What she gained there she took as far as the access and piled in a bit of broken pottery, then returned to the bones of the courtiers. She worked there, gathering up tiny objects while the thunder rumbled in the distance, filling her skirt as she worked slowly around the wall among the bones, into a shadow that grew deeper and colder.
Cold air breathed out of an unseen recess in that shadow, and she stopped with the gold in her lap, peering into that blind dark. She sensed the presence of another, deeper chamber, black and vast.
It fretted at her, luring her. She remembered how at Ashrun’s tomb there had been a treasure chamber that yielded more wealth than any buried with king or court. Long moments she hesitated, fingering the amulets that promised her safety. Then she cursed her cowardice and convinced herself; the thunder walked above the hills, reminding her that there was only this one chance, forever.
With a whispered invocation to Arzad, who protected from ghosts, she edged forward, kneeling, cast a seal-gem into that dark. It struck metal; and thus encouraged, she leaned forward and reached into that darkness.
Her fingers met mouldering cloth, and she recoiled, but in doing so her hand hit metal, and things spilled in a clatter that woke the echoes and almost stopped her heart. Cascading about her knees were dusty gems and plates and cups of gold, treasure that made the objects in her lap seem mere trinkets.
She cursed in anguish for the shortness of the time. She gathered what she could carry and returned to the tunnel to push each piece out into the daylight Drops of rain spattered the dust as she finally worked her own body out, touched her with chill as she carried the heavy objects to the boat, her steps weaving with exhaustion.
Looking up, she saw the clouds black and boiling. The air had gone cold, and wind sighed noisily through the grasses. Once that storm broke, then the water would rise swiftly; and she had a horror of being shut in that place, water rising over the entrance, to drown her in the dark.
But one piece she had left, a bowl filled with gold objects, itself heavy and solid.
With feverish anxiety she lay down and crawled back into the dark, feeling her way until her eyes cleared and she walked again into the main chamber, where the king lay on his bier.
It was useless to have spared him. She resolved suddenly to make good her theft, for the water would have all in the end, the mask as well. She went to the bier—the only place that the declining light shone, and that dimmed by clouds. A few drops of rain fell on the mask like tears, puddling the dust there, and the wind skirled violently through the double openings, tugging at her skirts, bidding her make urgent haste. But she saw again how fair he had been, and alone now, robbed, his companion ghosts all destroyed, here at the end of time. He had seen the fields wide and green, had ruled holds and villages beside which Chadrih was nothing. To have enjoyed power and never felt hunger, and to have lain down to die amidst all these good things, she thought, was a happy fate.
But at the end he was robbed by a Barrows-girl, his descendant, whose fondest wish was to have a warm cloak and enough to eat; and once to see the green mountains of Shiuan.
Her hand stayed a second time from the mask that him; and a curious object in his skeletal fingers caught her eye. She moved the bones aside and took
it: a bird, such as she knew today over the marshes—not a lucky symbol to have been worn by a warrior, who often risked death, nor had it been part of his armor. She thought rather of some grieving woman who had laid it there, a death-gift.
And it was strange to think that so homely a creature as a gull could be common to his age and hers, that he also had seen the birds above some more distant shore, not knowing them the heirs of all he possessed. She hesitated at it, for the white sea birds were a figure of death, that came and went beyond the world’s edge; but, Barrows-bred that she was, she carried even among the amulets a white gull feather, and reckoned it lucky, for a Barrows-girl, whose livelihood was from the dead. The figure was golden, delicate: it warmed in her hands as it had not done in centuries. She touched the fine detail of the wings—and thrust it into her bodice when she saw the dusty jewels beside the king. But they proved only seal-gems, worthless, for the symbols on them could not be polished away, and the marshlanders thought them unlucky.