“Well this is curious,” Dr. Silk said, peering closely at the skull. “One would expect gold coins to close his eyes, but I see copper.”

He searched Orhald further and found a purse, but it was empty. He frowned. The only other piece of gold he found was Orhald’s wedding ring. Dr. Silk looked dismayed, but Karigan understood. The merchant had been fabulously wealthy, but he’d tried to appease the gods with his humility. Yes, there had been offerings of gold, but if he’d offered too much, he would have appeared not virtuous but arrogant. While his coffin was fine enough to impress those left behind, it wasn’t garish. He’d played both sides—enough gifts to please the gods, but not enough to anger them by flaunting his excess. It was well known that entrance to the heavens could not be bought by wealth alone. Moral character counted as well.

And, Karigan thought, if Orhald Fallows was anything like her father, he’d been too practical to allow too much gold to be buried away where it could not be useful to his heirs.

Dr. Silk was plainly unimpressed, and he laughed. “Well, old Orhald has played a joke on us. He took little of his gold to the grave.”

“He ignores all the artifacts,” Cade murmured to Karigan in disgust. “The merchant’s clothing, the coffin itself, the parchments. Those are more valuable than gold.”

And that, Karigan thought, was what made the professor and Cade different from Dr. Silk. The former were actually interested in the past, and the latter was simply a gold miner. A tomb thief.

“Take this away,” Dr. Silk told his servants.

They bundled the remains of Orhald Fallows into his windings, carelessly dropped him into the coffin with a clatter, and carried him away.

“Let us not be dismayed by the scarcity of Orhald Fallows,” Dr. Silk said. “I’ve more diverting entertainments for you than a bundle of old bones.”

At his command, the draped, domed cage Karigan and Cade had seen earlier was wheeled forth. A slave, marked by a brand on his cheek, herded a large sow into the big top. The audience laughed, but Dr. Silk smiled enigmatically.

“This show has gone to the pigs,” a man joked, and the audience laughed again.

“Come, gather around so you can see,” Dr. Silk said.

The guests left their chairs to stand around the domed cage, leaving ample passage for the sow and herder to approach.

“I have brought some of my pets all the way from Gossham for you to see,” Dr. Silk said.

“You’re keeping pigs now?” the wag called out.

Dr. Silk chuckled and signaled with his hand. The covering was pulled off the cage revealing gilt bars. A filament of fine mesh netting, almost invisible depending on the angle of light, filled the spaces between the bars.

“I don’t see anything inside,” Cade said. “Just some plants.”

Karigan didn’t see anything either, but trees and shrubs in planters, and a mini-fountain in the center spouting water. It was a little like an oversized terrarium with bars instead of glass. It looked pleasant enough, but a sense of foreboding came over her, and after all the various surprises she’d already endured this evening, she wasn’t sure she could take much more.

The slave led the sow up a ramp right to the door of the cage. He opened the door and chivvied her inside into a small antechamber and slammed it behind her. He then hoisted the inner gate with a rope and pulley system. The sow ambled into the main chamber, attracted to a trough of feed, and the gate was lowered behind her.

A loud buzz emanated from the cage, the buzzing sound of furious tiny wings Karigan remembered all too well. With a sickening, sinking feeling, she realized that the cage was an aviary.

The sow, who until this point had behaved complacently enough snuffling at the trough, squealed and cowered against the bars of the cage.

“Oh, gods, no,” Karigan murmured.

A cloud of tiny, iridescent hummingbirds, heretofore unseen among leaves and branches, rose from the vegetation and hovered in the air, wings flickering too fast to see.

“Oh, how beautiful,” a woman nearby said. “They are so quick and dainty. Look how their feathers shine.”

The few bits of food Karigan had nibbled burned in her chest. The sow squealed again and dug at the door, seeking escape. Hummingbirds darted and hovered, darted and hovered, the thrum of their wings rising in a crescendo.

“I love hummingbirds,” another woman said, “but they are so rare.”

One flashed downward, skimming across the sow’s back, chased closely by a second. They whizzed around the aviary, fighting over the sow, defending her as territory and chasing off interlopers. This went on for several minutes until some unknown, invisible signal released the entire furious cloud of birds, and they dove as one, their beaks plunging into the sow.

Members of the audience gasped. Karigan closed her eyes, knowing how it would play out, the sharp beaks, a hundred times over, stabbing into the sow’s flesh, frantic wings driving them deeper and deeper so they could get at the blood. Karigan knew how the scarlet patches on the birds’ throats would glow as they consumed the blood, how they’d become engorged with it. Murmurs of fear and fascination rippled through the audience. A couple of ladies fainted and had to be carried out.

“Interesting pets you keep, Silk,” a man said, no humor in his voice.

“From the Imperial Preserve,” Dr. Silk replied over the cries of the sow.

Karigan’s hands clenched at the sounds of the sow’s distress. She had seen such hummingbirds suck the life out of a man.