It was not something much discussed, even in close company.  Apprentices were too cocksure to ever consider the possibility that, for all the torments they could inflict on the dead, they might someday be at the mercy of a necromancer as ruthless as themselves.  Masters of the art were too wise to bring it up, lest they put dangerous thoughts in the heads of their apprentices.  They often went to great lengths to ensure that, whatever befell them, their earthly remains would never be the subject of a summoning ritual.  There were no guarantees, of course, for a cunning necromancer could enslave the dead with a bare sliver of ashened skin plucked from the funeral pyre, a snippet of hair given to a long-forgotten lover decades ago.  This cold truth, also, was not something much discussed, but it lingered always on the mind, with every spell spoken, every grave defiled, every soul wrenched from the hereafter at our command...