Page 17 of House of Dusk

SEPHRE

“G ran never really liked honey cakes, but the tomb keeper told us that honey was best because bees are messengers from the spirit world,” said Timeus, trotting up the trail with the boundless energy of a young goat.

Sephre squinted ahead, hoping to spot a twist of smoke. Something to indicate they were nearing the village. Her knees had begun to twinge unhappily with the seemingly endless ascent. If she hadn’t been such a prideful fool, she might’ve put the cookpot in Timeus’s pack.

She still didn’t understand Halimede’s decision to send the boy with her. Why not one of the initiates? Timeus had no flame. No way to guard himself, if another skotos came for her. It would be up to Sephre to keep him safe.

Maybe that was the point. Halimede wanted Sephre to know that she trusted her. That she was counting on her to bring the novice back to the temple unharmed.

“I must have mixed the batter wrong, though, because they just turned into sticky rocks,” Timeus prattled on with the earnest enthusiasm of someone utterly convinced that he was speaking to a rapt audience.

“Then I tried to hide them in the trash heap, but ants found them and the whole back wall of our apartment was black with them.” He made a face.

So did Sephre, but that only seemed to encourage him to continue.

“Mother forbid me to make any more of the grave gifts, but she fell to ash the next day anyways. Mother said it was because Gran lived a virtuous life, but Rhea said it was because she didn’t want to face any more of my baking.

” He gave a rueful laugh. “It’s funny how it can take years for some spirits to be reborn, and others take only days.

Mother said it took Granddad a full year because he was so sour over his brother stealing his recipe for goldenrod dye, and he refused to move on until Uncle Dymos burned ten bundles of his finest yellow cloth as a grave offering. ”

Sephre responded with a grunt, partly because she had no breath to spare, partly because she didn’t really want to think about it. How long she herself might wander those gloomy pathways.

“I guess holding a grudge isn’t that bad, though.

I mean, compared to other things,” Timeus went on.

“It must be even harder when you’ve done really bad things.

Do you think it’s true? That—” He lowered his voice,”—that the skotoi can sense sinful spirits?

That they hunt down all the murderers and traitors and. ..cowards?”

Sephre paused to catch her breath, and to fix the boy with a sharp look. The question had an edge of worry that was too personal. “We don’t know anything for certain.”

He continued to watch her hopefully. And she was his teacher, now, Fates help him.

Fine. She remembered the lessons well enough.

“The teachings say that you need to give up your burdens—your hates and regrets and fears—in order to find your way through and be reborn. But we can also set those burdens aside in this life.” She ought to be ashamed of herself, giving the boy advice she herself followed so poorly.

“And we can help others. Our holy flame can cleanse the spirits of the dead. Protect them from the skotoi.”

Timeus bounded up a shelf of stone, then turned to offer Sephre his hand to tug her up. “Like that girl from Tylos?”

“What?” Sephre stumbled as she clambered up. “What about the girl from Tylos?”

Timeus flushed. “I know. I shouldn’t listen to gossip. But the other novices were talking about it. How Sister Beroe gave her the invocation of merciful flame, and then the crypt was empty this morning. Her spirit has already been reborn!”

Sephre grunted, clamping down on a wriggle of guilt in her belly.

She had told Halimede the truth. If the agia chose to let the rest of the temple believe a more pleasant lie, who was she to argue?

She certainly didn’t want to have to explain to the poor girl’s family that her corpse had actually been stolen by a demon from the netherworld, her spirit annihilated.

Even Beroe’s invocation hadn’t been enough to guard her from that fate.

The thought was a lance in her chest. She hoped they would find answers in Potedia.

Something—someone—behind all this. Maybe Halimede’s stranger with striking green eyes.

She’d prefer an enemy she could fight straight on.

There were too many secrets. Too much she didn’t know.

What was it that Halimede had sworn to protect from the Ember King? And why? To prevent a second cataclysm.

One had been bad enough. It had happened three centuries ago, but the signs of the upheaval were everywhere.

As a girl, Sephre had loved to explore the tumbled ruins not far from her village, finding treasures there: shards of broken pottery glazed in crimson and black, etched with fanciful creatures.

Glass beads. An arrowhead shaped like a hawk.

She’d kept searching, until the day she found something smooth and gray, half buried in the ashy soil.

When she uncovered it fully, the eye sockets stared up at her accusingly, as if the skull were offended by her living touch.

And perhaps it was. It should have fallen to ash long ago.

Unless the spirit bound to it was still within the labyrinth.

Still wandering, unable to escape to be reborn.

She’d shoved dirt back over the thing, and left it, and had nightmares for a month.

Sephre hastened after Timeus, whose long legs ate up the trail, making her feel like a beetle trundling after a grasshopper. At least he didn’t seem to notice her silence, too busy spilling out his own thoughts.

“My mother says Helissoni spirits are always reborn in Helisson, but I don’t know if that really makes sense. How would a spirit know? Especially if they forget everything from their previous life? And besides, it’s the Fates who decide where to send them.”

He halted, waiting for her to catch up. “Sister, do you ever wonder who you might have been? Before?”

She huffed. “No.” A pale coil of smoke threaded the sky ahead. Finally. “There’s the village,” she said, before he could come up with any more questions. “Let’s see if we can find someone to show us this body.”

· · ·

The village tomb keeper, Deucalion, was a surprisingly jolly man with a long, thin face and a round belly, giving the impression of a soup ladle.

Sephre recalled him from her last visit, though she doubted he would remember her, given that she’d spent most of the time lurking in Abas’s shadow.

“Been a good seven years since we had an ashdancer come through,” he said, as he led them up the stone steps to the mouth of the tomb.

Like many of the hill villages, Potedia made use of natural caves to keep their dead.

The entrances had been expanded, carved with decorative lintels bearing the images of the four children of Chaos, the first of the gods.

Even the Serpent, Sephre noted, as they passed beneath the heavy stone and into the gloomy chamber within. The carvings must be very old, indeed.

“Sibling Abas, that was their name,” Deucalion said, as he passed beneath the carved gods.

“Good one, there, did right by us. Insisted on the fourfold blessing, even though it meant staying up until midnight and waking at dawn. Three of our corpses fell to ash not a week later. I hope the sibling is well?”

“Well enough,” said Sephre. “They’ll be pleased to hear that you remember them.”

Deucalion frowned at her, then jabbed a finger. “You. You were their novice.”

She could feel Timeus eyeing her curiously. She cleared her throat. “Yes. That was me. It was my first patrol.”

“And now you’re back with a novice of your own.” Deucalion smiled affably toward Timeus. “You can be sure we appreciate the honor of your visit.”

She hoped he would still feel that way after they had completed their work.

“I was just about to move him into one of the deeper chambers. He’s been washed and bound already, as you see.”

He gestured to the plinth in the center of the dim room. It was late afternoon, but the bright golden sunlight hovered warily at the threshold, as if it knew it didn’t belong in this place of death. “Just a moment,” he said. “I’ll light the torches.”

“No need,” Sephre said, cupping her palm, calling to the flame within her.

It surged up, bright and hungry, leaping tongues licking the stone ceiling.

“Whoa!” Deucalion retreated, shielding his eyes. Even Timeus took a step back.

What was that? Sephre frowned at the overeager sparks in her hand. Was it because they were in the tomb? Could the flames sense the presence of something baleful? She scanned the dark passages that led inward, deeper into the hillside.

“Are there many other corpses here?” she asked.

“Seven,” said Deucalion, still giving her a wide berth as she moved to light the torches, filling the room with leaping golden light. “The oldest has been here twenty years. She was one of my first.”

Twenty years. A long time to wander. But some souls carried greater burdens. And only when they had sloughed them off would they be free of the labyrinth. Only then would their bodies fall to ash, as the Phoenix carried their spirit into the world once more.

Unless something else found them first. Sephre swallowed hard. “So you’ve been the tomb keeper since then?”

He nodded. “Most folk don’t care for handling the dead, but seems to me it’s cleaner work than farming or fishing. Like Castor here. Barely a mark on him, aside from the bite.”

Sephre turned back to the shrouded corpse, steeling herself, holding the flame close. “Your report said he died of a snakebite?”

“Yes. Definitely.” Deucalion moved to the side of the plinth, gesturing to what Sephre took to be the legs. The linen was tightly wound round the body, and there was a sharpness in the air she thought might be rosemary oil. It wasn’t enough to conceal the softer scent of rot beneath.