She wanted to cry out in joy at finding something so familiar in this unfamiliar world, but her reaction was tempered by wariness. Were these Weapons like those of her own time, or had they and their loyalties changed?
Raven bunched up beside her, preparing for another lunge. “No!” she cried, and grabbed the reins. He half-reared, but she coaxed him down.
“We do not attack Weapons,” she admonished him.
At this statement, the tension of all concerned diminished a notch. Raven nudged her, seeking reassurance. Absently she patted his neck.
“At least I presume you are Weapons,” she told them. “I received a message to be here at midnight.”
One of the black-clad warriors stepped forward, lowering the lantern so it would no longer glare in her eyes. Raven tensed again.
“Enough,” she told the horse.
The man halted before her. “I am called Joff. Yes, we are of the Order of the Black Shields. If you are not who you say you are, you will not leave this place.”
“Never to see the light of the living day again, eh?” she replied.
“It appears you know the law,” he murmured, bemused. “I would like to believe you are who you say, but we must make sure. Before we do that, will you identify this man who followed you?”
Two Weapons, not in the immediate group, shoved a figure forward, guns pointed at their captive.
“Cade?” Karigan said in astonishment. “What in five hells?”
He gazed in her direction, looking dazed. Blood trickled from a split lip. “Miss Goodgrave? Are—are you all right?”
“Apparently better than you.”
“They jumped me, otherwise I’d have had the upper hand.”
Joff gazed harshly at her. “Why does he call you by another name?”
“For my protection,” Karigan replied. “To keep me hidden from the empire.”
Joff nodded, accepting her explanation. “Who is this Cade to you?”
“He is Cade Harlowe, a student of archeology who studies under the man who shelters me.” She would tell no more until she was very sure of these Weapons. It was one thing to give herself away, but Cade and his connection to the opposition? Not yet.
“He will not be permitted to leave,” Joff said.
Then there was that, the law of the tombs. The Weapons had their own interests to protect. She would deal with Cade later. Now she had to know why she’d received a message written by her captain telling her to come to this place at the midnight hour.
“We need to have Chelsa come out now,” said the female Weapon. “Chelsa can tell us if this person is who she claims.”
“Agreed,” said Joff. “Dash?”
One of the Weapons strode past Karigan to the rock wall. With the light of the lanterns, she could make out the rocky overhang and the round, iron door embedded into the granite wall with its glyph of Westrion barely visible. It was as she remembered that night of Prince Amilton’s coup attempt, the door large enough to admit a coffin and pall bearers.
Dash pressed the glyph and pulled the door open a crack. It did not creak or groan, nor did it look difficult to move. Again, just as Karigan remembered. She noticed, as he spoke to someone beyond the door, that Dash wore a sword sheathed on one hip and a gun on the other. A quick glanced revealed that Joff and the others were likewise armed. Not all things had stayed the same.
Dash paused in his conversation and opened the door just wide enough to allow a small cloaked and hooded woman to slip out. Karigan could see nothing beyond the door before Dash securely closed it, but she remembered the long, rounded corridor with its smooth granite walls that led to the avenues of the dead.
The woman clutched what looked like a portfolio to her chest. She walked boldly up to Karigan. The light revealed a young face beneath the hood, younger than Karigan, but estimating the age of a caretaker was difficult for they lived out their lives underground, and their faces remained curiously pale and unlined. The light gray cloak the woman wore was as much a uniform marking her as a caretaker, as the black uniforms designated Weapons.
Cloudy pounced off his perch on the log to rub against the caretaker’s leg and purr loudly.
“Well, hello, Scruffy. Who have you brought us?”
Scruffy? Cloudy’s real name was Scruffy? It seemed so undignified.
“I am Chelsa,” the young woman said, “chief caretaker. Dash tells me you claim to be Rider Sir Karigan G’ladheon.”
“Yes,” Karigan said. “I am she.”
“I tend to believe it is true due to the circumstances. Who else would know the Heroes Portal? And Scruffy would not have brought the wrong person, but we must be sure.”
Chelsa untied the string that bound her portfolio and removed a piece of paper.
“Joff, your light, if you please.”
Joff joined her, and the two stared at the paper, then back at Karigan. They did this a few times before Chelsa asked, “Sir Karigan, would you please remove your cap?”
She wondered what they were looking at, but complied, her braid falling back into place between her shoulders.
Chelsa and Joff looked some more.
“What do you think?” Chelsa asked the Weapon.
“It is her.”
“I quite agree.”
“What is . . . what is that you are looking at?” Karigan asked.
“It is a drawing of you,” Chelsa said. “You, or your twin.”
She brought it over to Karigan, who understood as soon as she saw it. “Oh, Yates,” she murmured.
“Yes,” Chelsa said. “The Rider who made this drawing so long ago was Yates Cardell. Buried on the Wanda Plains was he, so far from home.” Her voice was wistful.
The pain of his loss lanced Karigan anew. The drawing was a page from the journal Yates had taken into Blackveil. She’d seen some of his other drawings—one of Hana, an Eletian who had not survived the expedition, and one of a nythling creature that had taken the life of Grant, another of their companions. She had not known Yates had drawn her. It was a good likeness, she thought. He’d caught her at some unguarded moment, perhaps by the campfire, maybe before they had even crossed over the wall into the forest. He had labeled it with her name, but no date.
“I cannot believe you have this,” Karigan said, “from so long ago. My understanding is that most everything from before the empire was destroyed.”
“The last king—your king—ensured it was preserved in the tombs.” Chelsa gave her a penetrating look with a slight cant of her head. Karigan did not know what to make of it. The king had preserved it? This picture of her?
“I—I wasn’t even sure the tombs remained intact.”
“They do. For now.” Chelsa’s features darkened.
She worries about Silk’s excavation, Karigan thought, as well she should.
“But if I may say,” Chelsa said more brightly, “we are probably more in awe that you are here in . . . in our time. I confess, I had my doubts about all this, with old messages and whatnot. It is a great honor to meet you, Sir Karigan. You are rather legendary.” She bowed, and so did the Weapons.
Karigan’s cheeks warmed. “Er, just call me Karigan, please. The ‘sir’ is not necessary. It is frankly a relief to see you all. You are not from my time, but you are of my time.”
“Aptly put,” Chelsa replied.
“I would like to know,” Cade said, apparently coming out of his daze, “what this place is and who these people are.” His eyes were full of questions, and he, too, now regarded Karigan with some awe.
Before Karigan could say a word, one of the Weapons, with a deft flick of his wrist, reversed the gun in his grip and struck the back of Cade’s head with the butt. Cade crumpled to the ground.
“Cade!” Karigan cried. She thrust Raven’s reins into Joff’s hands and raced to Cade’s side. She knelt, c
hecking him, lightly patting his cheek, but he was unconscious.
“Was that necessary?” she demanded of the Weapon. “He has been studying the old ways, training to become one of you.”
The Weapon did not look remorseful. “He was not expected here. There are things he should not know. As it is, we shall have to keep him in the tombs or kill him.”
Karigan stood. “You will have to kill me first.”
THE SECOND MESSAGE, AND THE THIRD
“Please, Sir Karigan,” Chelsa said, already forgetting Karigan’s request not to use her title. “This is not necessary. No one will be killed.”
Karigan looked warily at the Weapons who now encircled her, but none made an aggressive move. Cloudy—no, Scruffy—rubbed against Joff’s leg and casually sauntered over to her, first rubbing her knee and purring loudly, then climbing onto Cade’s belly and kneading his coat.
“This man came armed,” said the Weapon who had struck Cade. “We cannot trust him.”
“He was just keeping watch over me,” Karigan replied, though she did not know exactly what he’d been up to. But why else would he have come? Whether he had followed her because he didn’t want her to come to harm or because the professor had decided he could not trust her, she did not know, but whatever the reason, Cade did not deserve such harsh treatment. She removed her jacket, rolled it up, and placed it gently under his head. Scruffy, curled up now, rose and fell with Cade’s deep, even breaths. At least the cat was content.
Karigan stood and placed her hands on her hips, giving the chief caretaker and the Weapons a good, assessing gaze. At first no one moved or said anything.
Eventually Chelsa broke the silence. “I shall ask a death surgeon to attend to your friend.”
This might have been an alarming statement had Karigan not been somewhat familiar with the ways of caretakers. In the royal tombs, death surgeons not only prepared the dead for interment but also served as menders among the caretakers. “Thank you,” she replied.
Another silence descended on the group. “I was summoned here,” Karigan reminded them.
Chelsa shook herself. “Yes, do forgive me. It is not every day we receive a visitor from the long ago past—alive, that is. Shall we go in?”
“You will permit it?” Karigan asked with some surprise. “And you will let me leave after?”
“Yes, of course. It is well documented in the past that you were permitted into the tombs and allowed to leave, although one occasion involved deceiving the chief caretaker of that time.”
Karigan nodded. She’d been dressed in the black of the Weapons, by the Weapons, so she could go into the tombs despite the taboo that forbade all from entering except royalty, caretakers, Weapons, and of course, the dead. Many Weapons spent their entire careers guarding the dead, and the other secrets buried in the tombs. Any other unauthorized soul who somehow stumbled his way into the tombs would not be allowed to leave and must spend the rest of his life as a caretaker.
“Come to think of it,” Chelsa mused, with a light, impish smile, “Agemon did complain in his log books quite a lot about the mess, as he put it, that you left behind.”
Karigan had played ghost, borrowing some royal raiment to scare the Second Empire thugs who had invaded the tombs. There had been a bit of spilled blood, too, that had required clean up. For all of Agemon’s complaints, much worse could have happened that night had she not made a “mess.”
“Shall we?” Chelsa asked, gesturing toward the Heroes Portal.
With one last look at Cade to ensure he would be all right, Karigan retrieved Raven’s reins from Joff and tethered the stallion to a nearby tree. She gave him a sound pat on the neck and told him to behave, then joined Chelsa at the door. Before they entered, Dash presented the bonewood to her with a bow.
“We have only heard about these,” he said. “None ever found their way below.”
Karigan took it with thanks, shortening it to cane length, and after the round door was opened, she followed Chelsa into the corridor she had never expected to enter again. Joff and the female Weapon accompanied them, leaving the rest to watch over Cade. Their steps thudded around them in the tubelike corridor, and when the iron door shut behind them, the rest of the world ceased to exist. There were no more sounds of small forest animals scurrying in the brush and leaf litter, no breezes rustling through the branches of the woods. Just their footsteps and breaths and the blanketing quiet of the tombs.
Chelsa let out a deep exhalation. “The air is so much better in here. It’s always a relief to come in. Outside is so—so fecund and disorderly.”
Orderliness appeared to be a desirable trait Chelsa shared with Agemon.
The corridor rose toward a round antechamber, its ceiling low. The top of Joff’s head brushed against it. Several corridors spoked off from the chamber, but only one was lit, just as on the night of Prince Amilton’s coup attempt. It was, Karigan knew, Heroes Avenue, which led to the resting places of Sacoridia’s long dead heroes, including the First Rider, Lil Ambrioth. In the chamber’s center, sat a coffin rest carved with funerary glyphs and runes. There was no coffin on it, but a pair of phosphorene lamps that lit the room.
Karigan hugged herself against the heavy cold that penetrated through her damp clothes. She hadn’t even her jacket, which remained outside pillowing Cade’s head. She shivered.
“Here,” Joff said, removing his own heavy cloak and draping it over her shoulders. “This will not be the first time you’ve worn our black.”
“Thank you,” she said. “It is not.” She wrapped the cloak around her, grateful for its warmth. Yes, she reflected, these people were not from her time, but of it. They knew the past in a way that the professor never would from the bits and pieces of artifacts he dug up. These people lived the past.
“Serena,” Chelsa said, and the female Weapon stepped forward. “Could you please fetch one of the surgeons to tend Sir Karigan’s friend?”
The Weapon nodded, and headed down the lit corridor at a trot. Joff, meanwhile, produced a pair of chairs from down the corridor and brought them to the coffin rest so Karigan and Chelsa could sit. He then posted himself by the wall.
Chelsa placed her portfolio on the coffin rest.
“How have you survived all these years?” Karigan asked as she seated herself.
Chelsa smiled, and when she pushed her hood back, it revealed that she was indeed young looking, and not just on account of the non-wrinkling properties of the tombs. There was a freshness of spirit to her that Karigan did not expect in a caretaker. Not that she was any judge—she’d only met a couple, but she’d expected them all to be like Agemon, every one of them sepulchral in disposition.
“Secrecy, of course,” Chelsa replied, “and we’ve always had Helpers on the outside. From the days of our very origins.”
“Even now with the empire?”
“Even so. The bonds with our Helpers are very close, and those who share our secret are very few. Now and then one of our Weapons will venture into the city seeking news and supplies. We watch for any who might come too close, or grow too curious. We have, on occasion, added to our population when we’ve had cause.”
Karigan did not know, even in her own time, how many caretakers lived in the tombs. She had been told there was a “village,” and that from time to time the Weapons had tried to transfer families to above, but it rarely proved successful. It went against everything the people had learned about not seeing the living light of day. She could well imagine the shock of moving from the quiet of the tombs to the hectic, thriving world above.
“We live as we always have,” Chelsa continued, “governing ourselves and caring for the dead. We are no more, and no less, than we ever were.”
“But how have you managed?”
“By honoring our traditions. Traditions allow us to maintain our culture, the stability of our society.”
“Yours is a world within a world,” Karigan said.
Chelsa nodded. “That is it exactly. We have our traditions and laws. Magicks set in place by the first caretakers ensure that our population remains diverse and at a manageable level, so we don’t exceed our capacity, our resources. With the advent of the empire, however, we have had to make some changes.”
Karigan, pleasantly warmed by Joff’s cloak, was intrigued. Caretaker society was usually as secretive as the tombs themselves. “Such as?”
“Well, we’ve received no new royal dead in many generations, our last being Prince Amilton from your time period. We were never able to locate King Zachary’s remains, and Queen Estora vanished from the world, so some of our people have turned from the funerary arts to other disciplines.”
Karigan closed her eyes and tried to steady her breathing. She kept forgetting that, in this time, Zachary was gone and should have been interred here, in the tombs, not so very far from where she sat. She shuddered, not from the penetrating chill of the tombs, but from her sudden image of him, lying dead, his flesh pale and cold. Before she could stop herself, she saw him, in her mind’s eye, laid out on this very slab of stone before her, prepared for interment in a sarcophagus long made ready for him.
But the caretakers had not received his remains. He was not here, his body likely desecrated by the enemy, forever lost. Would his death be more real to her if he was here? How could it be worse than her horrible visions of his desecrated corpse?
The difference was reality. A body would have been undeniable proof that he was gone. Dead. Lost to her. As terrible as the thought of desecration was, the absence of his remains made his death more abstract, intangible, left an edge of . . . of what? Hope? An increment of hope despite the damning record that was the diary of Seften, so lovingly preserved in the professor’s library?
She passed her hand over her eyes. He is still alive to me. I can’t accept any of it.