original creations of Malibu Comics and are copyrighted by Marvel Comics, Inc.
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Chapter 1
Guided by moonglow and starlight, I was following a cart lane through the heart of a cornfield. But with every step I took, I wondered more and more how I came to be where I was. What did I have to do with cornfields? Disoriented, without bearing, I looked up to find the North Star, perplexed to be unable to recognize any of the jewel-bright constellations.
In trying to recall the reason for my journey, I suddenly realized that I didn’t know my own name.
In fact, I could remember nothing at all prior to this moment.
Puzzled about my own identity, I glanced down and beheld a stranger’s body wearing an ankle-length cloak. I started to touch myself and found that my hands and arms felt smooth. I must have been young and that surprised me. But I was more surprised that the silhouette of my hands against the moon’s aura looked like a woman’s.
Why had I been assuming that I was a male?
My hands, exploring beneath my cloak, discovered a contoured body, firm and slender. This was unmistakably a woman’s body, so how could I have forgotten anything so fundamental as my own sex?
A coarse sound broke the silence and I took for granted that it was a crow's call. But how could I identify a crow’s cry while being unable to remember who I was? I ducked as the fearless thing flew past my head and settled to the earth amid a crisscross of lunar shadows. My lips suddenly felt tight. Only belatedly did I realize that this facial sensation was a smile.
I said to the avian, "Aren’t you supposed to be a day-bird, Master Crow? What’s brought you out so late?" My soft, high-pitched voice sounded unfamiliar to me.
Ahead, beyond the bird, I noticed a table set up and thought it looked very out of place in a farmer’s field. My stepping toward it caused the crow to scurry from my path. I saw the table was cluttered with cups, dishes and platters, and there were stools enough for several people. Had there been a picnic, a sort of harvesters’ feast? But where were the feasters? Had they eaten their fill and departed, leaving everything behind? Or had they fled away in sudden fear?
But why should I be thinking about fear and flight? Was it because I had myself been frightened just before my memory vanished? I though I did sense anxiety at the back of my mind. What was I afraid of? Was it something other than this location's darkness, loneliness, and emptiness?
I made out a child's teddy bear propped up on one of the stools. The sight of it made me feel sad. Would the child return and reclaim its stuffed pet, or would the bear languish here, its cloth rotting, its seams breaking, its every fiber of stuffing stolen away to make bird nests? But wasn’t that Nature’s way? The detritus of death ever supports the arrival of new life.
But beyond the table hung an even sadder sight -- an executed man suspended from a cross. Had he been a murder victim or a punished criminal? If the latter, who had chosen to make his place of execution a lonely spot in a cornfield?
I stepped closer. With relief, it became clear that that this was no tragedy. It was a comedy. I saw not a corpse but a scarecrow, a crude homunculus tied to a wooden frame. A small sound, a laugh, escaped my throat. Here was a scarecrow and only a few yards away was a bold crow scratching for grubs.
While turning away I heard a rustle behind me. Pivoting back, I espied no bestial night-prowler but a wandering girl-child, one who surely should not have been out by herself at such an hour.
Though the young one must have seen me plainly, she deigned not to glance my way. I watched her place a stool beneath the scarecrow, a stool like one of those around the table. Upon this she nimbly climbed, stood up, and reached out to touch the effigy’s carved-pumpkin head.
I heard myself saying, "Girl, are you lost? Do you need help to find your way home?"
As if I had not spoken, the child got down from the stool without reply and walked into the forest of corn, her steps making no more sound than a field mouse.
I stood wondering. Had I seen a living child, or was it a ghost? I went forward and put a hand upon the seat of the seat, making sure that it was wooden and not phantasmagorical. The stool felt real. Did that mean that the girl had been real also? I sighed. Poor creature. If she had been a ghost she I would not have to fear for her happiness. She would not need to fear the night nor endure the pangs of loneliness. Ghosts contentedly existed beyond the boundaries of human sorrow. Or I at least assumed they did.
With that thought still in my mind, I beheld a carmine glint upon the ground. Going to the spot, I sank to one knee and reached out, touching something small and as smooth as glass. I held this discovery up to the moonlight and saw it flash again, like a ruby in a metal setting. And it did have a setting, to which a thin, supple chain was attached. The pendant's glittering fascinated my sight.
"Go back," someone to my rear said, his voice rough and cracked.
I turned but beheld only moonlit stalks of corn. Who had spoken? Was the field haunted after all?
For no reason, a child's rhyme floated to the surface of my mind: Birdie with the yellow bill hopped upon my window sill, cocked its shining eye and said....
What did it say?
"Go back."
I looked at the crow and smiled ruefully. So that was what the birdie with the yellow bill had wanted to say!
*****
The next thing I knew, I heard the thin, weak lungs of a woman screaming.
How it surprised me to realize that I was the person making such an alarming noise.
I tried to sit up but found I could move neither my arms nor legs. Was this sleep paralysis? As I came more awake I realized I was bound by cords and tied to a frame – perhaps a rack. Was I someone’s captive?
Voices were speaking, unintelligible voices, but I listened nonetheless. Little by little, I started to understand the conversation, though not the foreign words. I mean, I heard gibberish, but meaningful thoughts began to register on my mind. Why was that so? Were these speakers projecting their thoughts, or was I a mind reader?
"Have you succeeded, wizard?" one asked. This speaker’s voice was strange-toned and hard; I drew the impression that I would dislike him if I met him.
"I believe so, Tradesman," replied the ‘wizard.’ "It is a pernicious devil, this Soul-Rider. Our spells have weakened its grip, but it it will take the determined desire of the witch herself to truly banish it. She commands great power and if her wish to be cleansed is strongly enough rooted, she will set herself free."
“Her control by a defiant demon renders her a useless asset,” said the wizard’s intimidating companion. “If she does not rid herself of it, she might as well be destroyed.”
As I listened, I began to realize that somewhere behind the curtain of forgetfulness I had formerly lived a life of my own.
What a pity that the first memory coming back to m e was that I was a murderer, that I had murdered many times over. I did not like knowing that, but I liked even less recollecting that the last person whom I had slain had been the very person that I had loved most in the world.
I began wishing that I could cover over these terrible memories again.
But I couldn’t.
#
“Do you wish to die?” the Tradesman asked me.
I was continuing to remember things, mostly bad things. I had been made a prisoner, a slave. I was told I belonged to an alien race called the Tradesmen.
My interrogators were three of these Tradesmen and the location was a nearly empty room with little in it except for chairs for the use of my self-declared masters.
All were of the same build, barrel-chested, and dressed alike. Their outfits were very utilitarian – canvas-colored suits with many pockets. The most inhuman thing about them showed in their legs, which were articulated like those of bovine beasts. I had never seen them without full-face helmets with tinted lenses to conceal their eyes. But these heavy masks had a mechanistic appearance that reminded me of breathing devices. Did these creatures have a problem with the atmosphere that seemed quite normal to me? If they had weaknesses, I wanted to learn what they were.
As their name suggested, trade was the business of this race. More than a business, trade seemed to give purpose to their existence. It seemed incongruous that emotionless beings could be driven by greed and acquisitiveness. I was still getting used to the idea that I was one of the commodities that they had in stock.
More memories were returning. I recalled that I was a powerful witch, but yet I had somehow I had been taken captive. I knew that conditions, intellectually, to be degrading, but then why I feel so strangely detached from my fate?
“You do not answer me,” said the Tradesman.
I regarded his masked face and murmured, “I’ve forgotten the question.”
He repeated the interrogative. “Do you wish to die?”
“Yes, sir, I do wish to die.”
I unable to see it, I felt the frown under his mask. “Why do some human beings value their lives so casually?”
“Sometimes humans value their lives greatly, but a change of mood can make them indifferent to death.”
“Would your mood be improved if you are informed that the demon that afflicts you can be removed?”
“I wouldn’t believe you.”
“It is true. You can be free from its influence, at a price.”
I looked off to the side and sighed. “I’m sure that I wouldn’t care for the terms you ask.”
“In that you stand in error,” the Tradesman replied. “The price shall be entirely acceptable to you.”
“You miscalculate,” I said.
“We shall see. Come.”
The three Tradesmen fell in as a group and I followed them. A short distance away was a bleak room where I’d been kept and experimented upon by human-looking wizards. It made me wonder why they used human wizards. Were the Tradesmen themselves unable to wield magical power?
If so, that might be another possible weakness.
But I saw something in the room that had not been there before. It looked like a glass coffin. “Look through the transparent lid,” the talkative Tradesmen said. I complied and the sight within sickened my heart and started my limbs quaking.
“You bastards!” I shouted.
“This is the human being you killed,” said one of the Tradesmen. “What feelings does it’s appearance invoke in you?”
“It sickens me!”
“Be more precise.”
“It makes me feel shame. I would rather die than look at it.”
“Would you continue to register shame if you were aware that the girl-child can be brought back to life?”
“Back to life?” I echoed.
“The young female may be revived. Our doing so shall be your payment for accepting a binding contract with us. If you do not, her condition shall be a permanent one.”
I looked at him incredulously. “How can she be revived?”
“It is well known to you that your foe Boneyard resurrected his own slain minions many times. Have you never wondered how the necromancer came by a spell so remarkable?”
I made a guess. “He purchased it from – the Tradesmen?”
“At a very high price. On the contrary, your master Archimage chose to spurn our offer. He continued to war with his enemy using inferior sorcery and was utterly vanquished.”
“Boneyard himself lived only a few months longer than Archimage did,” I reminded the alien.
The Tradesman, ignoring my interruption, said, “We have preserved the body in this maintenance capsule. Her bodily damage has been repaired and Princess Arielle needs only the spark of life to resume the life you took from her.”
“I am the wrong person to negotiate with,” I said.
“Our analysis disagrees. You will consent to our terms and she will be conducted to her home in safety, to live her a normal life amongst her own people.”
I shook my head, more in amazement than negation. With so few words the creature had me backed into a corner. I searched my mind to dredge up enough inner darkness to permit me to refuse.
My dark side argued that the most kindest act would be to leave Arielle dead. What did she have to come back to? What was life except a veil of sorrows? Princess Airelle had had paid the price to be free of it. If she returned to life, she the suffering would happen again. She would have to be sad again, would have to die again.
But, yet….
“What exactly do you want from me?” I heard myself asking.
“Swear fealty. Be scrupulously obedient. Be the dedicated servitor of any party who becomes your purchaser. Commit yourself to the fulfillment of his every desire for as long as Princess Airelle lives.”
“If Airelle returns to Ulik,” I protested, “Lord Pumpkin will kill her again.” The magical monster had hated the royal family of Ulik. Airelle’s father had become Ulik’s high prince only because he was only member of the dynasty that the Pumpkin had not got around to destroying.
“Lord Pumpkin is gone from the Godwheel. It is possible that he will not return in the girl’s lifetime,” the Tradesman said.
“I still don’t care for your terms,” I declared.
“But yet you will accept them.” He’d said that as a statement, not a question.
I was quiet for a moment before asking, “What if I swear falsely? Why would you trust me to respect such an odious bargain?”
“Because we know we are addressing the knight Thanasi, not the demon. Our available documentation informs us that Sir Thanasi was a man of his word. Also, you have the certain knowledge that if you do not hold to every particular of your commitments, the girl will be found by us and returned to death.”
I felt tempted to say yes, but why should I care about one single girl? Was she more important than the death of my every best friends in exchange for a long life? I had worn a practical suit of armor, but my real armor had been my utter shamelessness.
“Will you make the compact?” the masked urged.
Would I or wouldn’t I?
As I saw things, I had no choice at all.
TO BE CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 2
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APPENDIX TO THE BEAUTY AND THE BEAST
The History of Thanasi
By Aladdin
Edited by Christopher Leeson
In the mid-Fifth Century, Archimage. a wizard exile from the Godwheel, arrived on Earth to recruit fighting men. He had to form an elite bodyguard to protect himself from his necromancer brother, Boneyard. Two of his recruits were Lukasz and Thanasi, fighting men who had already demonstrated prowess amid the constant warfare that driven the Roman Empire to the precipice of its fall.
The two men began a centuried life as comrades fighting against Boneyard and his agents. Whenever they became battle casualties, Archimage used magic to place their souls into new bodies. In all that time, neither Archimage nor Lukasz had cause to doubt the nobility of Thanasi’s character or his loyalty.
Then, in the modern age, Archimage discovered that one of his band had betrayed him. Before he could defend himself, Boneyard struck. The knights were slaughtered to a man and Archimage was taken captive.
But Archimage had a contingency plan prepared. At the moment of disaster, a pre-prepared spell was triggered and the soul of the slain Lukasz was transmigrated into the body of a young divorced mother named Eden Blake. Archimage had chosen her from among many as part of his plan, for Eden was an ultra of great magical potential. Though Lukasz was shocked to awaken to life in such a shape, he grudgingly adjusted both to womanhood and the use of sorcery. He was, of course, strongly motivated to find and free Archimage in hopes of restoring his manhood by means of the latter’s vast magical capability.
Lukasz, having called his female persona Mantra, came to discover that the knights’ betrayer had been his own best friend Thanasi. Boneyard had bribed knight by offering him the ability to steal bodies at will, effectively making him immortal. But in the process, the noble warrior underwent a radical personality change. He became murderous and his attitude toward Lukasz had become one of wild hostility. The traitor professed to fear Lukasz’s vengeance and was therefore obsessed with destroying him first.
Their feud becoming more bitter, Lukasz grew committed to the death of Thanasi. He saw the rogue knight as not only a threat to Mantra’s life, but also to the friends and family he had acquired while living the life of Eden Blake.
During Mantra’s early adventures, she faced overwhelming difficulty and was approached by an alien race called the Tradesmen. They offered Mantra aid in exchange for her her next-born child. Mantra laughed and agreed, intending to never have any such child.
Lukasz, meanwhile, had learned that the spirit of Eden Blake still had connections to her former body. The two of them established telepathic communication and out of this platonic intimacy love bloomed. At last, with the help of the ultra Pinnacle, Lukasz managed to transfer his soul into the empty shell of a male clone, thereby leaving Mantra’s body in to Eden. But at the moment that he exited Eden’s body, Thanasi's soul entered it, taking control and keeping Eden’s spirit suppressed.
The two ex-knights faced off, but both were whisked off to the mega-world called the Godwheel. Arriving there safely, the pair renewed their feud.
Later, defeated in battle, Thanasi’s spirit retreated into limbo, but continued to haunt the proximity of Eden Blake. When Lukasz and Eden returned home to Earth, they made love for the first time and this resulted in an unnaturally swift pregnancy. They were suddenly the parents of a baby girl, whom they named Marinna. Thanasi, in possession of the child, magically accelerated its bodily development, becoming an adult witch who dubbed herself Necromantra. The sorceress kidnapped Eden and also her daughter Evie, intending to drain their magic and increase her own.
Lukasz, aided by Pinnacle, traced Necromantra to her lair and engaged with her. There as Thanasi’s prisoner, Eden joined in the fight but was struck down. With her dying breath, she urged Lukasz to take back her body and save both himself and Evie. Lukasz complied and the restored Mantra fought and defeated Necromantra. Mantra cast her hated enemy into a dimensional rift which led to some unknown place. The villainess vanished and Lukasz was left hoping that she was finally dead.
Nonetheless, Necromantra survived. The warp led to a medieval-style human kingdom located on the Godwheel. Left powerless from her ordeal, she was rescued from the attack of a giant snake by the intervention of a nobly-born maiden named Arielle, assisted by her father’s hunting party.
The father, a local ruler named Tavon, took a fancy to the mystery woman and Necromancer accepted his suit, but only for self-serving ends. She sought out a wizard for advice on how to regain her full power and was told that she must sacrifice an enemy, a beloved, and also a magic-user. She accomplished this by slaying the serpent, her husband, and the wizard.
Afterwards, the witch assumed authority as queen-regent on behalf of the minor Arielle. The grieving teen remained unaware that her stepmother was her father’s murderer. Necromantra’s rule was tyrannical and warlike. When the Tradesmen informed her that she had been born to be their slave, (due to Mantra’s promise), Necromantra fought back. She called up a horned demon and its attack destroyed a powerful Tradesman.
The determined Tradesman redoubled their efforts to claim their prize. They summoned a new ally, an evil artificial being called Lord Pumpkin. When his first attack on Necromantra failed, the Tradesman enhanced his power by means of a magical red jewel. So armed, his next attack was successful. To save herself, Necromantra once more summoned the demon. To empower itself, it took Arielle as a human sacrifice. Nonetheless, Necromantra was defeated and captured by the Tradesmen. The aliens took both her and the body of Aierelle away with them.
At the last scene of the mini-series, Necromantra is seen walking along a benighted country lane. We are not given to understand what this vignette represents, if it is real or if it is no more than a vision or dream experienced by the captive Necromantra.
Necromantra would reappear in three of the last Mantra stories, when Lauren Sherwood, not Lukasz, has become Mantra. This incident is retold in our story The Wounded World.
Shortly after, Malibu Comics ceased publication at the dictates of its new owner, Marvel Comics. To date, it has not recanted its decision.
When addressing plot of The Beauty and the Beast, the author set himself to the task of explaining how Thanasi could have convincingly changed from a noble knight to a vicious witch. The author pit this question directly to Mantra-creator Mike Barr, who never addressed the answer convincingly. This mystery is at the core of the present story.
NOTE: Necromantra’s appearance in the previous story The Wounded World. was an alternate-world version of Necromantra. This story places Necromantra in what we present as the original Ultraverse. We would hope that something like this would occurred if the original comic series had continued.
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