Belisia
To place the box in which Mikhail’s corpse currently resides into the temple’s extensive graveyard, Berend will have to pay one hundred silver pennies.
He is informed of this by Father Reeves, the priest in charge of funerary services, a tall man with a shaved head and an aquiline nose. He is paternally comforting and coldly distant, often at the same time, and it’s an unsettling effect. Long brown fingers make notes with a quill in a yellowing ledger.
We all end up as numbers. Berend hands over the money. It’s most of what he has. He’ll need more if he’s going to continue sleeping in a bed until his next job.
Father Reeves dismisses him, promising that the arrangements will be complete in a couple of hours. Berend leaves the temple under the gaze of the eyeless sockets of the skulls carved into the walls. The reminder of death doesn’t bother him, but did they have to make it quite so macabre?
Isabel is nowhere to be seen, though her horse is still tethered at the edge of the temple grounds. It’s strange for a woman to travel unaccompanied. Even armed, the roads are dangerous—Berend is better aware of that than most. He’s defended merchant shipments and traveling nobles, including the occasional lady and her retinue, since becoming a free sword. Brigands are never as far away as people would like to think.
Berend needs money. He needs a job. He paces outside the temple, trying not to look at the graves and think about the generations of people underneath them. Would Mikhail’s plaque be removed one day, his plot dug up to make room for the next wave of unlucky bastards with a bit of coin for a stone but not enough for a mausoleum?
There was a party of rich young men at the Fox and Dove last night, before the constable’s errand boy called Berend away to identify Mikhail’s body. While they had likely wasted their coin on drink and women of poor reputation but excellent business sense, their families would have both the funds and the use for someone of Berend’s skills.
Still, it’s not a guarantee, and he needs money to keep his room. He leaves the Temple District on foot and finds a seedier corner of the marketplace, where he offers a pawnbroker his best and only hat. In return, he receives fifty silver and the promise to hold onto it until he can pay.
Now hatless, squinting in the sun and feeling a little exposed, Berend heads back toward the eastern gate. There’s a gaggle of monks clustered around it, impeding traffic and wearing the red robes of priests of Alcos.
Their leader has the crown-and-scepter symbol embroidered on his breast. “We must not allow this to come to pass,” he says, in a booming voice that fills the square. “It is an affront to the gods.”
Berend stops. He’s a few blocks from the inn, but the crowd forming around the monks is in his way. There’s a murmur of agreement with the priest’s words among them, and another of frustration with the roadblock. The lower-ranking monks are moving slowly through the crowd, holding out paper and sticks of charcoal, encouraging people to make their marks.
“Matters of life and death should be left up to the Church of the Seven,” the high priest continues. “Long have we been custodians of the journey through life and into the afterlife. The ill-treatment of the bodies of the deceased will do nothing to advance science, but it will contribute to the plague of undeath that has threatened us for years. The Council must know of our dissent.”
The mass of packed bodies shifts as someone finds a way around the priest and out the gate. Berend takes the opportunity to shoulder his way around the square and onto the correct street. He’s never been one for politics. It’s a distant, abstract thing, the running of countries—it has little to do with the decisions he had to make while on the field, and even less to do with his life now.
He puts the monks and their petition out of his mind as he makes his way back to the Fox and Dove.
Herard Belisia is bleary-eyed and desperately hungover, but he did say that his prestigious family could use a mercenary. “Step into my office,” he says, with half a wry smile and a clumsy gesture at one of the Fox and Dove’s back tables.
Berend sits across from him, away from Herard’s more incoherent companions. They had been on a hunting trip—perhaps more accurately, a drinking trip during which hunting incidentally occurred—and had seen few injuries and some success, judging by the collection of fox tails scattered among them.
“You must understand, what I’m about to tell you can’t leave this room, whether you take the job or not,” Herard says, bending his head down a little too far.
“You have my word,” Berend replies.
The young man nods. He’s about twenty-five, dark-haired and olive-skinned, and his clothing is obviously of fine quality, despite its many wrinkles. “The Belisia estate has undergone…shall we say…a disturbance over the past couple of weeks. It’s become something of a problem. We’ve all had to seek other lodgings, including the staff.”
Berend nods. “I am a fixer of problems. For the right price, of course; I am an expert in my field, after all.”
“Yes, yes, of course.” Herard waves a hand above the level of his head. “The disturbance is of a spiritual nature, if you catch my meaning. Fortunately, we’ve secured the services of one Lucian Warder, who promises to put an end to it. However, Warder won’t enter the house alone, which is where you would come in. It’s getting rather dangerous. The family crypt has been rattling.”
Berend sits back in his chair and strokes his beard. If he is catching the young man’s unsubtle hints, the estate is suffering from a haunting, and the bodies interred on the grounds have started to reanimate. He’s seen it before: in great numbers, restless spirits can cause an entire battlefield’s worth of corpses to walk. “Is this Mr. Warder a Sentinel?” he asks. Two Sentinels in Mondirra at once was unusual, but stranger things had happened—in the past twenty-four hours, even.
“No, not at all. You haven’t heard of him?” says Herard. “He’s a researcher at the university. A scientist. An eccentric fellow, but he’s invented a clever device that, by all accounts, chases away ghosts just as well as any Ondiran cleric. I’ve never seen it work, but…” He trails off, apparently having forgotten the rest of his thought.
“You know, there is a Sentinel in Mondirra now,” Berend says. “Wouldn’t it be easier to do things the old-fashioned way, so to speak?”
Herard shakes his head and winces. “No, no. My father insists. Sentinels are a nosy sort, and he doesn’t want this getting out. It would ruin our good name, which is something I’m supposed to care about, so here we are.”
“I see,” says Berend. “What kind of compensation will you be offering? The dismembering of skeletons does not come cheaply.”
“Yes, yes. Though I’d rather you not disassemble my grandfather. I was rather fond of him. The doors to the crypt have been secured, so there shouldn’t be any of that necessary, but one must be prepared.” Herard reaches inside his jacket and removes a piece of paper, unfolding it and squinting at the lines of neat handwriting. “Lord Edwan Belisia,” he begins reading with a grandiose affect, “is offering the sum of three hundred silver pieces for protecting Mr. Warder as he removes the disturbance from the estate, and another two hundred for your discretion in this matter. Should word of this travel, we will deny having hired you, and should you perish in the attempt, we will deny any knowledge of you or your fate.”
Five hundred silver would set Berend up for the foreseeable future. He keeps his face carefully neutral, hiding his giddiness at this rare stroke of good luck. “Something of this level of risk might merit slightly more compensation,” he says. Leaning forward with a hand loosely on his sword, he adds, “And I am known for my discretion. One does not get as far as I have without it.”
Herard looks at him, blinking and squinting through his obvious, unenviable headache. “Well, I suppose I could throw in another hundred from my own money, as a guarantee.”
“I suppose that will have to do.” Berend rises, extending his hand. “Thank you very much.”
The young man shakes it. He reaches into another pocket and removes a small bag of coins, handing it over to Berend.
“I suppose time is of the essence?” Berend asks.
Herard presses a hand to his forehead before raking it through his hair. It only serves to make him look more of a mess. “Yes. Unfortunately, Mr. Warder will not be ready until this evening—there are some sort of adjustments he has to make to his device.”
Berend tucks the money into a pouch on his belt. “I shall go introduce myself and check on his progress, then.”
First, he has a funeral to attend.
The crowd by the east gate has dispersed. Either the monks took their signatures and moved on, or they were chased off.
The wind catches an abandoned sheet and blows it against Berend’s boots. He picks it up. There are a few signatures, clumsily approximated in blunt charcoal, but more supporters marked the page with an X. At the top, in overinked, bleeding black letters, is the text:
We, the undersigned, wish to express our opposition to the Resurrection Act of 1156,
and urge the Council not to bring it to a vote.
Berend rolls up the sheet and tucks it in the bend of a streetlamp. Maybe someone will be back for it. Maybe not. The priests’ fervor was sincere, but their organization was lacking.
The walk back to the Temple District is all too brief. Berend finds that he’s dreading the service. Maybe he should have invited some others—Mikhail had been a drifter, but there are people who know him, still, even if none of them ever fought with him. There isn’t much time, with the state the body is in, and Berend doesn’t know the same people Mikhail did. Their lives took very different paths after Braenach Hill.
So he stands by the grave alone, without his hat, as two burly novices lower the box into the ground and Father Reeves reads in a sonorous monotone from his book. There’s a flat stone, two hand’s-breadths wide, with a metal plate hammered down on it that reads Mikhail Ranseberg, Son of Galaser. Berend doesn’t know the date of his birth, and another line would have cost him another twenty silver he didn’t have.
When the ceremony is over and the Ondirans have gone back to their work, Berend looks at that small metal plate, and he promises Mikhail that he’ll find the person who killed him. If there is one benefit to no longer being a member of a company, it’s that Berend now has more free time to pursue personal vengeance for his friends.
Rather, he will, once he gets paid for chasing the ghosts out of the Belisia estate.
He goes back to his room at the Fox and Dove and gathers his sword and his pistol, his breastplate and helmet. It’s late summer, and the nights are growing cold, so he puts his heavy cloak over his shoulder. The cloak is fine wool, tightly woven and heavy, and dyed a scarlet red—an investment he made a few years ago. The hem is just starting to fray.
By the time he leaves, the sky is a soft lavender, and the gaslights are coming on at the street corners. The observatory dome at the center of the University District is a dark, humped shape against the horizon.
He finds Lucian Warder in Laboratory A, at the direction of a robed professor who couldn’t speak the name Warder without obvious disdain. The lab is dark, except for a single lamp balanced precariously on a stack of books. Inside, a man of about forty is putting on a coat, one arm through a sleeve, at the same time he is fastening the straps on a peculiar, cubic case, about a foot and a half on each side.
“Mr. Warder, I presume?” Berend asks.
Lucian looks up with a start. “Ah! You must be the mercenary.” He finishes securing the case and puts the other arm through his sleeve. He’s not quite as tall as Berend, his hair graying slightly.
“Berend Horst.” Berend reaches up to tip his hat, but touches only air. He nods instead.
“Wonderful. I just have a few things to tidy up here. There’s a carriage waiting by the western gate,” Lucian says with a smile. “It’s rather spooky, isn’t it? Going to a haunted house at night?”
“I suppose,” says Berend. He’s not sure what he expected. Someone dour, perhaps, like a Sentinel.
Lucian is all nervous energy as he gathers his strange case, a satchel stuffed with books and instruments, and a battered, leather-bound notebook along with an engraved pen. “It’s for the better, really. Restless spirits are at their strongest in the dark. Shall we?”
Berend nods, and gestures for Lucian to lead him out of the laboratory.
By the time they leave the west gate, it’s fully dark, the streetlamps burning a warm yellow in their neatly spaced rows. A half-moon shines overhead, in the center of a tapestry of stars. The carriage is undecorated, with no sign that it belongs to House Belisia or is being used for their purposes. The driver, a young man dressed in a heavy coat, greets them with a nod.
“Is this your first haunting?” Lucian asks as he opens one side and packs his various accoutrements into the carriage. “I’m sure you’ve had some encounters with the undead in your time. I’ve heard that battlefields are often places where they congregate.”
“I’ve dismembered my fair share of reanimations,” says Berend. “It’s not pleasant work, but usually once the Sentinel is on the scene, they lie back down like proper corpses.”
Lucian climbs in beside his box. “Very true, very true. But there aren’t very many Sentinels around these days.”
“I was led to believe that you would be quieting the spirits?” Berend says, carefully polite, as he steps inside and takes his seat facing Lucian. He shuts the door behind him and taps on the ceiling with a knuckle. The driver calls to the horses, and the carriage lurches into motion.
“I am!” Lucian answers, beaming and patting the box under his elbow.
“It was my understanding that only Sentinels had the ability to do this,” Berend says. He had spent many frantic hours of his recent life holding off hordes of walking corpses as they tore up the earth and pulled down walls in a mindless, implacable urge to destroy, waiting for the Sentinel to finally arrive. Until last night, he had never seen a ritual performed, being preoccupied with the physical manifestations of undeath.
Lucian’s smile widens. “My friend, we stand at the precipice of an exciting future. Magic is unreliable, and often unobservable—have you ever seen someone do magic?”
“I have,” says Berend. “I’ve had holes patched up by priestesses of Isra, on occasion. Just recently a Sentinel called up the spirit of a friend of mine, but something went wrong. She was rather disturbed by it.”
Lucian nods. “Interesting. You must be referring to Miss Rainier?”
“I didn’t know you had met.”
“Well, I had heard she was in Mondirra, but she would not speak to me on matters of undeath,” Lucian says with a shrug. “I suppose Sentinels are terribly busy. In any case, what you said just supports my point: magic is becoming more and more difficult to use. A spell that works today might do nothing tomorrow—or worse. We need ways of dealing with these problems that are observable and replicable.” His gestures are quick and expansive, though curtailed by his luggage.
With another tap on the top of the box, he continues, “My family and I, along with some colleagues from the university, have been devising a scientific method of banishing restless spirits. Early trials have been quite successful, but this will be the first time the Warder device will come face to face with an entrenched haunting.”
Berend looks at the edge of the box illuminated by moonlight from the window. He can’t imagine what the thing might look like inside, much less how it works. “Well, I hope that everything goes smoothly,” he says. “If there is a problem, however, we’ll have to rely on my steel. I’ll ask that you stay close to me and follow my instructions.”
“Of course, of course,” says Lucian. “I did insist to Mr. Belisia that I be protected, after all. Now, not all manifestations of the undead are corporeal. My understanding is that the animated corpses are locked in the crypts, and we won’t have a problem with them unless we open the doors, and I, for one, don’t intend to do that.”
“That’s good to hear.” If Berend doesn’t have to risk his good cloak, all the better.
“I suppose you must be finding some success in the mercenary business, then? Mr. Belisia mentioned you had quite the reputation.”
“I get by,” Berend says. He smiles, but it’s forced. “Though I must admit, it has been harder since Braenach Hill, when the Sons of Galaser were disbanded.”
The carriage enters a wooded stretch of road, and Lucian’s face is obscured by the shadows of trees. “I believe I’ve heard of it,” he says. “Seven years ago, wasn’t it?”
“Almost to the day.” Berend rubs at the scar around his eyepatch with an index finger.
“Indeed. As I was saying,” Lucian says, “the spells of the past are unreliable. Some work better than others—healing, the rituals of the Sentinels—but it’s been a long time since someone’s cast a fireball without blowing themselves up. We need reliable, scientific solutions.”
Berend nods. “I can’t disagree with you, there. I certainly trust steel and shot far better than a so-called hedge-wizard promising lightning bolts.”
“As well you should.” Lucian punctuates this with a gesture with his pen. “Well, I’m very happy to have you along. What do you know about the Belisia family?”
“Very little,” says Berend. “Only that they’re wealthy enough to afford me.”
The road is growing rougher, and the carriage bumps and shakes. Lucian lights a lamp with steady hands and hangs it from a hook on the ceiling before taking his notebook from his satchel. “Well, it’s a very old family. Not as wealthy as they once were, but the name still carries quite a bit of weight. The head of the family is Lord Edwan, and his wife is Lady Fideline. They have three children: Herard, whom you’ve probably met, is the eldest, followed by Hybrook, who recently graduated from the university. The youngest is Miss Adella, she’s, oh, twelve or thirteen now, very young. They’ve all left the residence; it’s become uninhabitable due to the manifestation.”
“Do you have any idea what is causing it? The haunting?” Berend asks.
Lucian turns a few pages covered in cramped, messy handwriting. “I’m afraid not. There is a family crypt, as you know, but as far as I’m aware, everything is aboveboard. It could be any number of reasons. Improper burial, a murder; a great battle, though that seems unlikely.” He reaches the next blank page and makes a nearly illegible note.
“I suppose we’ll find out,” says Berend.
Lucian smiles again. “I certainly hope so.”
They pass the rest of the journey in silence, as Lucian takes notes and Berend closes his eye and tries to rest. The woods give way to the countryside, and the night darkens; clouds build against the western horizon, obscuring the moon. After a couple of hours, the Belisia estate looms over the road, shadowy and foreboding.
The carriage stops a short distance from the grounds, as the driver is unwilling to go any closer. Berend takes the lantern from its hook and waits for Lucian to ignite a second light and gather his things. The box looks heavy, but Lucian does not ask for assistance, and Berend doesn’t offer. He needs his hands free. Holding the lantern aloft, he draws his pistol and holds it ready.
It looks as though the house has been abandoned for years, though the family was here only a couple of weeks ago. The two lanterns are dim, distant points, reflected in the glass of the windows.
“We need to find where the spirit’s energy is most concentrated,” Lucian whispers into the oppressive silence. “A body would be the most obvious choice.”
Berend nods. There’s an uneasy sense about the place, as though someone might be listening around the next corner, or watching from the darkened windows. He would rather not have something attacking him from behind.
“Let’s search the grounds, first,” he says quietly.
Lucian nods and adjusts the strap of his case, using the top as a surface to make a couple more notes in his book.
The stable is closest to the road. Its doors hang open, its hinges creaking in the cold wind. Berend nudges the right-hand door open with one foot and shines the light inside, pistol aimed forward.
The smell of putrefaction washes over him. He can almost feel it in the air, and it clings to his skin and the inside of his nose. The body of a horse, bloated and pale, lies against the back wall. The flesh writhes with maggots, but the corpse itself does not seem to move, at least for the moment.
Berend wrenches his gaze away and takes in the state of the interior. There are several stalls, and the doors are open, many of them with broken hinges and hoofprints to indicate powerful kicks from spooked horses. On the other side, racks of tack and supplies lie in disarray. There aren’t any more dead animals—the rest must have been removed, or have run off.
The one corpse doesn’t appear to have moved recently, but Berend knows enough about hauntings to know that might change. Until the spirit or spirits acting here are taken care of, the only thing to do is dismember the body, so that if—when—it starts moving, it won’t be a threat. He’s done it before. He really does not want to do it now. The swollen corpse will certainly burst if he tries.
Better to bar the door from the outside, he thinks. In this state of decomposition, even if the body gets up, it won’t be strong enough to break it down. Berend beckons Lucian closer, holsters his pistol, and sets the lantern down outside. By the light of the other lantern, he picks up a plank of wood, once part of a shelf, and tries not to breathe. Debris crunches under his boots.
Lucian gasps. A shadow falls over Berend as the lantern swings wildly. He looks first at the horse, but it hasn’t moved even a stiff foreleg. With the plank held firmly in both hands, he turns around.
A young woman, wearing an apron over her badly rumpled dress, runs out of the stable. She is tucking long, dark hair back under a cap, her hands clumsy and shaking. As soon as she clears the open door, running past Lucian, she vanishes, leaving only an empty space in the night.
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