[That kind of appraisal--what Illarion can sense of it, by ((feel)) and not sight--is familiar. He's been looked at like that, before. It's one of his earliest memories of undeath, when the Archlich had looked over the handiwork of his subordinates to verify they'd gotten their experiment right-- Had gotten a shrike who kept his out-self rather than collapsing inward to a hulking monster on being raised.

A pity he hadn't had a thought for the theory they discussed, then--his head too full of the rage and pain that accompanied new-made Unearthed back into "life". He might be better able to answer John's question now.]

I am not a good enough scholar of our own necromantic theory to say more than it is rooted in the soul, and its connection to the body. And, I am thinking, you have a better view of that than I. [He hadn't even known how many pieces his was in.

Someone did a rough job, gets a thin humorless smile out of him.] There is no offense taken. I am an experiment. Others of my breed, they may smoother examples of the craft--but I am not knowing this for certain.

[Then a pause, wherein someone alive might draw a steadying breath. He knows what he is doing, he tells himself, in giving this consent; he knows (he thinks) the possible range of consequences that might follow.]

You are welcome to try to fix what my creators have left me with.