The Corpse Thieves

by Charlotte E. English

  Which was sad. And Nanda’s point was true, and chilling: the isolation of the Malykant’s life, combined with its daily horrors, had sent past incumbents quite mad.

  Konrad did not wish to become one of them.

  ‘I don’t deny it,’ he said, and it cost him much to speak those words. The consequences of uttering them came swiftly: a fever of doubt, the worst of premonitions, and vicious self-reproach.

  But Nuritov merely nodded. ‘It does explain much.’ He sipped coffee, eyes wandering back to his newspaper, looking unaffected by the revelation.

  Konrad sat feeling like a man awaiting his execution, but nothing came. No questions, no judgements, no reproaches. Nuritov said nothing, refraining from even looking Konrad’s way. His coffee and his paper absorbed him utterly.

  But it was not the avoidance of distrust, or revulsion, or reproach. The silence was peaceful, and Nuritov was as relaxed as always as he read. Konrad realised that he understood some part of the feelings Konrad was now suffering under, and probably the fears, too. He was, with the utmost sensitivity, giving Konrad time to adjust and to recover his composure.

  That realisation brought another with it: Nuritov was not just an acquaintance, not merely a colleague or a fellow member of the same club. He was a friend.

  And Konrad felt a rush of warmer, kinder feelings than those he had lately experienced. Since they brought with them an unfortunate moistening of his eyes, he was half inclined to wish them away again.

  He took a deep breath, and when he was certain he had himself under control, he spoke up. ‘In the matter of Sokol. You understand that my involvement in such cases only ever comes after someone has been… er, successful in such an endeavour. My particular arts may not be of use to you.’ He was adept at an odd array of things: communing with ghosts, coaxing recently-slain corpses to talk, unlocking doors at a touch. All useful, in the usual way of things, but of little probable assistance in an attempted murder case.

  Nuritov absorbed this with unruffled composure. ‘Still, I would be glad if you would talk to him. I fear the truth behind Sokol’s actions will prove strange indeed, and I think we are out of our depth with him.’

  By we he presumably meant the Ekamet Police. And he had a point. Konrad had encountered many oddities during his eight or nine years as the Malykant, many of which passed the ordinary citizen of Ekamet by entirely.

  And then, of course, there was Nanda. She was a Reader, which meant that she could sometimes discern thoughts, feelings, memories and such of another person, if she touched them. Absent she may be, but the day of her probable return rapidly approached. Konrad would not admit that he was counting the days — or more honestly, the hours. Entreating her assistance with Nuritov’s case would give him an excuse to seek her out at his earliest opportunity, supposing he needed one.

  And to extract her from Dubin’s company without a moment’s delay.

  ‘I will do what I can,’ Konrad promised.

  He was rewarded with a smile of gratitude, and perhaps a touch of relief. ‘Thank you, Savast.’

  Konrad wanted to thank Nuritov, too. For accepting his secret without condemnation, and for keeping it in the future, as he felt (reasonably) certain he would. For being a friend to him, whatever his reasons might be. But he was unused to uttering such heartfelt reflections and could not find the words.

  ‘Tasha,’ he said instead. ‘I would like to meet your spy.’ And find out two things: how she had come to evade the notice of his serpents, and whether she was likely to prove as trustworthy as Nuritov when it came to keeping his secrets.

  ‘I will send her to Bakar House this afternoon,’ Nuritov promised.

  Konrad stood, and found himself a little unsteady on his feet. ‘Better make it tomorrow morning,’ he suggested, frowning in irritation at his empty whiskey glass as though his inebriated state was the glass’s fault.

  ‘Morning it is.’ Nuritov grinned as Konrad wandered off, and kindly made no comment upon the swaying character of his walk as he did so.

  And so it was proved, that friends could be more soothing to the spirits than alcohol. How remarkable. Konrad reflected upon the merits of Nuritov and Nanda as he made his way home, and barely noticed the heavy snowfall, or the biting cold. For the first time in years, he felt warm at heart.

  Chapter Two

  Tasha appeared a few minutes before Konrad had planned to sit down to dinner, and she did so in a more literal sense than he was fully comfortable with.

  He ventured down the stairs of Bakar House, dressed for dinner, moving with more care than usual considering his inebriated state. The hall was empty, as it should be, but halfway between the bottom of the staircase and the door to the dining parlour the hallway felt significantly less empty.

  Master, said Eetapi. You are observed.

  Konrad turned. A girl stood just inside the front door, hands behind her back, waiting patiently to be noticed. She looked to be about fourteen winters old, and she was dressed in the neat, nondescript clothing one might expect of a ward of the police. Her dark hair was trimmed short, half concealed beneath a black cap. She watched Konrad with an air of composure he found a trifle unsettling in so young a person.

  ‘You were supposed to arrive in the morning,’ he admonished her.

  ‘No time like the present,’ said Tasha, with no trace of apology.

  Konrad squinted in her general direction. He had not heard the door open or shut, and he ought to have done, considering he was standing barely five feet away from it. ‘How did you get in?’

  ‘Kitchen window.’

  ‘And you contrived to travel from there to my front door without my noticing you.’

  ‘You’re drunk and complacent.’

  ‘You mean to imply that it was easy to evade my notice.’

  Tasha inclined her head.

  ‘Fair. But my spies. They are neither drunk nor complacent, or they had better not be. How did you avoid them?’

  Tasha hesitated, perhaps wondering whether or not to admit to full knowledge of the incorporeal, invisible serpent spirits who were presently engaged in wafting in lazy circles a few inches below the ceiling. But her eyes betrayed her: a quick upward glance, hastily corrected.

  ‘So you have spirit vision,’ Konrad commented. ‘Are you a ghostspeaker?’

  ‘Not exactly.’

  ‘Then what are you?’

  Tasha took a moment to consider her answer. Konrad expected a verbal response, but instead Tasha opted for the more dramatic approach of keeling over stone dead.

  ‘Interesting,’ he murmured, and allowed his own spirit vision to overlay his normal sight. His elegantly decorated hallway faded to stark black and white, and lo, she reappeared: a hazy, flickering outline of a girl traced in charcoal and snow, hovering over the corpse stretched out upon his hall floor.

  I am a ghost, she said, and the words reached directly into his mind, the way his serpents’ did.

  Konrad’s lips quirked with amusement. ‘That explains a thing or two.’

  Tasha drifted towards the ceiling and grabbed Ootapi’s tail, then swooped after Eetapi. Konrad experienced a moment’s alarm: had she any intent of harming his servants? But she dragged them both into an exuberant hug, ignoring their squirming indignation.

  ‘They are so adorable,’ she said. ‘But so easy to evade. You should be more careful, snakies.’

  Easy! shrilled Eetapi. Master, we take the utmost care!

  In watching the living, Tasha agreed. Not so much the dead. Don’t you think we might be interested in the Malykant, too?

  Ootapi expressed his appreciation for Tasha’s affectionate criticism (or critical affection) by unleashing a tearing hiss, and writhed violently until he unstuck himself from her embrace. She smells odd, he complained as he shot to the other side of the hall.

  ‘All right, leave my poor snakies alone,’ Konrad ordered. ‘Let’s all be corporeal again for a bit, shall we?’

  Tasha regained the floor obediently eno
ugh. Her ghost vanished, and her body twitched and began, once again, to breathe.

  ‘When you say you are a ghost,’ he ventured. ‘Do you mean you are lamaeni?’

  Tasha got to her feet, and grinned. ‘We were amused that it took you so long to figure us out.’

  Hmm. Lamaeni were a kind of vampire, but not the blood-supping variety. These were dead souls, but able to reanimate their own bodies at will. Konrad had encountered them for the first time a few months previously, when he had investigated a death at the famous circus that visited Ekamet every year for the Festival of the Dead. Lamaeni drew upon the life energies of those around them in order to feed themselves, which was tiring for the living people involuntarily providing sustenance.

  ‘No feeding on me,’ Konrad ordered.

  ‘Can’t promise.’

  Which was probably fair, for if the lamaeni went too long without feeding, the tenuous links between their souls and their bodies could be severed forever, and they would die.

  Konrad sighed. Was his headache growing worse, or was it his imagination? ‘Who sent you?’

  ‘They made me promise not to say.’ She beamed angelically and added, ‘No one wishing you harm!’

  ‘Listen here, girl,’ said Konrad in a dire tone.

  He was brought up short by a peal of laughter from Tasha, who said in between bouts of mirth, ‘You sound just like my grandpa.’

  If eight years as the Malykant followed by far too much whiskey of an afternoon were not enough to make Konrad feel about a century old, this was more than sufficient to finish the job. He glowered darkly at the still-giggling girl and tried again. ‘No feeding,’ he repeated. ‘And since you have been spying upon me and reporting my actions to the police, you will excuse my persistence when I ask you again: who sent you?’

  But Tasha shook her head. ‘Don’t be worried. I’ve done you no harm. With your copper in on the secret, he’ll be much more use to you. And he weren’t too concerned at finding out the truth about you.’

  Nuritov was sharp enough to have suspected before, of course; Konrad had realised that a long time ago. Probably Tasha’s news had merely confirmed his suspicions, and had come as no surprise. He felt a little shamed by her words, for he ought, perhaps, to have trusted Nuritov before, and confided in the inspector himself. It was true that the need to maintain his secrecy had placed obstacles in the way of his and Nuritov’s being of full use to one another before.

  He did not altogether appreciate Tasha’s taking that decision out of his hands, however, and managing the business herself without reference to him. Nor did he enjoy the idea that some third party had been responsible for sending Tasha, perhaps with this very errand in mind. He was growing tired of mysterious people taking an interfering interest in his business.

  ‘Was it my Master?’ he asked. ‘The Malykt?’

  Tasha stared back at him, expressionless. ‘No.’

  ‘The Shandrigal again?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘The lamaeni? Myrrolena?’

  ‘No.’

  Her face did not change; not so much as a muscle moved. She was far too good. Konrad abandoned his attempts at guesswork with a sigh, and surrendered himself to fate in the same breath. ‘Very well. It is hardly as though I can prevent you from trailing me around, after all. But know this: my serpents are alerted to you, and you will find them much harder to evade in the future.’

  ‘I know,’ she said cheerfully.

  ‘If you cross me, I will burn your body.’

  That gave her pause, albeit brief. ‘Understood,’ she said, and tipped her little black cap to him.

  ‘Very good. Then pray go away, and leave me to enjoy my dinner and my headache in peace.’

  Tasha bowed. ‘Don’t drink too much more. It’s always best to stop while you can still walk in a straight line.’ She watched his moderately unsteady progress towards the dining parlour with a critical eye for a moment, and then added, ‘Almost, anyway.’

  Konrad ignored that with magnificent dignity, and retired to his dinner.

  The next day dawned brighter, for it was the day of Nanda’s proposed return. The weather had not received the news, or perhaps it existed simply to be contrary, for it presented Ekamet with a fresh load of heavy snow. Konrad spent the morning alternately worrying about Nanda’s journey through such conditions, and marvelling at himself that he was once again capable of feeling anything like anxiety.

  Nanda had promised to dispatch a note to Bakar House the moment she reached home, in order to assure Konrad of her safe return. But after a few uncomfortable hours of failing to focus upon the newspapers Gorev brought and forgetting to drink his tea, he abandoned his efforts to appear composed and unconcerned and set off for Nanda’s shop.

  He trudged through the freezing snow with cheerful determination, much better pleased by the chilly discomfort of activity than he had been by the warmth and idleness of his parlour. His serpents sailed overhead, riding the whirling currents of the winds with unseemly shrieks of glee. He tried once to recall them to a sense of dignity but soon abandoned the project, for though Eetapi’s squeals of delight threatened to split his mind in two, he so rarely saw them engaged in anything that might be called fun that it seemed a shame to call an end to it.

  And in spite of appearances it did not interfere with the performance of their duties, for halfway to Nanda’s house Ootapi announced: Master. Tasha follows behind.

  I do not see how she would follow in front, Konrad replied.

  Ootapi was briefly silent. A fair point, he conceded.

  ‘Good day, Tasha!’ Konrad called aloud.

  He felt a flicker of amusement shiver across his mind in reply, and her light voice said: Good morning, Malykant. I see your snakies are more alert today.

  Konrad wondered whether the serpents’ noisy and obvious enjoyment of the weather might have been designed to persuade Tasha of their inattention, thus encouraging her into careless behaviour. He made a mental note not to underrate their deviousness in the future. ‘To what do we owe the pleasure?’ he continued. He could not sense Tasha himself, so he directed the question to the empty air, trusting that she would stay close enough to hear him even over the howling winds.

  Today is a momentous day. I wanted to be around for it.

  ‘Oh? What is supposed to happen today?’

  Irinanda Falenia returns!

  ‘That is an event of some moment to me, certainly, but I fail to see why it should prove of such absorbing interest to you.’

  You will see.

  Konrad did not like the mystery of this, for it seemed to him to bode ill. But he shook off such feelings. He was worried, and unused to the state. It was making him jumpy, and gloomy, and superstitious, seeing impending disaster around every corner.

  ‘As you say,’ he replied, with a mental shrug, and went on his way.

  He arrived at Nanda’s shop weighed down with fallen snow, and took a moment to shake out his hat and cloak. The shop — the best and most popular apothecary’s establishment in Ekamet — was closed, of course, but he went around to the back door with some hopes of finding Nanda already returned.

  She was not. The door was locked, no lights shone inside. Konrad weighed up his options for twenty seconds before deciding that the snow probably would not kill him, if he were to wait a little while.

  Three hours later she appeared.

  ‘You are late,’ Konrad told her, his words emerging oddly through his frozen lips.

  Nanda tilted her head in her characteristic expression of bemusement. She had often looked at him that way. ‘What are you doing waiting outside my house? You look like you have been here for a week.’

  ‘I have.’

  ‘Liar.’ Nanda was so swathed in layers of hat, scarf, coat and cloak that he could discern little of her face or figure, but her voice was so soothingly familiar. It warmed him to the heart, even if his body remained sadly frozen. She put down her two travelling bags by the door and unlocked it, ush
ering him inside first. ‘Go, before you shatter to pieces.’

  Konrad went. The house was as cold as the street outside, but within a few minutes Nanda had divested herself of her outdoor garments and lit the fire in her kitchen grate. She and Konrad huddled before it together, shivering in tandem.

  So delighted and relieved was he to find her hale and well and returned that his wits had gone to sleep, for it was only then that he noticed two things.

  Firstly, that Dubin had not accompanied her home. Any kind of friend or gentleman ought to have been eager to ensure that she reached home safely, particularly in such weather. Konrad would have done so himself. What manner of wretch was Dubin, to leave her to walk home alone?

  Secondly, Nanda’s demeanour was decidedly not pleased. But Konrad did not think it was merely the displeasure of having no attendant. In fact, she was contrary enough to resent such solicitude if it was offered. She stood in silence before the fire, with no news to share and no enquiries to make of Konrad. Her pale eyebrows were furrowed in a deep frown, and her thoughts appeared to be elsewhere.

  ‘Are you well, Nan?’ he said, some small part of his earlier worries unfurling once again.

  She refocused her ice-blue eyes upon his face, vaguely, as though she had forgotten his presence. ‘There was some trouble,’ she replied. ‘I was deciding whether or not to inform you of it.’

  He blinked. ‘Why would you hide it from me?’

  She sighed, and ran her hands through her white-blonde hair. The gesture arrested Konrad’s attention, for she was not usually prone to such fidgets. ‘Because it concerns Danil, whom I am well aware you do not like.’

  Danil Dubin. Konrad sighed inwardly, and put aside any fond hopes he might have been harbouring that he would not have to think about that young man again for a while. ‘What has gone awry with him? He may not be a prime favourite with me, but I would not wish harm upon any friend of yours.’ He spoke the words with total sincerity, only belatedly remembering that he had, only the day before, been cheerfully wishing death upon the man.

  He put this inconvenient recollection firmly aside.