Mayen stepped back and Trull edged forward.
Side by side, they entered the House of the Dead.
A mass, a hunched shape, covered in wax like peeling skin, revealing the glitter of gold coins, slouched down at the foot of the stone platform, face lowered, forehead on knees, arms wrapped tight about shins but still holding the sword. A mass, a hunched shape, voicing endless shrieks.
The slave Udinaas stood nearby. He had been carrying a cauldron of wax. It lay on its side two paces to the Letherii’s left, the wax spilled out amidst twigs and straw.
Udinaas was murmuring. Soothing words cutting beneath the screams. He was moving closer to the shape, step by careful step.
Fear made to start forward but Trull gripped his upper arm and held him back. He’d heard something in those shrieks. They had come to answer the slave’s low soothings, defiant at first, but now thinning, the voice filling with pleading. Strangled again and again into shudders of raw despair. And through it all Udinaas continued to speak.
Sister bless us, that is Rhulad. My brother.
Who was dead.
The slave slowly crouched before the horrid figure, and Trull could make out his words as he said, ‘There are coins before your eyes, Rhulad Sengar. That is why you can see nothing. I would remove them. Your brothers are here. Fear and Trull. They are here.’
The shrieks broke then, replaced by helpless weeping.
Trull stared as Udinaas then did something he did not think possible. The slave reached out and took Rhulad’s head in his hands, as a mother might an inconsolable child. Tender, yet firm, the hands slowly lifted it clear of the knees.
A sobbing sound came from Fear, quickly silenced, but Trull felt his brother tremble.
The face – oh, Father Shadow, the face .
A crazed mask of wax, cracked and scarred. And beneath it, gold coins, melded onto the flesh – not one had dislodged – angled like the scales of armour around the stretched jaw, the gasping mouth.
Udinaas leaned closer still, spoke low beside Rhulad’s left ear.
Words, answered with a shudder, a spasm that made coins click – the sound audible but muted beneath wax. A foot scraped across the stone flagstones surrounding the platform, drew in tighter.
Fear jolted in Trull’s grip, but he held on, held his brother back as Udinaas reached down to his belt and drew out a work knife.
Whispering; rhythmic, almost musical. The slave brought the knife up. Carefully set the edge near the tip alongside the coin covering Rhulad’s left eye.
The face flinched, but Udinaas drew his right arm round into a kind of embrace, leaned closer, not pausing in his murmuring. Pressure with the edge, minute motion, then the coin flashed as it came loose along the bottom. A moment later it fell away.
The eye was closed, a mangled, red welt. Rhulad must have sought to open it because Udinaas laid two fingers against the lid and Trull saw him shake his head as he said something, then repeated it.
A strange tic from Rhulad’s head, and Trull realized it had been a nod.
Udinaas then reversed the position of his arms, and set the knife edge to Rhulad’s right eye.
Outside was the sound of a mass of people, but Trull did not turn about. He could not pull his gaze from the Letherii, from his brother.
He was dead. There was no doubt. None.
The slave, who had worked on Rhulad for a day and a night, filling mortal wounds with wax, burning coins into the cold flesh, who had then seen his charge return to life, now knelt before the Edur, his voice holding insanity at bay, his voice – and his hands – guiding Rhulad back to the living.
A Letherii slave.
Father Shadow, who are we to have done this?
The coin was prised loose.
Trull pulled Fear along as he stepped closer. He did not speak. Not yet.
Udinaas returned the knife to its sheath. He leaned back, one hand withdrawing to settle on Rhulad’s left shoulder. Then the slave pivoted and looked up at Trull. ‘He’s not ready to speak. The screaming has exhausted him, given the weight of the coins encasing his chest.’ Udinaas half rose, intending to move away, but Rhulad’s left arm rustled, hand sobbing away from the sword’s grip, coins clicking as the fingers groped, then found the slave’s arm. And held on.
Udinaas almost smiled – and Trull saw for the first time the exhaustion of the man, the extremity of all that he had gone through – and settled down once more. ‘Your brothers, Rhulad,’ he said. ‘Trull, and Fear. They are here to take care of you now. I am but a slave-’
Two coins fell away as Rhulad’s grip tightened.
‘You will stay, Udinaas,’ Trull said. ‘Our brother needs you. We need you.’
