Karigan ushered Agemon and Iris inside and took up a position near the entry, dropping onto one of the benches. She was so weary. Agemon, on the other hand, produced a cloth from nowhere and started polishing the mosaic. He set Iris to work shining the silver and gold goblets on the altar—not that they didn’t already sparkle.

Let them work, Karigan thought. It would keep them busy and out of trouble.

She leaned her head against the cold, smooth stone wall and dozed off.

In her dream, spirits of kings and queens, princes and princesses, arose from their Earthly husks on funeral slabs and swirled down the corridors. Their forms seeped from crypts and coffins like formless smoke. Skeletal hands scraped against the lids of sarcophagi and pushed them aside.

The spirits marched and floated toward her, some remaining insubstantial, others in full royal regalia.

Join us, join us, join us, they said to her.

Skeleton jaws clacked at her, and the spirits swirled around her in a ragged, wisping cyclone, their voices pitched like the whine of biters in her ears.

Avataaar… they whispered.

Cat claws punctured her leather trousers and dug into her thighs.

“Ow!”

Details returned. Sore head against cool stone wall. Sore hands and knees, sore everything.

Tombs.

To her relief, the ghosts had been a dream, though her presence in the tombs was not. Nor was the cat. Ghost Kitty crouched on her lap, ears flat against his head. He emitted a low growl and glared out the doorway of the House of Sun and Moon.

Karigan rubbed her eyes and looked and heard voices. A man in the livery of a castle servant held a knife to Iris’s throat, while at least two others stood nearby confronting Agemon with swords.

KARIGAN HAUNTING

“Damnation,” Karigan whispered. When and how did this transpire? She detached the cat from her thighs and set him on the floor. With a hiss he scuttled into hiding beneath one of the benches. Agemon must have disobeyed Brienne’s orders and slipped out while Karigan napped.

“Tell us, old man,” said the intruder with the knife to Iris’s throat.

“You should not be here!” Agemon cried. “You have broken taboo—you are unclean. The Black Shields shall be very cross with you.”

The man snorted. “You mean the Weapons? We took care of them.”

At least Agemon had the good sense to keep quiet about Brienne and Fastion. Unless, of course, the thug meant Brienne and Fastion. In any case, Agemon just stood there wringing his hands in distress.

“You will tell us,” said a second man dressed in the uniform of a Sacoridian soldier, “which is the highest of the high kings here. Tell us or we cut the girl’s throat.”

Iris whimpered.

“Highest of the…? Who are you people? Why have you invaded these sacred avenues?”

“Second Empire, old man, and this place is not sacred to us. Disgusting and strange, perhaps, but not sacred.”

“Spooky,” said the third man with a shudder. He wore no disguise or device. He was a plainshield, much unkempt.

“Shut up, Thursgad,” the soldier said. Then self-importantly he drew himself up and proclaimed, “We are here in the name of the empire.”

Karigan thought Agemon would faint. He actually tottered a bit, but then he spoke a string of foreign words in a commanding voice and spat at the soldier’s feet.

The man holding Iris said, “Well, well. That was not a very nice thing to say.”

The other two intruders looked as perplexed as Karigan felt. What language did Agemon speak? What did he say? And Thursgad! She remembered that name—one of Immerez’s men.

Whatever Agemon said didn’t matter. She had to do something, but in her condition she could not hope to overcome three fit-looking, armed men.

Need another way.

Trying to think hurt her head. What could she possibly do?

Agemon was pulling on his hair and there was some exchange of words, and finally he acceded to whatever demands the cutthroats made. He led them away down the corridor.

“Damnation,” Karigan murmured.

She’d have to follow, but carefully. That was the only thing she could think of to do at the moment—follow and keep an eye on them. She would intervene if they looked ready to kill Iris or Agemon. In the meantime, she hoped they’d bump into Fastion and Brienne, or any of the other Weapons who came in with them. They’d know what to do, and could easily take on the three men, even Fastion with his injured leg.

Karigan allowed the intruders with their captives to get some distance on her, then she crept from the House of Sun and Moon after them, flitting behind columns and keeping to shadows. Her fading ability might prove useful so long as she evaded the lamplight, but she didn’t want to draw on it until she had to so she didn’t exhaust her reservoir of energy. She wouldn’t mind a whiff of stallion breath about now.

She extinguished lamps as she went, as much to signal the Weapons something was afoot as to provide extra darkness for her ability to fade. The downside was the intruders would realize they were being followed should they look behind them. Fortunately this was not yet the case, for they plunged on, intent on following Agemon.

Agemon turned down one of the more ancient corridors lined with open wall crypts. They were niches, really, chiseled out of the rock wall, and most filled with yellowed bones. There were some shrouded forms, as well as empty niches, everything neat and orderly, of course.

There was less decoration in this cavelike portion of the tombs, aside from sketchy murals, some so old she could barely make them out. They were full of death iconography and the gods, with whom she was becoming all too familiar. Some of the wall art, it appeared, was made to cover Delver drawings.