“Yes, yes,” Agemon murmured. “Do what Black Shields do. I shall tend the dead.”
Brienne took a deep breath and exhaled slowly as though schooling her patience with the caretaker. “You will go to the House of Sun and Moon and remain there. Karigan will look after you till we return. Do you understand?”
Agemon finally took notice of Karigan. “She looks ready for the death surgeons,” he said. “The king should not have taken away our Black Shields.”
“Do you understand?” Brienne asked, with an edge to her voice.
Agemon waved her off. “Yes, yes. House of Sun and Moon. We’ll await you there.”
Brienne gazed at Karigan expectantly.
“I understand,” Karigan said. She hoped Brienne and Fastion found the intruders quickly so this ordeal would soon end. The two melted down the main corridor, which left her with Agemon, Iris, and the fresh corpse. For some reason, fresh corpses did not bother her as much as the old ones.
Agemon turned to her. “I remember you. The black uniform does not fool me. Yes, you were in green. Yes, yes. Touched the First Rider’s sword. Defiled it, you did. I do not believe you are a Black Shield. It is not possible.”
“Now—” Karigan started.
“Oh, no. Just not possible. You will not leave the tombs this time. You have broken taboo.”
Karigan was so tired that she lacked Brienne’s patience. The last thing in the world she’d ever allow to happen to her was becoming a caretaker, stuck in the tombs for the rest of her life. “Wrong,” she said, and on a hunch, she drew Brienne’s sword just enough to clear a portion of the blade of the sheath.
Agemon looked down at the floor. “I’m…I’m sorry. I will not doubt you again.”
There was a band of black silk wrapped around the blade just below the guard, which designated the sword’s bearer as a swordmaster. Most swordmasters entered the king’s service as a Weapon, like Brienne, accepting duty either in the tombs or above ground. Without it, Karigan would be clearly identified as a fraud. She had hoped that since Brienne was a swordmaster, the extra sword she lent Karigan would have the silk and, to her vast relief, it did.
Karigan let the sword slide back into its sheath. “We are going to the House of Sun and Moon,” she said, “just as Sergeant Quinn ordered.”
“I…I just want to cover Charles,” Agemon said.
“Do so quickly.”
Agemon scurried to the back of the chamber and delved into a bureau. He withdrew a linen shroud.
Convenient, Karigan thought. But not surprising.
As it turned out, Agemon wanted not only to cover Charles’ body, but to position it just so and tuck the shroud neatly around him as though making a bed.
“We’ve no time,” Karigan said, tugging on his sleeve. “You will have to see to him later.”
Agemon looked upon the shrouded body with regret, adjusted his specs, and held out his hand for the girl, Iris. “Come, child. The Black Shield wants us to leave. We’ll come back later and care for him properly.”
Karigan swallowed hard at being called a Black Shield, feeling more than ever like a fraud.
Iris grasped Agemon’s hand and together they stepped out into the corridor, leading Karigan into a branching passage where there were yet other chambers of the dead. What a grim place for children to grow up in, she thought, but Iris strode beside Agemon unafraid and unaffected by her surroundings.
Where did the children play? Did they play? How were they schooled? Did everything in their lives center around the dead?
The last time Karigan was in the tombs, she was told that every now and then the Weapons attempted to move caretaker families above ground where they might carry on a normal life, but the families did not adjust well, for it went against everything they believed in about not seeing the sun. For them, death was part of everyday living, and it was ingrained in them to tend the dead.
“Will Uncle Charles go to the heavens?” Iris asked Agemon.
“Yes, child. The Birdman will take him. Once we’ve done the rites, all will be well.”
Iris brightened at this assurance. “I shall miss him, but I am glad he’ll be with the gods.”
“I wonder what music he would like at the ascension ceremony,” Agemon said.
Iris started giving him suggestions. It sounded like they were planning a party, not a funeral. Karigan rubbed her temple and tried to stay alert for the intruders, but nothing besides the three of them moved.
Soon Agemon halted at what looked like a chapel excavated right out of the bedrock. It was not large, but was carved with the signs of the gods and death and the heavens. Lamps glowed behind two stained glass windows, one depicting the rising sun and the other showing the crescent moon surrounded by stars. Statues of Aeryc and Aeryon gazed at one another across the doorway.
“Is this it?” Karigan asked. “The House of Sun and Moon?”
Agemon nodded.
“Stay here,” she said, and she stepped inside to make sure intruders were not hiding within, but she found only six curving benches of burnished oak and lit candles on the altar. Behind the altar was a mosaic of Aeryc and Aeryon holding hands, and throughout the chapel was the recurring motif of sun and moon. There were several wall crypts, the most prominent of them housing King Hardell the Third and Queen Auriette. All of the integrated Aeryc and Aeryon symbols made sense, for Queen Auriette had been a princess of Rhovanny before marrying King Hardell.