Laurell Hamilton - Death of a Darklord

"Jonathan, we've desecrated the grave enough."

"My theory was that someone was doing all this to make a better zombie. What if that were only part of the reason. What if Ashe wanted to raise his wife from the dead, not as a zombie, but as something more. Elaine told of very lifelike zombies. The townsfolk say that the people who died early are normal zombies, rotting corpses, but the later deaths are better preserved. Ashe is waiting until his spell is perfected; then he will raise his wife."

"But why take her body?" Konrad asked.

"We will use it as a hostage," Jonathan said.

Gersalius smiled. "You can't raise someone from the dead without a body to work on."

Jonathan nodded. "Exactly."

Konrad stared down at the skull with its scraggle of hair. "I can't approve of Ashe's methods, but I understand the desire. Beatrice's death killed me, too." He shook his head as if to clear away a bad dream.

"But Elaine awaits you back at the inn," Gersalius said.

Konrad looked up, startled. Then a slow smile spread across his face. He nodded. "Yes." In that one word, Jonathan heard an end to the long grieving. An end to bitterness.

Konrad began to hand up the bones, freeing them from the molded cloth. Thordin placed them in the sack. The bones made a dry sound as they slithered against one another.

*****

Harkon Lukas sat just down the hill, listening. He had grown cold in the snow. The weak winter sunlight was not quite enough to warm him. They had discovered Ashe's secret much faster than he had wanted them to. He had not counted on the magic-user. Ambrose had such a reputation for hating magic. It had surprised him.

Harkon did not like being surprised. If they questioned Ashe, he might reveal that it was Harkon who had given him the idea for the poison and the spell, Harkon who had whispered in the undertaker's ear that he might raise his wife back to life, Harkon who had broken his mind with talk of rotting corpses and his beloved wife as so much meat for the worms.

He could not afford to have Ashe tell all. He was Harkon Lukas, a bard of some reputation, but not a known force of evil. To have the brotherhood know him for what he was would spoil everything.

He could simply kill Ashe, but he wanted Konrad. Perhaps he could go offer his aid to the undertaker. Yes, that had possibilities. He could be Ashe's ally, and in the process he could betray Ashe, steal Kon-rad's body, and perhaps be a hero. He laughed silently, shoulders shaking with his inner mirth. Oh, that would be rich, indeed.

He stood and walked quietly down the hillside. He didn't have much time to work his plans. He needed Ashe alive for the trap and dead before he could spill the truth. Needed to appear as Ashe's friend, and his enemy. A neat trick if he could pull it off. And, being Harkon Lukas, he was confident he could.

Elaine collapsed against a wall. She had found her way back to the center of town. The fountain's water bubbled and flowed where her magic had melted the ice. A woman dipped a bucket into the freestanding water. A small child, so bundled from the cold Elaine couldn't tell what sex it was, clung to the woman's skirts. She walked carefully across the icy pavement with the full bucket. It was pure water again, the poison burned away, thanks to Elaine's magic.

Of course, the townsfolk were all contaminated. If they died, even of natural causes, they would still rise. There had to be an antidote. Gersalius would know. She leaned into the cold stones of the building and wondered what to do. She could not bear to see Jonathan's face when he learned what she had done, what her so-called healing had done. It was too horrible, and the fact that she was fascinated by it made it worse. She knew that the little man on Randwulf's neck would have branched off, become independent, and she would have kept it, like a pet or …

She had wanted it. It had been her creation, and she had wanted to touch it, hold it. She had wanted to hold and caress everything she had made. Every horrible thing. That was a knowledge she hugged to herself, to be shared with no one.

If she asked Gersalius about an antidote, he might read her mind. Would he see the horror in her? Would he read the sickness in her soul? She could not bear it, but neither could she leave the village to its fate.

She hid her face in her hands, shivering in the dying light. Night was coming. If she just stayed out in the streets, the dead would kill her, and she would rise as one of them. Elaine raised her face to the sky, too confused to cry.

A tall man with pale skin and black hair stopped in front of her. "Are you all right?" His voice was kind. She didn't deserve kindness.

"I'm fine."

"I am Ashe, the undertaker. You are Elaine Claim, are you not?"

She nodded.

"You look cold." He pulled his own cloak off and offered it to her. It smelled of herbs and medicines, and reminded her of Konrad. She took the cloak because she was cold and didn't know what else to do.

"I was told you have been searching for a particular body." He touched her long yellow hair, gently. "One that has hair like this, but a man, your brother."

She stepped away from the wall. The cloak trailed into the snow to puddle around her. "Have you found Elaine's body?"

"Yes, if a body is found in the village, they bring it to me for tending. Would you like to give your last respects? I must burn all bodies before dusk." He glanced up at the darkening sky. "Time is nearing."

"Take me to him," she said.

He placed an arm around her shoulders, one hand lifting the cloak's edge. "Wouldn't want you to trip on the ice."

It was more physical closeness than Elaine was comfortable with, but he was taking her to Blaine. For that, she could put up with a little familiarity.

He hurried her through the darkening streets. The light was failing. A soft blue dusk wrapped the village. He fumbled a key out of his tunic pocket. "The dead will be out soon; we must be inside."

Elaine agreed. He pushed her through the door and locked it behind them. He leaned on the door with a sigh. "Safe, I think."

The room had a richly woven carpet from wall to wall. Brilliant reds, blues, yellows covered the floor in cheerful luxury. The walls were a dark polished wood. Velvet-covered chairs and couches bordered the walls. Lamps gave a warm glow to everything. And in the center of the room on little cloth-draped stands, were coffins.

Each coffin was a different color, a different wood: the near-black of cherry, the thick brown of oak, the paleness of pine. Some had golden handles, some were just painted in gilt. One was white with silver edging-dainty, a child's coffin.

"Don't have much use for these now," he said. "Just wrap the bodies in shrouds and burn them. Only just figured out that fire stops them rising."

He helped her off with the cloak and spread it carelessly on a pale wooden coffin. The cloth looked strangely at home on the wood. "Just upstairs, in my best laying-out room." He took a lamp from a wall sconce and led the way up a broad set of carpeted stairs.

Carved doors bordered the hallway. He stopped before the last door on the left. Again he unlocked the door. "I have found that a locked door can keep the dead in as well as out. I lock all the doors just in case."

Having been on the streets of Cortton after dark, Elaine couldn't argue with the precaution.

Ashe pushed the door inward, raising the lamp high. The pool of golden light fell outward, gleaming in a fall of yellow hair.

Elaine stood breathlessly in the doorway. She could not see his face, but the hair alone was enough. Blaine lay on a cloth-draped table near the far wall. The last rays of sunlight cast only grayness against the windows.

Her breath fogged in the room, and she shivered. It was as cold in this room as outside. The windows were raised to let in the winter night. Cold to preserve the body.