by Paula Guran
Gorel said, “I have a gun,” and the caretaker laughed. “Who are you?” she said.
He said, “Gorel of Goliris.”
“Goliris . . . ” she said. “I have heard of it. Yes. It is said to be a great empire . . . ”
“The greatest,” Gorel said, “the World had ever known.”
Veiled eyes regarded him. “There may be,” she said. “Yes, there may be some who are buried here.”
“I would like,” Gorel said, “to find them.”
Not even death releases a prince of Goliris . . . another memory was worrying at him, a story he had once been told . . . there had once been another exile of Goliris. The caretaker said, “Perhaps we could work out a deal.”
Gorel stopped, watched her.
“I could do with some . . . help,” the caretaker said. “On a temporary basis.”
Gorel said, “What sort of help?”
Behind her shadows, the caretaker seemed to smile.
Most people, when they have finished with the business of living, are happy to remain dead. Death comes as a restful absence, an infinite nothingness in which one is free to not be, unshackled from existence. The wish to live is bound into every living thing: few welcome death, but most accept it, willingly or not. But to crave life, to desire and hunger for it beyond the grave itself, is to rail against nature, against the way of the World. There are those who hunger and crave and desire, yes. There are those who fight oblivion, seeking above all else to gain a semblance of life.
And there are . . . stages of undeath. There are levels.
And in Kur-a-len, the Garden of Statues, that mass burial ground, that vast necropolis, they were all, at some point, made manifest.
“Most of it is straightforward enough,” the caretaker said. It was night. They were sitting at a quiet corner in the Last Homily. The caretaker’s darkness seemed to grow as night fell, the shadows multiplying about her; and some of them seemed to wrap around Gorel as well, so that it felt to him as if they were sitting entirely on their own, on a vast and empty plane where no stars shone; and it made him suddenly uncomfortable, as if he had been there before, and had heard voices calling out to him; but he could not remember where or when that might have been.
“Straightforward how?” Gorel said.
“Grave robbing . . . ” she said it with a slight apologetic note.
“Really?”
“You’d be surprised. The Garden’s fame is widespread, patrolling the perimeter difficult. There are always bands of thieves attempting to find treasure—sometimes they succeed.” She seemed to smile, without much humor. “Sometimes they even get to enjoy the spoils. For a while.”
“Defenses?” Gorel said.
“An appropriate curse is put on each grave as it is dug and built. That,” the caretaker said, “is part of the service. However—”
“They weaken with time?”
“Naturally. Also, some of the more enterprising robbers may employ a sorcerer.”
“I have a cure for sorcery,” Gorel said, opening his hand, spilling bullets on the table—he had been absentmindedly loading his gun under the table. “A handful of these usually does the trick.”
“Indeed,” the caretaker said, dryly.
Gorel shrugged and collected the bullets. The caretaker said, “The more . . . elaborate structures have their own defenses. Unfortunately, those are usually the ones robbers are most anxious to get into.”
“Naturally,” Gorel said. He thought about it for a moment. “Do you have sizeable treasure buried in the tombs?”
The darkness that was the caretaker seemed to shrug. “Probably.”
“Hmmm.”
“I’m not sure I like that sound,” the caretaker said.
Gorel grinned. “Tell me more about the defenses,” he said.
“Frankly,” the caretaker said, “the biggest problem is not outside interference. The major . . . complications, shall we say? They usually arise internally.”
“The dead,” Gorel said. He was no longer smiling.
“Yes,” the caretaker said. “And right now, I have the feeling of a particular complication of that shape approaching the Garden . . . ”
A job was a job, Gorel thought. And a bullet cured most things. Truth to tell, he was tired: wearied by the events that took place in Falang-Et, by his endless journey across the World, searching, always searching for his distant home, for the truth of his exile from eternal Goliris.
It was then, as the caretaker began to outline the problem she—by dint of hard logic or numinous foreseeing, Gorel didn’t know—was expecting, that they were interrupted by two curious individuals who had suddenly materialized by their table. “Madam Caretaker,” the one on the left said. “Sorry to interrupt. We wish—”
“We wish,” the one on the right said, “to petition you once more to allow us—”
“To commence the excavations in sector three—”
“For the purpose of our research—”
“Which is, I need not stress the point, of material importance—”
“Material importance.”
It seemed to Gorel that the caretaker scowled. “Dr. Blud, Professor Deth—”
“I’m Blud,” the one on the right said, reproachfully.
“And I’m Deth,” the one on the left said.
“This gentleman is Gorel of Goliris,” the caretaker finished. “And he’s the man you need talk to from now on.”
“What? Preposterous,” Dr. Blud said.
“This man? What is his role?” Professor Deth said.
“He is the new sheriff,” the caretaker said, and the shadows seemed to smile. “Just hired.”
Gorel studied the two men as they spluttered indignation. First, Dr. Blud, on the right, who was tall and skeletal, a rare white-skin human in this world of dark-skinned men. In contrast, Professor Deth (on the left), was stumpy and fat, with skin darker than Gorel’s but a face that seemed a vivid red.
“Gentlemen,” the caretaker said, and rose gracefully from her seat, “I have work to do.”
“Wait!” Dr. Blud said. “What does a cemetery need with a sheriff?”
Professor Deth, perhaps a little quicker on the uptake, said: “Does he have magical powers? Is he a necromancer, a wraith-herd, a spirit-lord?”
But the caretaker was no longer there.
“No, no, and no,” Gorel said calmly. The gun jumped from its holster into his hand, a fine, handcrafted device with a grip of dark wood bearing the small, exquisitely wrought silver pattern of a seven-pointed star that was the ancient sign of Goliris. “But I have this.”
The two men edged back from the table, just a fraction.
“It’s only a gun,” Dr. Blud said with an unconvincing laugh.
“A mere projectile weapon,” Professor Deth said, sounding a touch more interested. He edged back toward the table. “Yes, indeed . . . a six-shot? Made in . . . ” he bent closer to peer at the gun. “The Lower Kidron? I recognize the workmanship. Quite exquisite, I must say.”
“I’m impressed,” Gorel said, the gun dematerializing from his hand. “May we sit down?” Professor Deth said and then, with a slight hesitation—“Sheriff?”
“Sheriff . . . ” Dr. Blud snorted. His companion shushed him with a wave of a short fat hand. Gorel shrugged. Like the two men, he was not entirely convinced by the title. However, he had made a deal. And the thought of finding the information he craved sustained him. “Please,” he said, waving his hand. The two men, after another moment of hesitation, sat down opposite.
“Barkeep!” Dr. Blud shouted. “Bring us some drinks.”
“What would you like, Dr. Blud?” the grave-wraith’s voice was soft, but it carried. Dr. Blud shrugged in the gloom of the bar. “Beer,” he said.
Beside him, Professor Deth looked suddenly alarmed. “Not the beer,” he said.
Dr. Blud shook his head mournfully. “I told you I analyzed it,” he said. “It’s perfectly safe.”
“He br
ews it in the dragon tomb,” Professor Deth hissed.
“The bones,” Dr. Blud said, unruffled, and Gorel suddenly realized that the tall, thin man was quite drunk, “when ground to powder and mixed in liquid, are known for their potency.”
While they were squabbling the drinks arrived, and with them the slight, tangy odor of the grave-wraith. He put down their drinks and departed in silence. Gorel took a sip from his beer. It was surprisingly good. For a moment he was torn. Then he reached into a pocket, returned with a small packet, and emptied its contents into the drink before him. He mixed it in with his finger and drank again. Gods’ dust coursed through him, and he let out a sigh.
“I . . . see,” Professor Deth said. “A true believer. Interesting.”
“Dust?” Dr. Blud said. Without asking he reached for the empty packet, rubbed his finger on it, brought the tip of the finger to his lips. “Indeed.”
Gorel ignored them, took another sip from his beer, and another, and set the mug back down on the table. “Care to tell me what it is you want, exactly?” he said.
“Gorel of . . . Goliris?” Professor Deth said, looking at him keenly.
“Goliris?” Dr. Blud said. The two men exchanged glances.
Driven by a sense of sudden urgency, Gorel said, “Do you know of it?”
“Many,” Professor Deth said after a moment’s hesitation, “have heard of Goliris.”
“Yet few have seen it,” Dr. Blud said. “Or lived to tell the tale,” Professor Deth said.
“Gorel of Goliris.”
They exchanged another glance. Something unspoken seemed to pass between them, a message of some sort. The dust in Gorel’s blood surged, making him feel light and insubstantial. “Gorel—” Dr. Blud said.
“Sheriff—” Professor Deth said. “We would like to introduce ourselves—”
“Properly, that is—”
“We are,” Dr. Blud said, “scientists.”
“Necroscientists, to be exact,” Professor Deth said. “Students of mortality—”
“And post-mortality.”
“I . . . see,” Gorel said, and didn’t. The two scientists exchanged guilty glances. “Though you must understand we did not set out originally to—”
“An accident of circumstances—” Dr. Blud said.
“A conjunction of coincidences—” Professor Deth said.
“I, for instance,” Dr. Blud said, “began my academic work in the field of archaeology—”
“A wonderful field—” Professor Deth said.
“Focusing on the Zul-Ware’i—”
“Or Ware’i-Zul—” Professor Deth said, and his companion nodded quickly several times—“War. Of course. And since there had been no survivors—”
“No survivors,” Professor Deth confirmed—”I began to divert my study—a product of pure necessity, you understand—”
“Necessity,” Professor Deth said, his big round head bobbing like a fallen mushroom—“into the field of necrostudies. And, incidentally, armaments. Wonderful weapons they had, the Zul—”
“Wonderful.”
“While my companion here, the esteemed Professor Deth—”
“That would be me,” the professor said, and shrugged—“began in the field of the human mind—”
“Studying the psyche,” Professor Deth said, with some pride. “—but unfortunately—”
“Most unfortunately—”
“At the city of Waterfalling—”
“Waterfalling—”
“Where the subjects tended to, um, terminate early on in the study—”
“Crushed,” Professor Deth said sadly.
“Smashed,” Dr. Blud said.
“Broken,” Professor Deth said. “It is the fall, you see. Impossible to survive. Which is the whole point, of course. But—”
“Quite resolutely dead,” Dr. Blud said.
“Yes,” Professor Deth said.
“And so,” Dr. Blud said. “Here we are.”
“Here we are,” Professor Deth said, and there was a short silence.
Gorel took another sip from his beer. Strangely, it was almost empty. He decided he needed to talk to the preacher again. Perhaps he could negotiate a law-enforcement discount on the dust. He said, “So what do you want?”
“What we want?”
“What we want . . . ”
There was another short silence.
“It is our work, you see . . . ” Professor Deth said, his voice a sad whisper.
“Crucial to it,” Dr. Blud said, nervously.
“We need to excavate,” Professor Deth said.
“In section three . . . ”
Two pairs of mournful eyes gazed at Gorel from their differing vertical positions, already expecting the inevitable answer.
Gorel smiled and stood up. “Absolutely not,” he said.
The necromancer-king’s funeral was still a few days away, but the dead were restless. For Gorel, the days took on a surreal aspect: in his sleep, as the wan sun rose and fell, voices babbled at him in a thousand different dialects and tongues. They pleaded with him, threatened him, cried out to him. Release us. Set us free. The nights were ink-black, the sky studded with pale stars that gave off no useful light. When he rose at sunset he ate, sparingly, at the Last Homily, took his first dose of dust for the day, and went out on patrol.
Wandering through Kur-a-len in the bleak of night . . . the statues seemed to move then, beyond the walls of mist, slowly, almost imperceptibly—an arm here, a talon there, the minute movement of a head, the opening of previously shut eyes, so that the landscape he wandered through seemed to subtly change with each pass, and he had the sense of the dead laughing at him. Whispers in the dark . . . the sounds of earth shifting, of doors creaking, of unseen things digging in the dark . . . once, he surprised the grave-wraith from the Last Homily as he was emerging from a vast and dilapidated tomb.
“What are you doing here?” Gorel growled. The grave-wraith fidgeted. Behind him emerged a small wooden cart, piled high with barrels. “I have permission from the caretaker,” he said, a little sullen. Gorel stared up at the mausoleum: it rose high above, an enormous stone head emerging through the strands of mist, and somewhere to either side of it, the tips of two enormous wings that had a curiously leathery feel . . . “The Dragon Tomb?” he said, and the grave-wraith shrugged. “The dead,” he said flatly, “are dead. Whatever they once were.”
Gorel let him go, but as time passed he became aware that other, living denizens of this mist-and-night, black-and-white world roamed the cemetery at night.
Once, for instance, in what almost felt like a dream . . . he had come upon a broken heap of masonry that must have once been a Last House of Rest. A little of the roof remained, and the shadows were deep, and he was about to go on his way when he heard a soft and painful moan arise from the shadows and, coming closer to investigate, saw one of the most curious creatures he had ever encountered.
The creature had not noticed him. It was squatting on the ground, its face twisted in pain. It was making little moaning noises.
The creature was a little like a miniature human. The skin was a deep red, the head bald save for a few tufts of reddish hair. It had a big, bulging belly and an equally large behind. It was naked save for two folds of leather around its waist, at the front and rear. As Gorel watched, the little creature gave a last, dispiriting moan, grasped its short knees with both hands, and rocked on the balls of its feet. A blast of foul air erupted from its rear—Gorel took a step back—and it was followed, a short moment later, by—
It was a large stone. Its colors were dazzling. It rolled for a moment and then lay still on the ground, adding to the strange illumination in that enclosed space. The small creature sat back with a sigh, its face relaxing. After a moment it began to hum.
Gorel stared, repelled and fascinated. The egg lay there, glinting in the light of the stars. Gorel holstered his gun slowly and said, “Would you like a cigar?”
The littl
e creature jumped on its feet, emitting a scream. It looked wildly this way and that. Clearly, it had expected no intruders here, in this abandoned, ruined place. “I won’t hurt you,” Gorel said, speaking softly.
The little creature looked up at him. It had large, round eyes that seemed to soften as it regarded Gorel. Was it some type of distant cousin to the Zambur? Gorel wondered. Did it habitually make its habitat in cemeteries? He said, “I won’t take your . . . ” it was a moment before the word formed. “Stones. My name is Gorel. Gorel of Goliris. I . . . I guard the cemetery grounds.” He thought about it. “Temporarily.”
The little creature looked up at him. Then, surprising Gorel, it reached a long, thin hand up to him and said, “Jais!”
“Jais?”
The creature nodded its ugly head. Gorel reached out and gingerly held the creature’s hand. “Are there others like you?” Gorel said. The hand felt like rough stone. The creature nodded. “Jais!” it said again.
“Many Jais?”
The creature looked uncertain. Then, as if startled by something unseen, it quickly withdrew its hand, emitted a high-pitched shriek and, picking up the stone, disappeared in a scuttle into the shadows. Gorel stood and waited a moment: he noticed several pairs of bright eyes regarding him from the shadows. He shrugged, and smiled, and nodded to them, and they blinked, and Gorel left them.
On the night before the necromancer’s funeral party at last arrived, Gorel had crested a low hill and, looking toward the horizon, thought he saw (beyond the Lake of the Drowned God; far into the more sparsely populated border area of the grounds) a great metal pyramid rising, shining a sickly green in the starlight. He stared at it, drawn somehow by the sight of the thing, sensing great power, and the black kiss pulsed through him and roared into life, and he followed blindly through the twisting avenues of the dead, but could not find it. He had gone past the Lake, where ripples seemed to form unexpectedly, and one had the sense of ethereal, moving bodies underneath the surface, of pale dead eyes watching from the depths. He had gone further, into sector eight, but could see no trace of that mysterious pyramid, though the black kiss still burned inside him. And at last, as he wove a drunken path through the structures of sector eight, he heard stealthy footsteps and, hiding in wait, saw the preacher walk slowly toward him.