Page 29 of House of Dusk
He halted, waiting for her to catch up. “Sister, do you ever wonder who you might have been? Before?”
She huffed. “No.” A pale coil of smoke threaded the sky ahead. Finally. “There’s the village,” she said, before he could come up with any more questions. “Let’s see if we can find someone to show us this body.”
• • •
The village tomb keeper, Deucalion, was a surprisingly jolly man with a long, thin face and a round belly, giving the impression of a soup ladle. Sephre recalled him from her last visit, though she doubted he would remember her, given that she’d spent most of the time lurking in Abas’s shadow. “Been a good seven years since we had an ashdancer come through,” he said, as he led them up the stone steps to the mouth of the tomb. Like many of the hill villages, Potedia made use of natural caves to keep their dead. The entrances had been expanded, carved with decorative lintels bearing the images of the four children of Chaos, the first of the gods. Even the Serpent, Sephre noted, as they passed beneath the heavy stone and into the gloomy chamber within. The carvings must be very old, indeed.
“Sibling Abas, that was their name,” Deucalion said, as he passed beneath the carved gods. “Good one, there, did right by us. Insisted on the fourfold blessing, even though it meant staying up until midnight and waking at dawn. Three of our corpses fell to ash not a week later. I hope the sibling is well?”
“Well enough,” said Sephre. “They’ll be pleased to hear that you remember them.”
Deucalion frowned at her, then jabbed a finger. “You. You were their novice.”
She could feel Timeus eyeing her curiously. She cleared her throat. “Yes. That was me. It was my first patrol.”
“And now you’re back with a novice of your own.” Deucalion smiled affably toward Timeus. “You can be sure we appreciate the honor of your visit.”
She hoped he would still feel that way after they had completed their work.
“I was just about to move him into one of the deeper chambers. He’s been washed and bound already, as you see.”
He gestured to the plinth in the center of the dim room. It was late afternoon, but the bright golden sunlight hovered warily at the threshold, as if it knew it didn’t belong in this place of death. “Just a moment,” he said. “I’ll light the torches.”
“No need,” Sephre said, cupping her palm, calling to the flame within her.
It surged up, bright and hungry, leaping tongues licking the stone ceiling.
“Whoa!” Deucalion retreated, shielding his eyes. Even Timeus took a step back.
What was that? Sephre frowned at the overeager sparks in her hand. Was it because they were in the tomb? Could the flames sense the presence of something baleful? She scanned the dark passages that led inward, deeper into the hillside.
“Are there many other corpses here?” she asked.
“Seven,” said Deucalion, still giving her a wide berth as she moved to light the torches, filling the room with leaping golden light. “The oldest has been here twenty years. She was one of my first.”
Twenty years. A long time to wander. But some souls carried greater burdens. And only when they had sloughed them off would they be free of the labyrinth. Only then would their bodies fall to ash, as the Phoenix carried their spirit into the world once more.
Unless something else found them first. Sephre swallowed hard. “So you’ve been the tomb keeper since then?”
He nodded. “Most folk don’t care for handling the dead, but seems to me it’s cleaner work than farming or fishing. Like Castor here. Barely a mark on him, aside from the bite.”
Sephre turned back to the shrouded corpse, steeling herself, holding the flame close. “Your report said he died of a snakebite?”
“Yes. Definitely.” Deucalion moved to the side of the plinth, gesturing to what Sephre took to be the legs. The linen was tightly wound round the body, and there was a sharpness in the air she thought might be rosemary oil. It wasn’t enough to conceal the softer scent of rot beneath.
“They found him with his flock,” the tomb keeper continued. “He was a shepherd, like his mother and grandmother before him. They’re gone to ash now, but he has a sister in the village.”
Sephre made a mental note to talk to the woman. But she had other work, first.
The holy flame gifted an ashdancer more than just the means to burn corruption. It could also reveal the unseen.
She sliced her hands through the air, two mirroring arcs, tracing streaks of flame to form the shape of an eye that remained even as she lowered her hands. Timeus gasped. “What is it?”
“An oculus. It lets an ashdancer see spirits.” Sephre peered through the glimmering ring, searching the linen-wrapped corpse. But there was nothing, no hint of any uncanny gleam. “The spirit’s gone.” Which meant they could gain no answers from Castor himself. And that the corpse lay open for something else to claim it.
The back of her neck prickled, as if she was being watched. Sephre glanced uneasily toward the tunnels. She let the oculus die, but kept a handful of sparks ready in her palm.
“So you’re done, then?” asked Deucalion. “If the spirit’s passed into the labyrinth, you can’t do anything more, surely.”
