“You get used to it. Sleeping in there and … everything else, around here.” He leads me onward, and I hear faint snatches of what sounds like tense conversation somewhere ahead. “Qabr is what the locals call this stretch of crypts. But more generally, back home, we’d say we’re somewhere in eastern Nyripk.”
I trail him dazedly down a narrowly carved set of stairs until we reach the rocky chasm floor. Nyripk. As north as it gets. More than six thousand miles from Solivagus.
We draw closer to the voices ahead, some of which are clearly raised in argument. At first I think they’re speaking a language unknown to me, but eventually I start to pick out words. It’s Vetusian. A form of it, anyway. Thickly accented and filled with parts that don’t sound right at all, but I can grasp a little as I slow and try to focus on the conversation. “What’s going on?”
“I’m not sure yet. But if it’s what I suspect, I’m going to need to go outside. Which means that you should come with me because the Qabrans are …” He sighs. “Let’s just say they take a while to warm to outsiders.”
“Alright,” I say uneasily.
The murk ahead clears enough to reveal the shapes of at least a dozen men and women crowded around something. The debate between them is hushed, but no mistaking the strain of anxiety to it. They as one wear loincloth-like skirts similar to mine, scarab amulets attached firmly around their throats by thin collars, and nothing else.
I avert my gaze, flushing slightly. “Anything I can do to help?”
“Keep your hands by your side. It’s important they can see your chest. Do you know any Vetusian?”
“A little.”
“That’s good, but don’t try and communicate with them unless you think you have to. They won’t take kindly to it. Wait here.” He slows, just for a second, as he looks across at me. “And … just … don’t panic, alright?”
He bares his teeth in a rueful grimace and before I have a chance to respond to the worrying request, hurries forward.
My eyes are beginning to adapt; even in the dim I can see the stares of the crowd as they notice Caeror’s approach and then, one by one, me. The worried chattering stops. Stony, nervous faces are fixed in my direction. Several of the group hold edged weapons tightly at their sides.
On the ground in their midst is an entirely naked man, the only one unmoving. Sightless eyes are fixed on the distant cracks of light above. A massive dark smear stains his chest.
“Did you see it?” Caeror’s Vetusian snaps out, breaking the stillness and drawing the crowd’s attention back to him. He appears to be in charge, or at least an authority when it comes to whatever has happened here.
“He was running. Near side of Duat, in the valley. We don’t know where to, but he must have come from the city.” The reply is from a younger man. Thin, hard eyes and a wispy beard. Not more than a few years older than me. “TheGleaner chased him down, used its blades, and left him. That means he gave it something important.”
“Or that he’s infected. They know we watch that area.” Caeror’s statement is greeted with a mutter of agreement. “How long has he been dead?”
“Almost three hours.” The man holds up a scarab medallion, just like the ones we’re all wearing. “We found hiskhepridiscarded nearby, but we didn’t want to risk putting it back on.”
Caeror’s grimace is barely visible. “It was the right choice. We don’t have enough time to move him again, though, and we don’t know anything about him. I think it’s too dangerous.”
A rumble of disagreement. “We need anotherpurgatius.”
Caeror doesn’t like it, but seems to relent. “Have the Gleaners started a sweep?”
“Not that we saw.”
As the conversation has progressed, I’ve been intensely aware of people’s gazes darting at me. Faces sunburned and dirty, bodies uncomfortably thin. I remember Caeror’s warning, and though I don’t understand it, keep my hands by my sides.
Ulciscor’s brother acknowledges the young man’s statement, waving aside the nearest of the crowd and kneeling by the corpse. He draws a strip of cloth from his pocket and binds the body’s wrists together behind its back. Gently, but he checks the strength of the knot three times. Then he uses another strip to form a blindfold over its sightless eyes.
Once he’s done, Caeror breathes deep and places his hand on the corpse’s forehead. His face is a mask of concentration.
His eyes flood to black.
With a rasping gasp, the dead man sits up.
V
“SO,” CALLS CAEROR OVER HIS SHOULDER WITH WHAT Iam quickly coming to recognise as his default good humour. “Impressed, or terrified?”
It’s been minutes since he somehow brought the corpse back to life. Minutes since he argued, almost violently, with the others before hurriedly fetching light cloaks for himself and me, and marching us away. Since then, we’ve been walking the gloom of the chasm floor, me paces behind, after Caeror apologetically insisted he first had to speak to the dead man. They’ve been conversing in hushed Vetusian, whispers consumed by the hundreds upon hundreds of shadowed tombs we’ve passed, ever since.
“Can I be both?”
