The chain held a dried and withered arm, which had torn loose from the shoulder as the corpse decayed. Lowering the torch, Sieben gazed down at the long dead, almost mummified body. The flickering torchlight shone on a long dress of decaying white silk, still strangely beautiful in this dark and gloomy setting.
‘It was a woman,’ said Druss. ‘Someone entombed her here alive.’
Sieben knelt by the corpse. Glints of light came from the sunken eye sockets and he almost dropped the torch. Druss peered closer. ‘The whoresons put out her eyes with nails of gold,’ he said. Touching the corpse’s head, he’ turned it. Gold also glinted in the ear canals on both sides. Sieben wished Niobe had never seen the ledge. His heart sank with sorrow for this long-dead woman and her terrible suffering.
‘Let’s get out of here,’ he said softly.
At the rim they told Nuang what they had seen. The old leader sat silently until they had finished. ‘She must have been a great sorceress,’ he said. ‘The swirls and the stars on the entrance show that spells were cast there to chain her spirit to this place. And the nails would stop her hearing or seeing in the world of spirit. It is likely they also pierced her tongue.’
Sieben rose and retied his rope. ‘What are you doing?’ asked Druss.
Tm going back, old horse.’
‘For why?’ queried Nuang. Sieben gave no answer, but swung himself once more over the rim.
Druss grinned at him as he took up the rope. ‘Ever the romantic, eh, poet?’
‘Just hand me the torch.’
Once more in the chamber, Sieben knelt by the corpse and forced himself to push his fingers deep into the dry eye-sockets, drawing out the nails of gold. They came away cleanly, as did the longer nail in the right ear. The left was wedged deep and Sieben had to loosen it with a knife-blade. As he opened the mouth of the corpse the jaw fell clear. Steeling himself, he lifted clear the last golden nail. ‘I do not know,’ he said softly, ‘if your spirit is now free, lady. I hope that it is.’ As he was about to rise he saw a glint of bright metal within the rotted folds of the woman’s dress. Reaching down, he lifted it; it was a round medallion, ringed with dark gold. Holding it up to the light he saw that the centre was tarnished silver and raised with a relief he could not make out. Pocketing it, he walked back out to the ledge and called out to Druss to haul him up.
Once back in the camp Sieben sat in the moonlight polishing the medallion, bringing back its brightness. Druss joined him. ‘I see you found a treasure,’ said the axeman, and Sieben passed it to him. On one surface was the profile of a man, on the obverse a woman. Around the woman’s head were words in a language Sieben did not recognize.
Druss peered at it. ‘Perhaps it was a coin – a king and queen,’ he said. ‘You think the woman was her?’
Sieben shrugged. ‘I do not know, Druss. But whoever she was, her murder was administered with the foulest cruelty. Can you imagine what it must have been like? To be dragged to that soulless place and to have your eyes put out? To be left hanging and bleeding while death crept up with agonizing lack of speed?’
Druss handed the medallion back to him. ‘Perhaps she was a terrible witch who ate babies. Perhaps her punishment was just.’
‘Just? There is no crime, Druss, for which that punishment was just. If someone is evil, then you kill them. But look what they did to her. Whoever was responsible took delight in it. It was so carefully planned, so meticulously executed.’
‘Well, you did what you could, poet.’
‘Little enough, wasn’t it? You think I freed her spirit to see, to talk, to hear?’
‘It would be good to think so.’
Niobe moved alongside them and sat next to Sieben. ‘You have great tension, po-et. You need love-making.’
Sieben grinned. ‘I think you are entirely correct,’ he said, rising and taking her by the hand.