The High King's Tomb by Kristen Britain
She lowered the tip of the lance to the seal. Words of command poured from her lips, words she did not know, words that were not of any mortal speech. The seal brightened until she needed to cover her eyes.
Then all at once it faded to a silvery glow, the symbols restored, the tarnish banished, and the demons on the other side cast far away into the deeps where they belonged. With that, Salvistar surged upward, beating his great wings in the air. They climbed and climbed through the darkness until they emerged into the chamber of the Hillanders. Tremors no longer racked the tombs, though many ancient, dark spirits still flooded the avenues of the dead and the castle corridors above.
“Come,” Karigan-Westrion commanded and pointed the lance at the void.
The dark spirits flocked into the chamber, a great cloud of them that obscured the light. Unable to disobey Westrion, they spiraled back into the crevice, into the realm beneath the tombs. When the last one vanished, the ground rumbled and moved and the crack closed.
To the spirits and corpses of royalty, the death god said, “Return to your byres and sleep.”
The dead receded from the chamber into what remained of the corridors.
The dust hanging in the air cleared, as though sucked away and rubble rose from the floor and reattached itself to ceilings and walls. Statues and armor righted and reassembled; cracks and chips and dents fixed themselves until no sign of damage remained. All the pieces of King Smidhe’s statue flew back together with such speed that suddenly it was in one perfect piece again, the proud king astride his horse of marble.
Karigan blinked, and found herself not sitting on the stallion, but hiding behind the column, where she had started, the book in her arms. There was no sign of the armor or the stallion, and she began to think it had all been part of a dream. Just as before, she watched the man who attacked her kneel beside her trail of blood.
“None of it happened,” she whispered, and she put her hand to her feverish temple.
“It happened,” said someone beside her.
She turned to find a ghost gazing at her and she almost exclaimed, but he drew his finger to his lips to silence her. This was the Rider of ancient times who had visited her in her dream and in the white world. His winged horse brooch glistened on his chest and her own warmed in reaction.
“Aye,” he said, “I was the third to wear this brooch, the same one you now wear.”
Karigan shivered with the weight of history, as she had when Lil Ambrioth revealed she was the first to possess the brooch.
The Rider ghost beckoned her deeper into the corridor. “I’ve seen you before,” she whispered.
“Aye,” he replied. “I am Siris Kiltyre, third captain of the Green Riders.”
As they continued down the corridor, the ghost walking but not touching the floor, everything appeared to be in its place.
“Why are you here?” she asked.
“Do you remember the question I once asked you?”
Karigan was about to shake her head “no,” but then it came to her. “You asked me if I knew who—no, what—I was.”
“Do you know the answer?”
“I’m a Green Rider.”
“That is only the beginning,” he replied. “You are an avatar.”
Karigan stumbled to a halt. “What?”
Siris Kiltyre gestured for her to keep moving. “I, too, rode as an avatar for Westrion,” he replied. “It is our gift to touch death.”
“No! My gift is to fade out, to disappear.”
The ghost of Siris Kiltyre glanced back at her, the motion a spectral blur. His eyes were the substance of midnight and deep wells of the infinite. She thought of the obsidian eyes of Salvistar.
“When we fade, we are actually standing on a threshold, the threshold between the layers of the world. That is our true ability: to pass through the layers, or it would be more so if we possessed the power of great mages. With our own simple abilities, we cannot cross that threshold, unless there is some outside influence. Like Salvistar. As avatar, you crossed into the realm of death. You’ve been elsewhere, too. Through time, even. Because of our ability, we are chosen to ride as Westrion’s messenger. We are attracted to death, and it is attracted to us.”
Karigan’s head throbbed with new ferocity. “You are dead,” she reminded him.
The ghost paused and faced her. “And you speak to me.”
“I asked for none of this,” she said. “I never wanted anything to do with the dead! And these…these tombs, and gods, and…and…I just want to go to bed.”
Did Siris Kiltyre smile? It was hard to tell, for he’d grown more transparent, his form being absorbed by the backdrop of the tombs. “You may never be asked to ride as avatar again,” he said. “Or you may be, but you will not remember.”
“What?” A wave of dizziness washed over Karigan. She just wanted to rest. Why did these dreams of ghosts keep plaguing her?
“You will not remember the destruction or the rising of the dead,” Siris Kiltyre continued. “No one will. These things were not part of the natural order and were reversed. Or maybe it will seem to you like images from a nightmare. You are, after all, injured and fevered.”
“Yes,” Karigan said, wiping sweat from her forehead. “Tired. Dreams. I knew it.”
“You will learn a necromancer walks the lands. Her abilities awakened over the summer.”
“Necromancer,” Karigan murmured, her eyelids heavy.
“And now you must hide, for the intruder has entered this corridor, following your trail.”
Karigan nodded, but to whom or what, she did not know, for no one was there. She needed to hide. She glanced about and discovered there were many empty sarcophagi lacking lids in this gallery. She did not take the time to puzzle out the why of it, but found a likely sarcophagus and climbed into it, clasping the book to her. Inside it was dark, good for hiding. She settled into its depths, thankful she wasn’t lying on anyone’s bones.
THE HIGH KING’S TOMB
Karigan roused from an uneasy doze at the sound of voices.
“That is Durnesian carpeting made by the hands of the Fifth House of Conover,” someone whined. “Over two hundred years old. How am I supposed to get the bloodstains out?”
Light glared between Karigan’s cracked eyelids. She buffered her eyes with her hand.
“Ah, there you are,” said a familiar voice. Brienne. “Not dead yet.”
“Are you sure?” Karigan’s voice came out as a croak.
“Pretty sure,” Brienne said.
Soon Karigan’s eyes adjusted to the light of the lamp Brienne bore. The Weapon, and Agemon, peered at her over the rim of the sarcophagus. It was really like being in an oversized bathtub.
“You are bleeding on the queen’s tomb,” Agemon said, his voice aggrieved.
“Queen? What queen?”
“The one-who-will-be,” he replied.
Brienne reached down to help her rise from the tomb. Suddenly there were other helping hands—Cera and Lennir and Fastion—and together they practically lifted her out of the sarcophagus. She carried the book out with her.
“You are bleeding,” Brienne said, looking at Karigan’s forearm. She directed Agemon to find some linen, which he did nearby, but not without some grumbling about having more blood to clean up.
“Looks like you’ll need stitches,” Fastion said as Brienne snugly wrapped the wound.
Karigan sighed.
“Cera,” Brienne said, “see if you can find one of the death surgeons.”
“Death surgeon?” Karigan asked in alarm. “What for?”
“To stitch you up. They’re good at it.”
When Brienne finished binding the wound, Karigan sank to the floor, her back against the sarcophagus she’d hidden in. Maybe it was all a dream. Death surgeons!
Brienne squatted in front of her. “You did well. Agemon and Iris told us everything. Rather unconventional, but it worked.”
“Where were you?” Karigan demanded.
“Good.” Karigan closed her eyes and leaned her head back against Queen Whoever’s sarcophagus. It was nice and cold. Maybe they should have left her inside so she could sleep. A blanket and pillow would make it comfortable. Seemed like she’d already done a considerable amount of napping if all her confused dreams of ghosts and Salvistar were any indication. Not surprising what she dreamed about when one took into account her resting place.
Resting place? She frowned.
“I see you found the book,” Fastion said.
Karigan snapped her eyes open. The book! It sat on the floor beside her. She placed it on her lap and flipped through the pages, which were blank. Except for one page.
Karigan eagerly scanned the pretentious script: One cup of sugar, one cup of blueberries…
Blueberry muffins? A recipe for blueberry muffins? Who would copy a recipe into a book of magic? If this were really the right book…
She struggled to stand and was able to do so with some assistance from Brienne and Lennir. “We need to find the high king’s tomb,” she said. “We can read it only in the light of the high king’s tomb.”
The Weapons gazed at one another, then at her. “Which one?” Brienne asked.
“Not Jonaeus,” Karigan said. “They tried him already. And probably not Smidhe.”
Agemon sniffed loudly.
“You have something to say?” Brienne demanded.
“The answer is easy,” he replied.
“That so?”
He raised his chin, looking supremely wise and dignified among such errant children. “There is only one high king.”
The Weapons again exchanged glances. “King Zachary?” Lennir ventured.
Agemon rolled his eyes. “Yes, yes. Of course, King Zachary. That is, unless something has changed up above that no one has told me about.”
Silence.
Then Karigan burst out, “But he’s not dead!” Paused, then in a small voice asked, “Is he?”
“No,” Brienne said.
Agemon looked down his nose and through his specs at Karigan. “The riddle stated the book could only be read in the light of the high king’s tomb. Correct?”
Karigan nodded.
“Does it say anything about the king having to be dead?”
Karigan shook her head and Agemon stepped aside, revealing a sarcophagus behind him. On the marble lid was carved a likeness of King Zachary, looking as though he were no more than asleep, a scepter clasped between his hands. A marble Hillander terrier lay across his feet. Karigan almost fell, felt like the ground shifted beneath her. Lennir grabbed her by the elbow and steadied her.
“But he’s not dead,” Karigan whispered.
“Preparations for the passing of the royal ones begin well before the great event,” Agemon said. “Yes, yes, we would not wish to be caught unprepared. Alas, we haven’t a lid carved yet for the queen-who-will-be.”
“The queen…” Karigan glanced at the empty sarcophagus behind her. She had hidden in Estora’s final resting place. This was truly bizarre.
“The book,” Fastion urged. “Let’s see if Agemon is right.”
The caretaker sniffed again and muttered, “Of course I’m right. Yes, of course I am.”
Karigan stepped up to King Zachary’s sarcophagus, indeed she had to step up on a raised platform of stone, and she gazed down on his likeness. The sculptor had captured his image truly—much better than the wax figure of him in the Sacor City War Museum. He lay at ease, noble and serene, and she wondered if the sculptor had created the likeness while King Zachary slept.
She ran her fingers down his arm, and she wanted to touch the smoothness of his cheekbone, the texture of his beard.
“Ahem.” Fastion.
Karigan stiffened and hastily snatched her hand away, feeling a heat in her cheeks that wasn’t just her fever. Instead she placed the book on the king’s chest and opened it to somewhere in the middle.
At first, nothing happened.
THE BOOK OF THEANDURIS SILVERWOOD
Karigan was about to remove the book from King Zachary’s sarcophagus and tell Agemon he was wrong when the book shimmered with pale blue light, then absorbed the illumination from all the nearby lamps until it was so saturated it seared the eyes with hot white-gold light.
Karigan staggered back from the sarcophagus shielding her eyes, as did the others.
She felt on the brink of some other world. Images assailed her, images of an ancient battle raging in which magic was used as a weapon to devastate opposing sides. Banners fluttered in the breeze, horses reared, swords clashed, arrows rained from the sky, and magical forces exploded. Amid the chaos, she thought she heard the horn of the First Rider and felt herself stirred to the call and—
The images shifted to laborers, bare backs glistening with sweat, pounding on granite blocks, cutting them, shaping them. Hammers, hundreds of hammers ringing on stone. But there was more, a rhythm, a song to it, a song of strength and binding and endurance.
The building of the wall, Karigan thought.
To her horror, sweat turned to blood as stoneworkers, still singing their song, drove knives into themselves, falling dead upon granite blocks and bleeding into them. The granite blocks pulsated with the rhythm, carrying on the song, taking on lives of their own.
Others who were not stoneworkers also came forward to give their lives to stone, hungry stone, and all the while one man watched, leaning on a staff, his face impassive. He was encircled by a black wall of Weapons.
As if he could see Karigan, he turned to her and said, I am Theanduris Silverwood, and this is my book.
When others were brought forward who struggled, who refused the knife, the Weapons gutted them, making sure their bodies fell over granite blocks so the stone could drink their blood.
And on the visions went, showing the placement of the granite, masons at work, the song and rhythm unceasing…
When the vision faded, Karigan found herself holding onto the edge of Estora’s sarcophagus, the others looking equally stunned, including Agemon, who adjusted his specs. No one spoke. No doubt the visions gave the Weapons present something to think about.
Karigan took shaky steps to King Zachary’s sarcophagus and peered cautiously at the book. Glimmering golden lettering, like fire writing, filled the pages. When she lifted the book away from the sarcophagus, the lettering faded. Hastily she returned it, restoring the writing to its full brilliance. She tried to read it, but realized it was in Old Sacoridian and gave up.
Agemon, to her surprise, joined her and flipped through the pages, the golden lettering reflecting against his face. He turned to the first page and read, “I am Theanduris Silverwood and this is my book; my account of the end of the Long War and the building of the great wall.”
“You can read Old Sacoridian?” Karigan asked in surprise.
Agemon gave her a much offended look. “Yes, yes. Of course I can. One must know it down here.”
It made sense, Karigan thought, when the early tombs included script in the old tongue.
Agemon turned his attention back to the book and added, “And I know Rhovan, Kmaernian—”
“Kmaernian?”
“Just because a civilization is dead does not mean its language cannot live on. Yes, yes, the Kmaernians live on through their words. And of course I know Arcosian, as well.”
“Of…of course,” Karigan said, regarding the caretaker with newfound respect.
Just then Cera returned with a man in black robes, masked and hooded so only his eyes were visible.
“Who am I to tend?” he asked in a low, dark voice.
Karigan shuddered and wanted to hid
“Must have encountered the real thing up above,” Fastion mused.
Karigan took the diversion to look around at everyone—the Weapons, the forbidding death surgeon, the marble King Zachary, and Agemon, who continued to study the book.
“I’m going to bed,” she announced.
Her words were at first met with silence, then a babble broke out around her, but she just walked away, right past the Weapons and death surgeon, retracing her steps into the main chamber of the Hillanders with its heroic statue of King Smidhe, and kept going, dimly aware of others following her. She was done. It was time for others to take care of the rest.
Brienne caught up and strode next to her. “You really ought to allow the death surgeon to—”
“I’m not dead,” Karigan said.
Fastion crutched up beside her. “Not quite, anyway,” he said. “The death surgeons are also menders down here.”
“I’m going to bed.”
“Do you know the way?” he asked.
“No, I don’t,” Karigan replied.
Brienne chuckled. “Then we’d better show you.”
“Yes,” Karigan agreed.
The environs of the tombs became a blur to Karigan. She no longer cared that she was surrounded by corpses. A few times she thought longingly of Queen Lyra’s bed, for the walk back to the corridors of the living seemed so long to a body that had endured so much in so short a time. Fastion and Brienne distracted her with questions about Estora and her role in the noblewoman’s rescue and about her remarkable journey back to Sacor City. Karigan answered like a sleeper, did not even know if the words that tumbled from her mouth were coherent.
She never even noticed when they left the tombs and was hardly aware of others appearing on the periphery of her vision, barraging her with questions. Colin Dovekey was there, and so were Garth and Captain Mapstone.