A moment of confusion followed. Edmund struck aside the chill hands of the cadavers, stated that he would enter the city as a prince, not a captive. He moved forward proudly on his own, his guards trailing behind.
Jera took advantage of the situation to whisper hurried, urgent instructions to her carriage driver. The cadaver nodded and turned the pauka’s head toward home, guiding the animal down a road that ran for some distance beneath the city wall. Duke and duchess exchanged glances, they were of one mind on something, but what that could be the unhappy Alfred had no idea.
Nor, at the moment, did he care. He had not been lying. He had no idea what he had done and he wished, with all his heart, he hadn’t done it. Lost in dark thoughts, he didn’t notice that the duke and duchess fell into step with him, one on either side, the dead guards tramping along behind.
CHAPTER * 22
NECROPOLIS, ABARRACH
THE INHABITANTS OF NECROPOUS HAD TAKEN ADVANTAGE OF A PECUliar natural rock formation in building their city walls. A long row of stalagmites, poking up from the cavern floor, extended from one side of the back end of the cavern around in a half circle, closing it off at the other end. Stalactites flowed into the stalagmites, forming a wall that gave the visitor the startling impression he was entering a gigantic, bared-toothed mouth.
The stalactic form was ancient, dating back to the world’s origins, and was undoubtedly one reason that this point had become one of Abarrach’s earliest outposts of civilization. Old Sartan runes could occasionally be seen on the massive wall, their magic having once conveniently filled up gaps left by the natural architecture.
But Sartan magic had dwindled, the continual fall of drizzling laze had worn most of the sigla away, and no one now remembered the secret of restoring them. The dead kept the wall in repair, filling the gaps between the “teeth” with molten lava, pumping magma into the cavities. The dead also guarded the walls of Necropolis.
The city gates stood open during the dynast’s waking time. Gigantic doors woven of strong kairn grass reinforced by the few crude runes these Sartan remembered were shut only when the royal eyes closed in sleep. Time in this sunless world was regulated by the ruler of Necropolis, which meant that it tended to change depending on the whim of His or Her Majesty.
Time was, therefore, denoted by such appellations as “the dynast’s breakfast hour” or “the dynast’s audience hour” or “the dynast’s napping hour.” An early-rising ruler forced his subjects to rise early to conduct their business under his watchful eye. A late-rising ruler, as was their current dynast, altered the routine of the entire city. Such changes were no great hardship on the living inhabitants, who were generally at leisure to alter their lives to suit their ruler. The dead, who did all the work, never slept.
The Lord High Chancellor and his prisoners entered the city gates during the close of the dynast’s audience hour, one of the busiest times of day for the city’s inhabitants. Audience hour marked a last moment’s flurry of activity before the city shut down for the dynast’s luncheon hour and the dynast’s napping hour.
Consequently, the narrow streets of Necropolis were crowded with people, both living and dead. The streets were, in reality, tunnels, created either naturally or artificially, designed to give the inhabitants some protection from the constantly falling rain. These tunnels were narrow and twisting and tended to be dark, shadowy places, imperfectly lighted by hissing gas lamps.
Masses of people—both living and dead—crowded into the tunnels. It seemed barely possible for Alfred, the duke and duchess and the guards to add their bodies to the throng. Alfred understood that the law prohibiting beasts in the city streets had not been passed arbitrarily but out of necessity. A mud dragon would have seriously impeded traffic, the huge furry form of pauka would have brought movement in the streets to a complete standstill. Studying the crowds heaving and shoving and pushing around him, Alfred saw that the dead vastly outnumbered the living. His heart seemed to shrivel inside him.