Siveni’s mouth quirked. She went rummaging about in her great oversized tunic
and came out with a handful of money: not modern coin, but the old Ilsigi golden
quarter-talent pieces. One she handed to Ischade with exaggerated courtesy, and
one to Tyr, who took it carefully in her teeth; another went to Mriga. Mriga
turned the quarter over, looked at it, and shot her sister an amused look. The
coin had Siveni’s head on it.
Ischade took the coin with a courteous nod, drew her cloak about her, and
continued down the path. “They will be thick about here,” she said as they
descended, and the darkness opened out around them. “The unburied may not cross
over.”
“Neither would we, if we’d left all the preparations to you,” Siveni said.
“Trying to make things more ‘interesting,’ madam?”
“Mind the slope,” Ischade said, stepping downward into the shadows and putting
her hood up.
The ground was ditch-steep for a few steps, and they came down among shadows
that moved, like the struggling scraps of darkness they had swallowed. These
shadows, though, strode and slunk and walked aimlessly about, cursing, whining,
weeping. Their voices were thin and faint, their gestures feeble, their faces
all lost in the great darkness. Only here and there the blue-burning lightnings
of Siveni’s spear struck sparks from some hidden eye; and every eye turned away,
as if ashamed of light, or ashamed to beg for it.
They made their way through the crowd, having to push sometimes. Tyr ranged
ahead, her gold piece still in her mouth, snuffing the ground every now and