“I get it!” Simna blurted in sudden realization. “You weren’t really dead! You were faking it all along.”
Ehomba shook his head slowly. “No, my friend. I was dead. Well and truly dead. I know, because I spent time in the place where the dead go.”
“Tell me,” asked Hunkapa Aub seriously, “what is it like, the place where the dead go?”
“Slow,” the herdsman told him. Reaching out, he put a firm hand on the swordsman’s shoulder and smiled reassuringly. “I knew that I was going to die, Simna. It had been foretold. Not once, but three times. Once by a seductive seeress the memory of whose beauty and wisdom I will always treasure, once by a dog witch whose insight and affection I will always remember, and once even by a fog whose persistence I will never forget. ‘Continue on and die,’ they said—and so it had to be before we could triumph.” Turning, he gazed gravely at the still unmoving body of Hymneth the Possessed: warlock, sorcerer, eminent ruler of illustrious Ehl-Larimar.
“But that was as far as their predictions went. Nothing was said about what might happen after I died.” Raising his eyes, he smiled gratefully at the imposing, attentive, fraternal figure of Hunkapa Aub. “Nothing was said that would preclude my being resurrected.”
Simna gaped at him, struggling to digest the import of his friend’s serene words. Then—he grinned. The grin widened until it seemed to encompass the majority of his sweat-streaked face. And then he began to chuckle softly to himself. It never grew loud or boisterous like before, but it did not go away, either.