‘I did what you said,’ he said. ‘So leave me alone. I got to get to the ship. So Shurq and me can sex. You’re just jealous.’
He was the only living thing in the cemetery. It wasn’t being used much any more, ever since parts of it started sinking. Sepulchres tilted and sagged and then broke open. Big stone urns fell over. Trees got struck by lightning and marsh gases wandered round looking like floating heads. And all the bones were pushing up from the ground like stones in a farmer’s field. He’d picked one up, a leg bone, to give his hands something to play with while he waited for Arbat’s ghost.
Scuffling sounds behind him-Ublala turned. ‘Oh, you. What do you want?’
‘I was coming to scare you,’ said the rotted, half-naked corpse, and it raised bony hands sporting long, jagged fingernails. ‘Aaaagh!’
‘You’re stupid. Go away.’
Harlest Eberict sagged. ‘Nothing’s working any more. Look at me. I’m falling apart.’
‘Go to Selush. She’ll sew you back up.’
‘I can’t. This stupid ghost won’t let me.’
‘What ghost?’
Harlest tapped his head, breaking a nail in the process. ‘Oh, see that? It’s all going wrong!’
‘What ghost?’
‘The one that wants to talk to you, and give you stuff. The one you killed. Murderer. I wanted to be a murderer, too, you know. Tear people to pieces and then eat the pieces. But there’s no point in having ambitions-it all comes to naught. I was reaching too high, asking for too much. I lost my head.’
‘No you didn’t. It’s still there.’
‘Listen, the sooner we get this done the sooner that ghost will leave me so I can get back to doing nothing. Follow me.’
Harlest led Ublala through the grounds until they came to a sunken pit, three paces across and twice as deep. Bones jutted from the sides all the way down. The corpse pointed. ‘An underground stream shifted course, moved under this cemetery. That’s why it’s slumping everywhere. What are you doing with that bone?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Get rid of it-you’re making me nervous.’
‘I want to talk to the ghost. To Old Hunch.’
‘You can’t. Except in your head and the ghost isn’t powerful enough to do that while it’s using me. You’re stuck with me. Now, right at the bottom there’s Tarthenal bones, some of the oldest burials in the area. You want to clear all that away, until you get to a big stone slab. You then need to pull that up or push it to one side. What you need is under that.’
‘I don’t need anything.’
‘Yes you do. You’re not going to get back to your kin for a while. Sorry, I know you’ve got plans, but there’s nothing to be done for it. Karsa Orlong will just have to wait.’
Ublala scowled into the pit. ‘I’m going to miss my ship-Shurq’s going to be so mad. And I’m supposed to collect all the Tarthenal-that’s what Karsa wants me to do. Old Hunch, you’re ruining everything!’ He clutched his head, hitting himself with the bone in the process. ‘Ow, see what you made me do?’
‘That’s only because you keep confusing things, Ublala Pung. Now get digging.’
‘I should never have killed you. The ghost, I mean.’
‘You had no choice.’
‘I hate the way I never get no choice.’
‘Just climb into the hole, Ublala Pung.’
Wiping his eyes, the Tarthenal clambered down into the pit and began tossing out clumps of earth and bones.
Some time later Harlest heard the grinding crunch of shifting stone and drew closer to the edge and looked down. ‘Good, you found it. That’s it, get your hands under that edge and tilt it up. Go on, put your back into it.’
For all his empty encouragement, Harlest was surprised to see that the giant oaf actually managed to lift that enormous slab of solid stone and push it against one of the pit’s walls.
The body interred within the sarcophagus had once been as massive as Ublala’s own, but it had mostly rotted away to dust, leaving nothing but the armour and weapons.
‘The ghost says there’s a name for that armour,’ said Harlest, ‘even as the mace is named. First Heroes were wont to such affectations. This particular one, a Thelomen, hailed from a region bordering the First Empire-in a land very distant-the same land the first Letherii came from, in fact. A belligerent bastard-his name is forgotten and best left that way. Take that armour, and the mace.’
