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.
“Sir Karigan, are you all right?” Chelsa asked.