KARIGAN HAUNTING

“Damnation,” Karigan whispered. When and how did this transpire? She detached the cat from her thighs and set him on the floor. With a hiss he scuttled into hiding beneath one of the benches. Agemon must have disobeyed Brienne’s orders and slipped out while Karigan napped.

“Tell us, old man,” said the intruder with the knife to Iris’s throat.

“You should not be here!” Agemon cried. “You have broken taboo—you are unclean. The Black Shields shall be very cross with you.”

The man snorted. “You mean the Weapons? We took care of them.”

At least Agemon had the good sense to keep quiet about Brienne and Fastion. Unless, of course, the thug meant Brienne and Fastion. In any case, Agemon just stood there wringing his hands in distress.

“You will tell us,” said a second man dressed in the uniform of a Sacoridian soldier, “which is the highest of the high kings here. Tell us or we cut the girl’s throat.”

Iris whimpered.

“Highest of the…? Who are you people? Why have you invaded these sacred avenues?”

“Second Empire, old man, and this place is not sacred to us. Disgusting and strange, perhaps, but not sacred.”

“Spooky,” said the third man with a shudder. He wore no disguise or device. He was a plainshield, much unkempt.

“Shut up, Thursgad,” the soldier said. Then self-importantly he drew himself up and proclaimed, “We are here in the name of the empire.”

Karigan thought Agemon would faint. He actually tottered a bit, but then he spoke a string of foreign words in a commanding voice and spat at the soldier’s feet.

The man holding Iris said, “Well, well. That was not a very nice thing to say.”

The other two intruders looked as perplexed as Karigan felt. What language did Agemon speak? What did he say? And Thursgad! She remembered that name—one of Immerez’s men.

Whatever Agemon said didn’t matter. She had to do something, but in her condition she could not hope to overcome three fit-looking, armed men.

Need another way.

Trying to think hurt her head. What could she possibly do?

Agemon was pulling on his hair and there was some exchange of words, and finally he acceded to whatever demands the cutthroats made. He led them away down the corridor.

“Damnation,” Karigan murmured.

She’d have to follow, but carefully. That was the only thing she could think of to do at the moment—follow and keep an eye on them. She would intervene if they looked ready to kill Iris or Agemon. In the meantime, she hoped they’d bump into Fastion and Brienne, or any of the other Weapons who came in with them. They’d know what to do, and could easily take on the three men, even Fastion with his injured leg.

Karigan allowed the intruders with their captives to get some distance on her, then she crept from the House of Sun and Moon after them, flitting behind columns and keeping to shadows. Her fading ability might prove useful so long as she evaded the lamplight, but she didn’t want to draw on it until she had to so she didn’t exhaust her reservoir of energy. She wouldn’t mind a whiff of stallion breath about now.

She extinguished lamps as she went, as much to signal the Weapons something was afoot as to provide extra darkness for her ability to fade. The downside was the intruders would realize they were being followed should they look behind them. Fortunately this was not yet the case, for they plunged on, intent on following Agemon.

Agemon turned down one of the more ancient corridors lined with open wall crypts. They were niches, really, chiseled out of the rock wall, and most filled with yellowed bones. There were some shrouded forms, as well as empty niches, everything neat and orderly, of course.

There was less decoration in this cavelike portion of the tombs, aside from sketchy murals, some so old she could barely make them out. They were full of death iconography and the gods, with whom she was becoming all too familiar. Some of the wall art, it appeared, was made to cover Delver drawings.

She maintained her guarded distance, but by some trick of the acoustics, she could hear snatches of conversation as if the men were speaking into her ear. Agemon spoke of doom to the men, about how they’d never see the living sun again.

Thursgad, she saw, clutched something to his chest. It must be the book. The book that would bring down the D’Yer Wall. He also seemed the most nervous of the three, jumping when he came too close to an occupied crypt, muttering to himself about spirits, glancing this way and that. It did not stop him, however, from plucking gold rings and necklaces and brooches from the dead and stuffing them into his pockets.

Karigan dampened another lamp. She couldn’t get every lamp, but she left a good deal of unsettling dark behind her.

The corridor dead-ended, and she was so tired she almost laughed at the pun in her mind. A shrouded form lay in a niche there with a crown upon its breast. Karigan could not read the Old Sacoridian script carved above the niche, except for the numeral one. Hairs stood up on the back of her neck.

“This is the first high king,” Agemon said. “He is King Jonaeus.” He bowed to the shrouded figure.

The intruders showed no such sign of respect. The one who pointed his knife into Iris’ back said, “The book, Thursgad!”

Due to the strange acoustics, Karigan could hear Thursgad’s nervous breaths as he fumbled with the book. This would be a good time, she thought, for the Weapons to arrive, or even for some ghosts to lend a hand. Ghosts had helped her in the past, but of course they couldn’t bother to show up in the one place you most expected to find them.

Figures.

Thursgad placed the book on the niche shelf next to the remains of King Jonaeus. He and the others stared at it. Nothing happened.

Karigan thought of ghosts again, this time the ones who appeared in her dream. Join us, they told her. Maybe it was a message; maybe joining them was a good idea…

“Open the book,” the man with the knife ordered Thursgad. “It probably has to be open.”

Thursgad reached for it with a trembling hand.

“Nooooooooo…” Karigan said in a faint, withering voice from the shadows.

It must have filled the space around them for they looked all over for its origin. Thursgad stuck his hands under his armpits.

“Desecratoooooors…” Karigan moaned.

“The lamps!” the soldier cried.

“I told ye there’d be ghosts,” Thursgad said, his voice high-pitched.

“Shut it,” the man with the knife said. “Some trick of the air. Now hurry, open the book.”

When Thursgad refused to budge, the soldier opened it. “Nothing,” he said.

The knife man jabbed the point of his blade into Iris’s back and she cried out. “This wasn’t the right high king, old man. You’d better show us the right one.”

Agemon pulled on his hair again. “But King Jonaeus was the first. He decimated your empire!”

Karigan had to give the caretaker credit for bravery. She hoped it didn’t get him killed.

“Try again,” the knife man said, “and take us to the right king this time.”

Agemon hemmed and hawed, then resolutely led the way down the corridor toward her. Thursgad and the soldier each grabbed lamps to light the way.

A good time to fade, Karigan thought, and she turned and strode into the dark. She could not see well, but she couldn’t let the intruders catch up to her. Or could she?

She didn’t exactly like the idea, but she thought it might prove effective. She removed a shroud from a royal pile of bones and crinkled her nose, trying to remind herself of how fastidious the caretakers were.

Thursgad did not like this, not one bit. It was wrong to be here. The spirits didn’t like it, either. Aye, he, Rol, and Gare were desecrators all right, and the memory of the spirit’s voice sent another chill spasming up his spine, yet Rol seemed determined to ignore it, and Gare, though clearly shaken, chose to imitate Rol and pretend nothing happened. The old caretaker had gotten a queer look in his eye when the spirit spoke. He was probably used to spirits. He probably encountered them all the time.

After this whole adventure, Thursgad was going to take the treasures in his pockets and head west to Rhovanny. No more of this, no more tombs, no more Second Empire. The crazy old ladies in the woods were bad enough to begin with. Let Sarge call him a rustic bastard and deserter all he wanted, but he was going to have no more of this. He’d take his treasures and buy himself a piece of land on one of the lakes in wine country. Maybe he’d buy himself a vineyard. That’s what he’d do. He’d become a prosperous wine farmer and no one would call him a rustic bastard ever again.

He hoped the jewels weren’t cursed.

He kept close to Rol and Gare, unsettled at how many lamps had been extinguished. But not all, not all…It could not have been a trick of the wind. The old caretaker walked into the dark as though he knew the path by memory and needed no light. Thursgad kept his gaze plastered on Rol’s back, as if that would prevent him from seeing spirits. He didn’t exactly like seeing the contents of the niches either.

Despite his precautions, he caught movement from the corner of his eye. There was the swish of a shroud and his worst nightmare came to life when one of the corpses rose from its shelf. Thursgad screamed and almost dropped his lamp, and the others whirled to see the shrouded figure behind them.

The spirit raised a linen-wrapped hand, blotched with dried blood, and pointed at them. “Trespassersssss…” it whispered.

Gare was on it in a second, swiping his sword through the shroud. The shroud drifted empty and formless to the floor, the spirit gone.