The undertaker, in operating within the dreadful environment and among most unassuming clients, treats his profession like any other, if with a degree of self-inflicted solemnity. With more respect he dresses his client than ever does the king’s tailor. Yet it was not superstitiously done, and under no delusion or fantasy does he move about his office, nor is he capable of the common fear that a corpse may rise when he walks by. On the contrary, having seen so many of the dead, many so young, so well-loved be the sources of suffering in lovers and mothers he could not bear to watch, that sometimes he would secretly pray for a client to stir, that the flush and the blush he worked upon their set countenance was not the art of his craft but miraculous life.
And before the balming, he whispers a prayer upon every corpse, all alone by himself, for he knows things those accustomed to the society of the living do not. And when timely he quits his office ere the light of day is spent, it is not out of an irrational fear of ghosts, but for he knows of conducts in the night best left unsaid and unseen. And so creatures which lurk in between the temporary and permanent house of the dead do not touch him, even as he does not bother them.
In this manner and very respectful haste, the undertaker of Argenton slammed shut the heavy wooden door behind him. The dying daylight went out with his departure. And all became quiet.
And so silence reigned for a moment, before a sharp sound was struck. There was born a floating light without a candle or a hand. For a while, this flame hovered in a corner of the sealed chamber, a few handspans above the ground. Following a rustling sound, it rose into the air. The fabric of reality was disturbed by this movement, shuddered, and then Cordelia emerged into existence, holding the candle in her hand.
She groaned; the joints of her limbs were beyond stiff, and she was like to stumble with her very first step from the hiding spot. For some hours she had sat as still as could, even as the undertaker moved about his eerie business. She had been one with the stone wall, the dusty, filthy air, holding her knees close so as not to trip the man as he buzzed around the corpses. Not even her breath had been audible.
“I heard sounds in the nothingness,” she whispered.
“The house of the dead is full of secrets,” said Mastema. “But none will harm one of the Tribe.”
Cordelia shook her head and then shuddered. The length she sat in the dark, her keen senses had picked up such tiny whispers of no clear source. Nor had they gone away even now, only to a subtler degree had they retreated to the back of consciousness and perception. Yet from whence they came she could not tell. Mayhap not from this world but another, one which lies farther than even her old plane.
“How is it that your kind may lie in one place for days on end?” she said, trying to shift the topic to something more lighthearted.
“Being cold-blooded helps,” Mastema said. “Supposedly. I’m no real snake, it is only the image of one that I assume.”
“A morbid thought to think my blood too warm.”
And out of place.
For a moment she gazed at the sealed door wistfully, at the enormous lock that stood between herself and the wholesome world. But a spare keychain was hung in a corner. Even then when the heavy door had been slammed shut and its lock turned, a singular dread had almost overcome her. At least she could be sure that naught would come in the middle of her business, not without loud warnings to afford her time enough to hide.
She turned her thought to the appreciation of what had helped her infiltrate this morgue, for a brief respite from dark thoughts. A handy ability as expected, more obviously so than the other options available for selection, it was her first and only choice of a new power: Camouflage.
Even the lowest and least portent of its likes, it was one nevertheless immensely useful. So long as she remained in one place or moved very slowly with this power activated, no mortal, and mayhap no fey, would be able to see or hear or smell her. With this ability to conceal herself at will, most of the impasses thus far she had faced would turn trivial should they again occur. And not for an army of feys or being hunted by a whole city’s guard would she be much again troubled. And still there were imperfections in its usage: its being governed by her spirit attribute, which was as low as could. Nevertheless, it had proved effective when she kept to dark corners and was not actively looked for. In a world where every soul could be an enemy, that much would no doubt save her life and serve stealthy purposes like that of this night.
After following the sexton and the men who carried Sir Derrick’s corpse into the morgue, she had successfully slipped out of sight and remained in a corner since, her presence not once suspected by the undertaker.
She wandered now among the corpses. There were a dozen tables, half of which occupied. He stood out from the rest.
All cheery thoughts of the newfound power escaped her the moment she saw Sir Derrick’s lifeless body. The undertaker had not embalmed him, so he was cold. The breastplate had been taken off to uncover the horror beneath. Esme had insisted he be buried with his armor and weapon, notwithstanding the fact each piece would sell for a fortune while the girl was impoverished. Yet Cordelia did not even think of persuading her otherwise. How would she even bend the mind of someone so early in grief to monetary concerns? The slightest thought of it disgusted her. Allowing the man a dignified burial would be the least she could do for him after what she had done. After what he had done for them.
The bloody business was vivid. Her stomach lurched and she near threw up. Her vision tinted red, the metallic taste lingered upon the tip of her tongue, as forever it shall be till the day she died.
In sudden panic, she closed her eyes and drew a sharp breath. For as the grotesque memory resurfaced, so had the unseen whispers grown in tenor. Even the thought of death seemingly conjured this unknown force.
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She moved on, searching.
And then she found it, next to a young woman whose lips were purple and bonnet crumpled. A body one day dead. A ghastly wound upon the front of his chest, and another, she knew, at the back, for she had inflicted both in one strike.
“What do you know of my people’s faiths, Mastema?” she asked quietly while eyeing the pale face, at the astonishment still painted the corpse’s visage since the moment of its demise.
“Well enough,” it replied. “My name is mentioned in an apocryphal of your people’s holy book, if that suffices.”
“Then our conception of life and death is known to you, or at least the popular ones. I suspect it is not unlike those of this world.”
Having noted the table on which the guard lay, she moved to the shelf where the undertaker kept his tools.
“Some of us,” she went on, “believe in the existence of the soul, while some do not. I have always wondered at the latter.” There was a large knife, which her eyes picked up. Its main function she did not like to imagine, though what she was to do with it would be itself nothing pleasant. “I watched them cremate my mother, you know,” she went on, feeling something stirred within her chest. “I did not see it in person, of course. It was done in another room. But I imagined it. I saw her bones crack under the heat, I watched with my mind's eye as her hair broke down to ash. Her flesh, that at one time I had hugged and been hugged, which had comforted me when I was a child - a meek child, easy to tears - had been warm, had been soft, had blushed, had paled... well, the fat of which melted like transparent fluid, the skin of which charred black, crumbling to ash, and then there was nothing. They put her ash in a box and tell us that was what she had become.”
“Such disturbing thoughts for a young person,” remarked the tiny snake.
She chuckled slightly, and picked up the knife. “That’s rich coming from you. But I had to, because they would not let me see it with my own eyes. I simply could not...” she paused, “I simply could not pretend she had just gone somewhere far away, and that I would never see her again. For that would be a selfish thought, all about me, me, me! Whether I would get to hear her voice again, whether I would be able to share the events of my life with her, whether she would be there at my wedding,.. all the selfish thoughts that one cannot, should not, care for! While there, right there, lay someone I love who had... ceased to live. It is a thing absurd! That someone who was just now moved and talked and ate just like ourselves, would just... stopped doing those things. I don’t think most of us can comprehend it. We understand death, that it is the opposite of life, but do not comprehend it. You know what was the last thing my mother told me?”
The snake did not answer. She did not care, she was mostly talking to herself at this point.
“She told me not to stay up so late at night! Exactly as she had done for fifteen freaking years! No great pondering on life and death or fate or whatever. No stupid advice on how to live properly or happily. No regrets or... deep philosophy... or whatever you see characters in stories say before they die, and most certainly not a stupid whip or an insulting attempt at black humor. It was such a normal thing. Such a mundane thing. And that is how life truly is. As though she would just wake up tomorrow. And there’s no need to think about anything lofty, or recall the life she had lived, and all that. She just told me not to stay up so late at night! I bet, hell, I bet if she had had a bit more time, she would have told me to buy more toilet paper or something because we were running out. I could see it. She probably did, even, and I had just forgotten it.”
“Well, what is your point?” the snake asked conversationally.
She held the knife in both hands.
“That death is not real. It cannot be real. Too absurd it is to be real. At least not in the way most of us think it is. It is not the end of life, according to some, but the ending of existence! Imagine that! Funnily, to them, the end of an existence translates to not being able to see someone anymore. When a loved one dies, it is like they have moved to another country, say, to Europe, and though it is sad, it is not utterly terrible. Like how we are told as a child that our pet has gone to a farm upstage. Such is how some people unconsciously cope even as adults, I think. They simply look away from the true meaning of death. They pretend that it is an ending. A necessity of life. But it is in fact destruction! Violence of the highest degree! We can never suffer anything worse! Think of the brutal undoing! Will you stand idly by when a thug caved your lover’s skull in? Will you watch without anger when a murderer sets your mother on fire? I am not religious in any way, but I cannot countenance such a vulgar definition of death. And that must not be all there is to death. Modern people of my world scoff at religions and say they are but coping mechanisms for the fear of death. And yet they themselves secretly cope in their own way. I think, you know, I really think, the cure to this malady of the mind is simply to have them watch the parade of death into a body! Have them see the flesh burn in person! Instruct them to the transitioning of a human vessel into ash! And if the corpse is buried, record the decomposition and force them to watch! Or do as the Tibetan and expose the corpse to the sky and carrion birds. But whatever you do, do not allow them to avert their eyes from the truth! They shall know then it is natural to abhor death, to seek meanings beyond such vulgar, thoughtless definitions. So that they may arrive at the same conclusion as I had: that the soul exists. That all this cruel thing is only what apparent to the eyes. That life is eternal! And if this too is a coping method, then it is like the coping of one who still thinks goodness, true goodness I mean, still exists in this stupid world.”
“And what is the point of all this ramble?” said the snake. “You know the soul does exist now, for you walked the empty realm between worlds. It is useless to teach a fallen angel the philosophy of man.”
“The point,” she said, standing over the corpse of the guard, “is to tell you how well I relish this act.”
The knife entered the cold flesh. And there was a delicious sensation to it, as she carved from where the sword had left a hole agape. The ribs had been broken, the flesh crushed. And yet the heart was mostly intact. A terrible smell exuded.
“I hate doing this to Derrick, but to this man,” she smiled, “I do not.” Her hands were soaked with blood and a foul stench. “And I do not want to perform this as a mindless deed, something to gain some powers or level or whatever! Nay. This must be done with respect. Or hate. Resentment. Vengeance. Enjoyment. I shall not waste this moment! Even as the primitive hunter who does not waste aught part of the animals who sustain him.”
Suddenly she lifted her face, eyes raved. “So do you see? Are you watching? I know not your name in life, but if your soul is still around, witness! Behold as I desecrate your once vessel, bastard! The house therein for decades you did reside now I efface!”
And in response, of this there was no doubt, a sourceless wind swept over the locked and windowless morgue. The candle flame swayed violently.
A dread filled Cordelia, and she laughed all the more for it.
“Forbear!” Mastema became alarmed. “Forbear, I say! Provoke them no more!”
The unseen whispers from before had arisen, still inarticulate, and yet clearly incited, terribly excited. As the tiny flame did sway, the long shadow it cast danced upon the walls, so that the lying dead’s silhouettes flitted wildly. And darkness seemed to fall over the visages of those upon the stone beds: the young woman with bonnet skewed, the hag whose face had crumbled with age, the child whose skin draped over her bones...